After a long, six-day workweek, a night of drinking or just a day of walking all over town, the jjim-jil-bang is the perfect place to unravel in South Korea. Literally meaning “heated bath room” (not “heated bathroom” mind you), jjim-jil-bang are relaxation emporiums with a heavy lean towards hot tubs and saunas that are affordable, open 24/7 and a staple of Korean culture. With good reason, they have become increasingly popular, and not just for the overworked Korean office worker or drunk college student.After you pay your 10,000-won entrance fee (less than $9), you will be directed to your gender’s locker room. There you’ll slip into the entirely too comfortable, loose-fitting clothing they provide you with. You have your choice of various forms of relaxation at that point. The main attractions are the hot tubs, with each jjim-jil-bang having a handful to choose from, at differing temperatures and water types, such as green tea hot tubs. These are to be enjoyed in the nude of course, with the hot tub areas segregated by gender. Be sure to thoroughly wash yourself beforehand just outside the baths.
There are traditional Korean stone dome saunas, hanjeungmak, with differing intensities, but they are always very hot and refreshingly dry. Often there will be a “cold room” to cool down that continuously has fresh air pumped into it. Depending on the size, a jjim-jil-bang may also have karaoke, an arcade, exfoliating massages, a barber, a swimming pool, gym facilities or a restaurant.
All of these are linked together by a large common room with a heated floor where patrons of both sexes can gather, watch TV and relax. This area facilitates jjim-jil-bangs popular use as ultra-cheap, last minute accommodation after a late night out when the trains stop running.
It’s required that any visit to a jjim-jil-bang be accompanied by shikeh, a nice mellow rice drink, and making yourself a sheep’s hat out of your towel to absorb sweat. The hat is actually quite terrible at sweat absorption, but extremely efficient at making you feel ridiculous and putting a smile on your face.
One of the largest jjim-jil-bangs, and the most accommodating to foreigners, is the Dragonhill Spa in Yongsan across the street from Yongsan station, with a staff fluent in English.
Continue on with previous Kimchi-ite posts with more on Korean culture, food and eccentricities by clicking here.
[Photo Credits: Flickr User Wootang1, WhiteNight7 via WikiMedia, and Jonathan Kramer]
The earthquake that shook Iran and Pakistan last week has already been overshadowed by fatal tremors in Sichuan, China, a few days ago. Perhaps not surprising given that both places are in seismically active areas, but both of these disasters are repeats of far more deadly earthquakes that occurred in the last decade. In 2008, the Great Sichuan Earthquake killed almost 70,000 people, while a 2003 earthquake in the Balochistan area in Iran killed over 26,000.
That the death toll of such strong earthquakes this year is much lower (188 so far in China and 36 in Balochistan) is partly due to luck and partly due to building changes made in the wake of the last disasters. Iran was lucky that this year’s earthquake struck a less inhabited area, while China was lucky that the magnitude of the earthquake, though great, was still far less than in 2008 (6.6 vs. 7.9 is a huge difference on the logarithmic quake-measuring scale). In Iran, it’s certain that upgrades to buildings would have helped in this year’s disaster. Part of the reason the earthquake in 2003 was so devastating was due to mud brick buildings that didn’t comply with 1989 earthquake building codes. Two years ago when I visited Bam, the city devastated in 2003, almost all of the buildings were girded with steel support beams. It remains to be seen whether Chinese building integrity, which was lacking in 2008’s earthquake, will be to thank for the lower death toll this time around, but it seems likely.
The Iranian earthquake last week was actually almost directly on the border of Iran and Pakistan, in a murky and little-visited area known as Balochistan. Where Iranians and Chinese have enjoyed an immediate and effective response to the crises of the past week, the Pakistanis have not been so lucky. China has literally had to turn away volunteers from Sichuan. And Iran, which in case you’re not paying attention was just hit with its own 7.8 M earthquake, has offered earthquake aid to China. Meanwhile, Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province is suffering something of a humanitarian crisis.
Few people ever travel to Balochistan. It’s bleak and desolate and basically on the way to nowhere. Even the hippies, self-medicating their way to India along the hippie trail in the ’60s and ’70s, would divert through Afghanistan rather than going through the dusty deserts of Balochistan.
I traveled there in 2011, on my way overland to Southeast Asia. We (a convoy of travelers) were assigned armed guards along the way, who took regular naps as we trundled across the desert. The Baloch people, with their sun-beaten faces and piercing stares, often seemed sinister, but it turned out curiosity was simply mistaken for menace. Few Baloch see any Westerners except on TV, though the elder of them will remember a time pre-Partition when British were still garrisoned in Quetta, Balochistan’s capital.
