Culture Shock...

So as you may know, I LOOVE trying new things and challenging myself to experience the world. So, when a coworker/friend of mine suggested a Korean Spa not too far from where I live, I figured "sure why not." $18 would get you in and unlimited access to all of the rooms (salt room, hot room, cold room, you name it). You can also pay additional small fees for things such as acupuncture, massages, body scrubs, etc. This sounded right up my alley! I told my best friend that lives down the street from me about it and within no time she was on board as well. She is much like me and works all of the time and when she isn't working she is cleaning/taking care of others needs first.

The day comes and I'm SO excited!! We both put on our comfy yoga/gym clothes and head over to the spa! It is huge (see outside picture above-doesn't do it justice). 36,000 square feet of spa for us to sink our teeth (or should I say, bodies, into). We are quickly helped out at the front desk when we tell them it is our first time. We are given a pamphlet and instructions and sent to grab our clothes. There are spa uniforms neatly rolled by the entrance, we grab our size and begin to enter. We are quickly halted by the front desk, "Remove your shoes from here on please!" Okay, simple enough. We make our way to the locker room, still giddy with excitement. We discuss which rooms we should hit first, and as we round the corner to the ladies locker room, our eyes are met with the vision of a bare naked lady. O my goodness, how embarrassing, did her friends move her clothes while she was showering? We both look away as to not embarrass her. We put our shoes in the shoe locker and make our way to the clothes locker so we can change. We find our numbers down a long aisle and as we are quickly making our way to our locker, we are met with more and more naked women.

"What in the world is going on!" We look puzzled for a few minutes, change into our gym clothes, then move to our comfort zone, the bathroom! After we brace ourselves to come out again, we stood in shock/confusion. We weren't sure what we were supposed to do. Just then, a soaking naked lady comes and asks us if it is our first time. Our eyes met the ceiling as we nodded our heads. She begins telling us about all of the nakedness, so-on and so forth, but I can't understand a word she is saying. We quickly thank her and run off to the salt room. We sit there fully clothed and talk about what had just happened. Everyone else in the spa seemed to be fully clothed as well.

We later found out that there was a huge room connected to the locker room for women to soak in hot tubs, shower, bath and get massages and body scrubs. We weren't as freaked out then. We began looking at the extra packages that were offered and quickly decided that we could both use a body scrub/massage and couldn't pass up the deal, $85 for an hour and a half, that is a steal! We quickly make our way back, tell the lady booking the appointments that we are shy and we are assured that we can wrap ourselves with towels when we go in. Sounds perfect to us! We derobe and grab towels which barely cover us. I'm mortified as my friend has the perfect skinny little figure. We make our way in and we are quickly told that we must soak in the hot tub for 20 minutes before we get our massages. Simple enough. We are able to keep our towels covering our goodies while other fully nude women watch us. We are okay, passing the time with conversation, then we are finally rescued by our massage people.

We are laid on a table next to each other, this will be great! I'm covered by towels, not uncomfortable at all. Next thing you know the lady rips the towel off, and there I am fully naked for the world to see. I scream to my friend not to look over and she screams horrified, they just did the same to her. After the initial shock I thought to myself "you need to relax, you are paying for this, you are already naked, get over it" Just then the lady begins the body scrub, going into places we won't even discuss. The scrub is over, time for the massage! I'm covered in hot towels and left for a minute. Next thing I know, I have a lady standing on the table, walking on my legs. I try to get my friends attention, but then I notice, she is having the same experience.

All in all, I would have to say it was a good experience. The massage was relaxing, although humiliating and first and I can now say that I walked around naked at a spa with about 100 other woman. Not many people can say that! haha