Friday, January 7, 2011

Jjimjilbang and Sangmo Class

January 4th, 2010
Karjam and I decided to finally go to the 찜질방 jjimjilbang (Korean spa/sauna). I love the jjimjilbang and even more I love the traditional bath house (a dying breed now that almost everyone has indoor bathrooms with hot water), but I kept being held up by wanting Karjam to have a Korean man to accompany him in the sex segregated areas the first time we went. We arrived around 11 a.m. and I bathed slowly, soaking in the various tubs of water after scrubbing, then scrubbing even more. Despite my leisureliness when I went to the public area of the jjimjilbang to wait for Karjam I had to wait –an entire hour- because he was enjoying the bathing area so much. There are snack shops and a restaurant and many interesting saunas and everything in the jjimjilbang. Finally at 3 Karjam decided to stay and I left. I wrote in Chans Bros coffee shop for almost two hours and then came home to eat a quick bite before heading to 상모 sangmo. When I left home I called Karjam, he'd left the jjimjilbang just a few minutes before. That was money well spent (ten bucks for entry including clothes to wear in the communal area, and towels. There is soap inside but I bring all my own shampoo, lotion, body scrubbing implements and so on).

Sangmo class was only 현석 Hyeonseok and I, again. 이종휘 Yi Jonghui was busy, so instead we had 변재원 Byeon Jaewon. He's a good teacher, too. They both are, though Jonghui is definitely more advanced. I got an incredible workout especially toward the end of the class when we were doing 양사위 yangsaui and suddenly he told us to change to 일사 ilsa (like a figure 8 in the air), which of course is just at the outside end of my current range of ability. It was actually pretty fun, I may become a good sangmo person, yet.

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