I’m not naive. Balochistan is a dangerous place. Kidnappings perpetrated by al-Qaeda radicals are not uncommon (though they rarely target foreigners). Sectarian violence is a big problem. And there’s always the chance one might get in the crossfire between the Pakistan military and the stout and very armed advocates of an independent Balochistan.
But the regular Baloch, like everyone else on the planet, is just on his hustle, trying to eke out a living for himself and his family. He is abiding by ancient customs of hospitality in his native land. He is offering tea to the strange foreigner who wandered into his shop dressed in a moose toque and suede shoes in the middle of the desert. He is napping in the passenger seat of some foreigner’s car so they can safely transit his homeland. He is yelling at an idiot foreigner to turn off the bloody radio during the call to prayer, but then smiling to show he wasn’t being hostile or anything. And he is helping said sartorially inept foreigner navigate the hectic markets of Quetta to buy local dress that won’t make him stand out so damn much. So spare a thought for the Baloch and their homeland of Balochistan, a small, unlucky corner of the globe where you will probably never go.
In India there’s a man for everything – the wallah. The chai-wallah dispenses your tea. The auto-wallahs drive the ubiquitous auto rickshaws. The dhobi-wallah does your laundry. They are India’s indefatigable industrious core and the exact opposite of a jack-of-all-trades.
The mastery with which these wallahs perform their one task is often mesmeric to watch. A chai-wallah mixes his liquid ingredients with a balletic grace, launching a pot full of boiling spiced tea across space precisely into a waiting cup. The auto-wallahs navigate through gaps in traffic with an instinct that borders on precognition. The dhobi-wallah’s metronomic dunking and slapping of shirts and pants could stand in for any band’s rhythm section.
So in a country where electricity can be unreliable, it only makes sense that Indian fun fairs turn to the wallah to keep the good times rolling, as seen in this antique Internet video from four years ago. An Indian fair ride can be a terrifying thing (witness the rusty, squeaking supports), so the impressive acrobatic talents of the Ferris wheel-wallah are all the more admirable – maybe not join-in-the-fun admirable, but certainly regard-from-afar-with nodding-approval admirable.
They say you can reach a meditative state through repetition. Who is to say if that’s the case here, but the white-shirted gentleman certainly appears to be in the zone.
We’ve heard of camping excursions and perhaps the occasional extended road trip in retrofitted buses, but what about an around-the-world adventure? That’s exactly what’s planned for Brad and Sheena Van Orden, an Arizona couple who has already trekked from the United States to the southern tip of Argentina and are now somewhere in Southeast Asia, plotting their journey west towards Greece in their faithful Volkswagen Vanagon, Nacho.
Here’s the quick and dirty: Brad and Sheena wanted a grand adventure before settling down to live the rest of their normal lives together. They saw a magazine article that extolled the virtues of traveling the country in a van. They bought one – enter Nacho – and plotted out a plan to save enough money for the trip.
Why are they asking me for money now? Traveling through China requires a pricey guide and special permits, a cost that will total nearly $20,000. So they’ve started a Kickstarter campaign. Find it here.
Why do they want to travel through China? If they skip China they’ll need to head through Iran and Pakistan, areas that are known to be dangerous to foreigners.
What do I get in return? The couple has written an e-book, and their Kickstarter campaign, which already has more than $7,000 in funding, promises everything from shoutouts and postcards to a personal visit with dinner and drinks, plus your selection of stops along the route, if you decide to contribute $5,000 or more to their fund.
Thanks to Autoblog for the tip. If you have some time, take a look through the post and the associated audio interview.
I’m addicted to “House Hunters International,” the HGTV reality show that profiles people who are moving to another country or buying a vacation home outside the U.S. Aside from the fact that the program whets my appetite to visit the places that are profiled, I love the way it plants seditious seeds in my head about places that were never previously on my radar.
If you watch enough HHI – and the show is on about 14 times per day – the idea of picking up and moving to Buenos Aires, Bruges or Kathmandu on a whim seems downright normal. As someone who has moved to and from three foreign countries and several U.S. states since college, I find it comforting to learn about people who are even crazier and more transient than I am.
The show is what the network likes to call “scripted reality.” It’s essentially based on a true story stuff where they take a real situation and jazz it up to make a more cohesive story. Travel writer Matt Gibson, whose move to Taiwan was featured on the show in 2012, wrote an amusing take on his HHI episode entitled, “House Hunters International is Fake, So What?” in which he catalogued all of the details of his story that were changed.
