Death 2.0

The death of Michael Jackson is the first time I have experienced celebrity death in Web 2.0. It will be true for many people that they discovered his death through things like Facebook or Twitter. There has been a constant barrage of information all morning and it has led me to think about a couple of things.

Michael Jackson is probably the first world pop star to die. I am sure you can make a case for someone like John Lennon, but in my modest estimation he did not have the same type of global following that MJ experienced in places like Africa and Asia. MJ became a global sensation at the beginning of globalization and that has a huge impact on his importance as a world figure. I had a couple of conversations with people in Korea today, where they talked about everything from his music to his plastic surgery. He is a symbol of a global age and global information.

He is a reminder that in death some people will choose to remember the good we have done and some will choose to focus on the negative. I have seen status updates and tweets about how he is a pedophile, and this is his justice delayed. I have also seen people deeply struck with grief over the loss of a hero.

Music is a drug, perhaps the most powerful drug in the world. In that sense, people all over the world are reminded of the different times they “got high” on the king of pop. I think about myself buying Dangerous as the second Compact Disk I ever owned and listening to it on my discman over and over again. I think about the longing it created in me for racial justice, before I could even fully understand what those words meant. His music had the ability to change your mood and your thoughts. Songs like Man in the Mirror make you reflective while songs like Bad make you want to get in a little trouble and have a little fun. Music is transformative and one of the most powerful musical creators of the last 100 years is no longer with us. That is why so many people are upset.

As far as the public fall from grace is concerned, there is not enough information for me to cast judgment on the man. Even if there was I wouldn’t want to. Here is someone that was abused by his father, was not “allowed” to have a normal childhood, had a disease that led to self image issues, and he had substance abuse issues and then we act scandalized when he grows up to be a little nutty, alright, extremely eccentric.

Some people have shown frustration with the fact that his death is such a big deal because of the fact that there are such greater issues going on in our world. While this is an easy argument to make by pointing to any number of issues, I think it misses the greater scope of what people are feeling. This is a defining moment. The world has experienced political uprisings before the recent one in Iran, but they have not experienced them the same way before. In the last week, how many of us have watched silent marching in Tehran, or a woman dying captured on a cell phone video camera? How many of us have watched countless youtube videos of MJ today and had some comment, for better or worse about his death. I remember where I was when both shuttles blew up in my life. I remember where I was when I found out about 911. I remember where I was when Princess Diana died. I remember where I was when the OJ verdict was delivered. And I will remember when I found out about the death of the King of Pop and I found out from a text.

I am truly sad about Michael Jackson’s death. Maybe his London concerts would have put him back in a better light, but oddly enough I think that his death has done that. It seems like far more of us went to youtube to watch Thriller or Beat It videos than we did to see him holding his child out of the window. In a way that gives me hope, because it tells me we still want to find the good in people instead of focusing on the bad. Instead of ending this post with an obligatory comment about looking at ourselves in the mirror or talking about how we can make the world a better place I just want to say that I hope people remember the good in me when I am gone and tell good stories that we shared in their status updates.

My New Hog

The subway and bus systems in Busan are pretty decent. I have been able to get around the city, of 4 million people, with relative ease over the last few months. As my social network expands there are reasons to travel further within the city and the longer I am here the more I want to explore the parts of Korea that are less accessible with a bus/subway pass. So yesterday I decided to drop some paper on this bad boy.





For only 750,000 won, Jill and I will be able to check out some of the beaches along the coast and I will have a new way to get to my soccer practices on the weekend. Yes Nole, I ride it with a helmet. Jill and I have cruised around on it last night and tonight and we are having a blast. Look forward to some upcoming weekend trip pictures.

Kyoto Top 10

Me, Jill, and Jess

10. Beer Vending Machines

It seems like there are vending machines for everything in Asia.  I have seen books and iPods in vending machines, but this was the first time I saw beer.  I obviously did not pass  up on the opportunity.

9. Green Tea Ice Cream with Soy Frozen Yogurt 

One of the best parts of traveling is getting to experience different tastes that you haven't had before.  When I saw a long line for green tea ice cream, I knew I needed to give it a shot.  When I realized there was soy frozen yogurt on top I was definitely excited to try it out.  It tasted a lot like what you would imagine it to taste like.  It wasn't bad, especially since it was cold and I had been walking around Kyoto for hours.

 

8. Kinkaku-ji Temple

This is probably the most famous temple in Kyoto.  When we arrived at the temple it was overwhelming how many other people where there.  It was one giant camera cluster f*@k.   Unbelievably green trees surrounding a beautiful golden temple that rests next to still waters.  It was incredible.

