Korean Bath

Hi Everyone,
So dad is writing to, so this will give you two for one letters. I thought I would write about my Korean bath experience. There is a Korean sister in our branch who speaks very little English. She went to Beijing last week and invited us to go to the Korean bath with her. I think she is lonely because one of the Chinese families moved, and the other Korean sister went home to Korea to have a baby. Everyone was polite but didn't end up going with her except me and Linda Olson , both of us of the older end. (maybe we have no modesty left) Actually, we just thought she was reaching out and someone should reach out to her. So Thursday morning we met at the bath. You go in and disrobe,(that's formal for saying you are naked) I decided not to act embarrassed ;because, no one else there was acting like they needed to cover up. It wasn't really embarrassing; because, they weren't embarrassed. If you had acted that way they would have been and so would we. By the way, this is a female only part of the bath. It was 11:00 on a Thursday so it wasn't very crowded. I guess it gets quite busy in the evenings and on the weekends. They give you a little tea towel and off you go to the shower/bath room. Ok, so in this room, there are showers all around the edge of the room. Some women are luffying themselves on a stool in front of the shower, others showering, Oh and they give you a tooth brush and toothpaste so you can brush your teeth while you are in there. Back to the room. In the center of the room is a large tub sectioned into two parts. It is probably 15 feet around. One side is like warm bath water; the other half is hot. Wonderfully hot! In the corner of the room there is an ice cold small tub. I did climb in that because I got light headed from all the heat.
So we shower. Now you have to know, the morning shower to me is wash the dirty parts, do your hair and you're done. So I get done and Sister Lee is still sudsing up with her little tea towel. So I soap mine up and work on the scrubbing some more. I notice Linda has begin scrubbing more after looking around and discovering no one else is out of the shower. Oh, and these showers are open. Finally, I guess we get clean and climb in the bath tub water, move to the hot pool. Then we are told that for a little extra they will exfoliate our whole body. We think that sounds interesting, so we say we will do that. So we have to sit in the hot water for another 20-30 minutes. By now, I am getting all wrinkley and am ready for bed. Finally a woman about our age or at least middle age calls our number and off we go into the other room. She has on a modest swim suit consisting of a black bra and rather old fashioned panties. You lay on a table with a plastic sheet on it. She has on green mitts. She begins to exfoliate your body. Rather like a wonderful back scratch all over with over-tones of massage. Any way they do almost every square inch of your body. You lay on your back, your side, your stomach. The first couple of strokes, she looks at her mitt and shakes her head. I'm thinking I should have scrubbed more with the tea towel. Periodically when you turn over, they throw a pan of water on you to rinse you off. Finally, after about 20-30 minutes, you are done. You return to the shower again to clean off. Ok I am dead, ready for bed, and think, "Good I'll be home soon and take a nap soon." No way. You get out of the bath room and put on these little exercise shorts and top and go up a floor. On this floor is a lovely dry sauna and a wet sauna. We say we better skip those for the day. I don't think you could peel me out of there if I did that. So we have a Korean lunch. There were slithery mushrooms, some green spinach stuff, a couple of things I didn't recognize, an egg covered rice dish (this was really good), a soup slightly sweet with a tomato base and rice noodles which was good, and some delicious sushi. (yuck, I haven't developed a taste for this yet.) I accidently left my raw fish piece on the rice plate when I went for more rice dish. Actually, it was good, just different. Then she took us into the relax room. You could choose from little bamboo mats with bamboo pillows, or a TV room with lounge chairs that were soft. We did these for about half an hour and I had to fight to stay awake because if I went to sleep I would be out for the rest of the day. Three hours after beginning this process, we go home. Dondavid said I just kind of flowed into the apartment and dropped on the bed. All in all it was an interesting experience and I would go back. I haven't been so clean in 40 years. My skin is soft and silky. I was definitely relaxed. I think we need to exfoliate more in the states. I think we made friends with Sister Lee and she seemed happy.
Well that was probably the most exciting thing in my life. Other than that, we have been busy trying to keep ahead in our classes. Hope you all have a good day and a good laugh here.
Love, ReNee