I watched the episode, then Googled him and saw the post. I probably should have felt cheated, but I didn’t. The fact is that I got a chance to see what $200 a month buys in Taiwan and I don’t really care about the details that were scripted – when he left Canada, who his real estate agent was, when the decision was made to rent the apartment and so on.
For those who haven’t seen the show, the outline is as follows. First, a narrator shows the couple in their native habitat and explains why they are moving, against the backdrop of some annoying but very catchy music. Then they meet with a real estate agent – who may or may not be an actual real estate agent – to outline what they want and how much they have to spend. Then they see three properties and take a walk, usually somewhere scenic, where they hold hands, weigh the merits of each place, rule out one property, make the decision and then share a kiss.
The show concludes with a tour of the new home some months later, after they’ve had time to pretty the place up. Here are some observations from someone who has spent way too much time watching this show. (They apply mostly to expatriates, not people who are buying vacation homes, as I tend to skip those episodes.)
You’re Moving Where?
Many of the expatriates featured on the show fell in love with a place while on a vacation but some move to a place solely based on Internet research. And most who are moving to a place more or less for the hell of it, rather than for a specific career move, are going from some place cold to some place warm.
Slow Down and Simplify
It’s remarkable how often couples and families say that they’re moving to country x to “slow down” and “simplify” their “hectic” lives. But is this their actual motivation or do the producers of the show ascribe this narrative in order to appeal to the legions of “busy” Americans who have time to watch six hours of TV per day but claim to be too busy to do much else?
You Need What?
There are some people who want to completely go native and find a place abroad that isn’t at all like what they have in the U.S., but others have a list of amenities they “need” that can be somewhat hilarious. I’m always amazed by people who are adventurous enough to move from say, Kansas City to Antigua, Guatemala, but insist that they need an in-ground pool, four bathrooms, stainless steel appliances and 4,000 square feet of living space, all for $100,000 or less.
But our Dog Needs His Own Swimming Pool
I’m a dog lover myself but people who seem to have no criteria for house hunting aside from what their cocker spaniel, Fritz, might prefer crack me up.
Cheapskates of the World Unite
One of the appealing aspects of HHI is how it gives viewers an idea of what it costs to live in a variety of places around the world. And when you watch an episode where Americans move to a dirt-cheap country it’s hard not to feel the temptation to leave the country. For example, I remember watching an episode where a couple found a not-too-bad looking apartment in Potosi, Bolivia, for $200 per month, and thinking, “I can’t afford NOT to move to Bolivia!” despite the fact that I had previously never given a moment’s consideration to moving to this landlocked Andean nation of 10 million.
And HHI episodes can also reveal cheap places to live in relatively expensive countries, like Italy, for example. Recently there was an episode that featured an American travel writer named Valerie who bought a $40,000 apartment in Trivigno, in Italy’s Basilicata region. The place looked like a dive, but after the couple put $25,000 into a renovation, it looked pretty darn nice.
Your Kids Aren’t the Reason You Are Moving to Belize
HHI tends to gloss over the logistical aspects of an international move, but as the father of two young children, I always wonder where families who move to off-the-beaten track countries will send their kids to school. I don’t think the U.S. has a monopoly on good schools, far from it, but on several occasions I’ve seen parents justify their moves to obscure places based upon a supposed desire to “do what’s best for their kids.”
One episode in particular stands out. A family was moving to a remote area of Belize and I remember the dad saying that they were doing it because it was somehow better for little so-and-so, their son, who, as I recall was about 10 years old. Maybe so, but I found myself shouting at the TV screen: “No! You’re moving to Belize because YOU want to live in Belize. Be honest and quit trying to claim you’re doing it for your child!”
Nothing But Happy Endings
I love the show but my biggest gripe about it, other than the fact that they leave out important details (visa status, where will your kids go to school, etc.), is that they offer nothing but happy endings. In the final shot of each episode, where the expatriates show off their new homes, they almost always rave about how great the place is and claim that their decision to move to Puerto Banana or wherever was the wisest one they’ve ever made.
The truth is that moving to a place you fall in love with on a trip doesn’t always work out. Any place seems nice while you’re on vacation and have no responsibilities or work to do. It’s always nice to hear about people who moved abroad and love it, but I think it would be even more interesting to feature people who moved somewhere and hated it, or bought a house that turned out to be a complete disaster. Let’s face it; Americans like a happy ending but schadenfreude can be just as sweet.