7. Conveyor-belt Sushi

The food, like everything else in Japan, was super expensive.  Traveling there on Won instead of Dollars did not help us either.  We were pleasantly surprised one night when we discovered a restaurant with conveyor-belt sushi.  Each plate was only 105 Yen ($1.05/1,300W)!  There would be two pieces of Sushi on a plate and many patrons would stack the plates double digits high.  The sushi was delicious.  I had Ahi Tuna, Crab, Octopus, Squid, Tuna Rolls, Shrimp, Eel and dessert!  The conveyor was constantly putting new sea food goodness in front of your face and on top of that you could order anything off the menu that wasn't getting to you fast enough.  The custom orders would come on a special train track that delivered the food right to your seat.  We ate there two nights in a row.

6. Bamboo Forrest 

When I think of Japan, images of bamboo are among the first to come to my mind.  On our last full day in Kyoto, we went to a bamboo forrest.  Walking in the midst of these huge bamboo stocks was overwhelming.  It was so green and unlike anything else I have ever seen in my life.  

5. Sake Bar

In Korea, everywhere you turn you see Soju.  It is a cheap fermented rice liquor that almost everyone drinks.  Well Sake is clearly the Soju of Japan.  I realize that most of you have had Sake before, but you probably have not had it with the frequency in which I had it on my trip.  For starters, it is pronounced "Sah-kay", not "Sah-kee" as I have always pronounced it.  I was made aware of this by a Japanese girl I met named "Saki" when she introduced herself to me and I ignorantly responded, "oh, like the drink".  I had Sake, in restaurants, in small moonshine containers and at a Sake bar.  It was similar to a dive bar in the states, but all you could order was Sake.  We hung out with this amazing bartender, whose English included the phrase, "yes we can"!  We ate roasted garlic, talked  with other bar patrons and drank Sake.  Amazing!

4. Geisha's in Real Life

Maybe it's the popularity of the movie/novel that has heightened the mystique of Geishas in the popular culture, or maybe the popularizing of Geisha has taken more from it than it has added.  Either way, when you see a Geisha walking through the streets, it arrests your attention.  They are captivating and intriguing in their mystery and I was fortunate enough to get to take this picture with one.

3.  Drinking Sake on the Hozu River

I already mentioned Sake, but location is everything.  Alcohol is a social beast and many of the best conversations I have had in life have been over a drink.  When you combine a regional drink with a regional location it creates a euphoric response that I can't get enough of.  I have been lucky enough to drink french wine in front of the Eiffel Tower, Cappacino's in Venice, Flor De Cana on a beach outside of Leon, Pilsners in Munich, Makoli in Seoul, and now Sake on the Hozu River in Kyoto.  It was a beautiful location.  A small little thatched roof building served us drinks as we sat on wooden tables in a canyon of lush green trees.  Japanese people enjoyed their holiday on little row boats and traditional boats pushed along by long Bamboo poles.  Jill, Jess and I sat and talked for a long time, soaking in the beauty that surrounded us. 

2. Eating Cherries off the Tree

Many people are aware of Japan's famous cherry blossoms, well they grow on Japan's cherry trees.  As obvious as that sounds, I didn't think about it until I was walking through this busy outdoor market place and stumbled upon a small Buddhist shrine wedged between the commercial bustle of rows and rows of stores.  When I walked into the area that held the shrine the noise of the shoppers faded and there was a serene space filled with paper lanterns and cherry trees.  I am not sure if you are allowed to eat the cherries, but I was not sure that that was what they actually were so I just plucked one off the tree and nibbled on it.  It was delicious.  No one else was around, so I figured it would be alright if I had a handful more.  I had a huge smile on my face as I walked back into the market place.  I'm not sure what it was, but I walked out of there with the feeling that I was getting the most out of life.

1. Fushimi Inari Shrine

I am not sure what to say.  It was beautiful.  It shows how multiplicity can lead to grandeur .  While in Korea a group of us have had the conversation about how we believe that Disneyland has ruined aspects of traveling.  Whether it is mountain homes in Switzerland or a castle in Germany there are certain times where you should be overwhelmed by how beautiful something is because you have never been in a particular place before, yet it feels like something you saw at Disneyland.  When we were walking at Fushimi we kept talking about how Disney had not ruined this experience.  It was like nothing I had ever seen before!  For that reason, I am only going to post two pictures.  This week, Kyoto made it into the top 5 cities I have ever been to.  So, if you want to see more of the shrine, go there and experience it yourself.

My ride home yesterday

After school yesterday, one of my co-workers asked me if he could give me a ride home. It took a little while to figure this out. First he said, "I go your home". I thought he was inviting himself over for dinner. I think he sensed the confusion on my face so he rephrased, "you go home with me." Now, I thought he wanted me to come over to his house. We finally were able to work out that he wanted to give me a ride home. The problem was, I was not planning on going home. I had some errands to run and I needed to get to the bank. Since he was offering, I asked him if he could give me a ride to the bank. This was his response.

"I can't take you, my car is broken!"

Really, your car is broken. We just spent 5 minutes figurig out that you wanted to give me a ride home. He said, "It's OK, we can take a taxi." So yesterday, I rode home in a taxi.

