I haven’t really kept up my daily activity posts only because we haven’t really done anything to write home about besides eating Korean bbq, Starcraft, and walking around the shopping districts in meyongdong and dongdemun.
We decided to go to gangnam to figure out what the deal with the place was. Yes I know I’ve heard the song too…
Joanna told me about a fantastic place in the Coex mall called red mango that’s supposed to have really good frozen yogurt and desserts. The coex mall is supposed to be the largest underground shopping center around. We stopped at a busy restaurant and had bimibap for lunch but then a little while after, we walked by this really fancy all you can eat seafood restaurant so that was kind of disappointing.
We spent the better part of an hour looking for red mango, turns out it moved to a different location 1 subway stop over. Went there and followed the directions online. Arrived at the location and found that they were shut down. Another disappointment :/
A few people suggested going to an authentic jimjilbang, a Korean spa and so we went to a big one called Yonghan dragon hill spa. I know my title of the post is over generalizing things but neither of us really understood the draw of the place.
We paid $12 each and the options were to swim outside in the hot pool or enjoy the saunas.
The main lobby area had heated floors and so a lot of people were just laying on the floor.
There was a separate room called the “fresh air room” so we sat in there for about 5 minutes before leaving. I think there must be some sort of placebo effect because it was just a room with people laying around.
We checked out the sauna which was a large brick oven you walked into. There’s something I can’t put my finger on but being in a small very hot dark space with a ton of other people who look just like you doesn’t sit well with me. Also there were couples making out around me in the dark so that was pretty weird.
Overall we didn’t have a good experience with it. We tried to keep an open mind but I think this is entirely a cultural thing that we never grew up with. Going to the public bath house is a family or couple activity and for me, being there with my sister was kind of awkward…
