Semi Public Nudity and Pottery..A Nice Little Saturday

This past weekend my super fantastic friend Vanessa invited Carol, Mary and I to a "Ladies Day" in Boseong which started as most of our meetings do, preceeding night of emptying wine bottles...a favourite hobby of ours. Early saturday morning we travelled out to the Green Tea Spa (I use "Spa" loosely) in Yulpo near Boseong where we engaged in a morning of semi public nudity. This was mine and Carol's first experience with this but we were with two old pros so we were in good hands. Korean spas are like a bath house..many locals frequent these establishments regularly to bath. If their showers are anything like mine, i can completely understand why. In North America group bathing is SOOOO not common, but in Korea..it is. There were many women and girls at the spa bright and early in the morning...and despite my fears of being stared at as we are on the street...the women took a glance at us as we were obviously the only foreigners there but that was the extent of it. I was also concerned that my tattoos might also cause a stir as they are NOT really acceptable in Korean culture. They didn't seem to cause much concern and if they did, i was not aware. (benefits of ignorance) The spa consisted of 4 large tubs/pools. A bloody cold tub, a luke warm, a 40 degree (green tea) tub and a 42 degree tub. We chose to circulate from the green tea tub (a lovely dark brown color, literally like a big cup of tea) to the bloody cold tub. After about almost two hours of soaking we each had a "scrub." Not what i expected!!! You climb onto a massage table in the main room and a lady in underwear and a bra scrubs your skin off with a pair of exfoliating mittens...(imagine 40 grit sandpaper). She is very thorough...she doesn't miss an inch....i mean it. All the while you are wearing some kind of cloth facial mask so when you do flip on your side and can see yourself in the mirror while she has your arms and legs strewn this way and that...you also get to see that your face looks like you're late for a creepy masquerade. For the finalle she lathers you up in something that smells like lemon meringue pie then she has douces you in hot water..When all is said and done you break out in a rash from the rough scrubbing...fortuneately this is only temporary but then your skin feels fantastic. I'm hooked.

Our day continued with a great lunch of Bulgogi and Brews at the nearby green tea plantation which we were going to tour but the rain changed our plans and we literally took a rain check and made our way to a traditional pottery store where we met up with Nole, another foreign teacher and two of Vanessa's Korean friends (one of which is a 75 year old man named Mr. Sun...he is hilarious and has great english). After we were set up with some sticks of clay and a work area, Vanessa (the professional...she had been there once before) gave us a quick demo of what we were supposed to do, then we got down to business.


We all made a few pieces...plates, bowls, candle dishes, wind chime ornaments...and Nole accidentally created something which resembled a piece of the male anatomy, after a few Korean customers in the store came by and giggled at it...he blushed and managed to finish with something quite nice. Thanks Vanessa for a great day.