Birthday, Korea Style

생일축하합니다 (saengil chukha hamnida)

What did I do for my 24th birthday you ask...

From Sarah's camera (thanks Sarah)!!

On Friday night, I hung out with my friend Sarah, who is leaving Korea the beginning of August. We got 팥빙수 (pat-bing-soo). A Korean specialty of -- shaved ice, red bean (sweat beans), condensed milk and some fruit of some sort and other various toppings. I am pretty sure bing-soo has flown to the top of my all time favorite dessert list!

Yes, I am now 24. And yes, I still act like a child and play with my food and utensils!  

And I'm gangster! 

Saturday, my birthday, I slept in and facetimed my family and a friend, cleaned my room and then that evening I went to a 찜질방 (jim-jil-bang) with my friend Alina! Ok, so what's the 'jimjilbang'. Well, it's a Korean bath house, sauna and even a place to sleep. So, let me walk you through how this goes down. You go to one, they are symbolized by a red sign that looks kind of like a steaming bowl of soup - but it's not a food place, don't be fooled. 

not my photo (from google search).

So, you walk in, pay (it's between 7 - 10,000 won usually and then extra for extra services: 25,000 for the extra I got!!), and get a wrist band with 2 keys with the same number, towels, and some pj's if you plan on sleeping or wandering around (like we did). 

First you put your shoes in a locker right inside the door, using one of the keys on your wristband. Then you continue on your way and make it to the segregated part, boys one area and girls the other. You find your locker, strip down, strut your stuff (or be shy if you prefer) -- I got over the shyness after my first visit to a jimjilbang a year ago (this was now my 3rd time!) Then you head into the area with shower, baths, saunas etc. So let me explain the baths.. you might be thinking a white porcelain tub, yeah it's nothing like that. It's more like swimming pools or hot tubs. Different shaped and all with different things and temperatures. Some are almost ice (I refuse to go into to those) and some are so hot people walk out totally RED (I avoid those as well). I am more about the warm ones or slightly hot. So we sat around in a few, got a few water massages by the jets, even did a few 'laps' around one of the longer pools. 

So my friend Alina decided, since it was my birthday I needed to try something I had never done before.




I don't know if you guys are ready to hear what I did.... ok, get ready! Are you ready? 



I GOT SCRUBBED DOWN BY A KOREAN LADY. Yes, that's what happened. I laid completely naked on a table (like a padded doctors table) and she took a scrubber wash cloth and SCRUBBED my skin. EVERYWHERE. Yes, she did. EVERYWHERE. I won't go into too much details, but just know that I got cleaned and I'm pretty sure she took off about 3 layers of skin (I guess it's good we have like 7 or something). When she started scrubbing I couldn't stop laughing (even though it was pretty painful). I kept thinking, oh dear lord... what am I doing?! Alina just stood there (waiting for an open spot) just laughing at me and translating what the lady was saying! 

After the layers of skin were gone from both sides, yup I had to roll over and be on my side so she made sure she got it all, she soaped me up! She put on a green tea face mask, which I really enjoyed and was probably the most normal of everything that happened. Then she oiled me up, rubbed it all in, slapping and hitting me, making loud popping noises as she did it. She was a bit rough, but it wasn't too painful. She would take my arm behind my head, rub it and then chuck it back down, so it would fall fast and hit the table pretty hard (thankfully the table was padded).

Then I got up, washed the mask off my face at the nearby shower, and was finished.... I went back into the hot tubs and that was that. Back to normal, or more like I will never be the same --- EVER.

We continued our hot tubbing for a bit, even went to the outside tub, and then finally decided our skin/bodies had had enough for one night. We changed, put on our super duper rad, stylish, PJ's and walked around exploring the sauna/jimjilbang area. So, we could have stayed the night there (we didn't because my bed was about a 5 minute cab ride away) but if we wanted we could have grabbed a mat and a brick (seriously it's a brick shape and feels about like one) for a pillow and slept on the floor. Yeah, no thanks, I'll save that for when I'm somewhere without my bed 5 minutes away! 

We made it home, after a couple of hours, and I skyped my friend Jan in Germany and his sweet family sang me happy birthday! It almost made me cry. I have such amazing friends all over the world. I am so blessed. And here's to hoping I'll have another great year! I feel kind of super old - but that's ok! :)

So there, that's what I did for my birthday. 

I am pretty sure not many people can say they got scrubbed down by a middle aged Korean woman on their 24th birthday, but now I can! This will for sure be a story for the kids :)