Namdaemun

The cirriculum for my students classes are often funny. We follow the lives of fictitional characters through books and videos. The videos are pretty cheesy and the students are only into them if something funny happens to a character (like his pants ripping). Today my students started laughing at an unusual spot in the video. Jinho (one of the main characters), was at the top of N'Seoul tower. A foreigner woman asked him where Namdaemun was, so she could look at it with the towers telescope. Each class when she said Namdaemun the students would giggle. I wondered if she was not pronouncing the word right since sometimes students laugh at me when I mispronounce a Korean word, but then I thought, "this is a nationwide cirriculum, it should not have pronunciation mistakes". I asked my coteacher during the video in one of my classes why the students were laughing. She whispered to me, "Namdaemun means men's jipper". When I realized what she said I started cracking up. I know enough Korean to know that Namdaemun means "South Gate". So they use "south gate" as a slang term for a man's open zipper.

Right after the video stopped I was still laughing. The students wanted to know why I was laughing and she told them. Now, we are all laughing and I have to have them repeat the following dialogue.

Woman: Where is Namdaemun?
Jinho: It's down there.
Woman: Wow, It's so Beautiful.
Woman's Husband: Wonderful!

It was totally inapropriate and completely hillarious.

Namdaemun

Zipper

Something Special

After a long day of work, I sometimes find myself feeling like I deserve something special. Thankfully I live in a country were special things can be poured into a glass for only 11,000 Won.

(Kim Jung) Ill Communication

I just received a computer at work. This means I can finally access my google account from the school. I don't care to spend my limited free time in the evenings writing posts, which should explain my long absence from the blogosphere (If you follow Jill's blog you will know this is not from a lack of noteworthy things to write about). Only time will tell if Blogger access at work will produce more online material for your reading pleasure.

I was able to Skype with my folks today and they had asked me a little bit about North Korea. If you are like me, you are always wondering how much information the American media is actually giving on certain issues. I would love to sit here and write an articulate account of South Korean views towards the Norths testing of a long range missile. This would be incredibly hard to do though. There are the obvious issues of language barriers between me and the South Korean friends and coworkers I get to talk to and I also believe there is a frustration with the whole North South situation that is not often talked about.

The other day I was riding in a car with a man from my school. I asked him about the North Korean missile test and what he thought about it. He is a smart man, but his English is limited. He was able to communicate to me that the missile test upset him. There seemed to be a frustration in his voice about the state of Korean affairs. He mentioned how China, Japan, Russia and America all had a role to play in negotiating with the North, but I could tell he felt like the context of the whole situation was wrong. He clearly does not care for Kim Jung Il, but there was a deep love and respect for the people of North Korea. When I asked him how he felt about the people from North Korea he said "North Korean people and South Korean people are one family." I asked him him if he wanted a reunification of the North and South and he looked at me very seriously and said, "I very very want!" This made me wonder what the response to the North would be from people who see North Korea as part of their family.

This conversation obviously does not do much in the way of helping to find a solution to the rising tensions with North Korea, but I think it does provide some context for any of you who hear North Korea mentioned in the news. Most Koreans believe that an artificial line was drawn in the sand 60 years ago and they have deep deep wishes for that line to be erased. The interesting thing I took away from this conversation was his ability to separate his feelings from the North Korean state and the North Korean people. It reminded my of my trip to Nicaragua while Bush was president. I had a number of different conversations with people who did not like "America", but loved Americans. They disagreed with American foreign policy, yet they warmly embraced me as an American.

There are times where it is easy to think of a government and a people as one entity. Especially coming from a country that is supposed to be "by the people and for the people". I was encouraged by my conversation with my friend. It reminded me that there is a longing for reunification within all of us. It also made me wonder what a foreign policy would look like if we all had the sense that people on the other side of "the line" are part of our family.

Pictures from Saturdays Hike Pt. 2

From left to right: Kevin, John, Jessica, Kristen, Mayo

Minutes from a subway, we are in the beauty of nature.
KristenJohn

Jessica

Mayo

BAMF

Hiking Pictures from Saturday Pt. 1

A subway map of Busan. This will help you locate the different places talked about on my blog. Jill and I currently live by the Goejeong station on line 1 and will be moving to the Toesongdong station on line one. Our weekend hike was near the Busan National University Exit on line 1.

A view of north-eastern Busan A view towards Nam-gu Busan

Leading up to the temple we visited.

In a cave at the temple.

A stone carving at the temple.

My first political endorsement

This was a special week at my school. As I was walking to the school on Monday morning I heard a large number of students shouting things in Korean. The students are often loud but this was a very concerted effort. As I turned the corner to look onto the field in front of the school I saw three groups of students vehemently waiving signs at each other. I was not sure what exactly they were doing but I figured my co-teacher would fill me in later that day. I was told that we would not have classes on Thursday because of the school elections were going to be held that day. I realized that the organized chaos on the field was all a part of the political process. On Tuesday morning I was walking onto the campus and the students had moved their campaigning to the schools entrance. This was clearly phase two and they needed more exposure. As the students have a tendency to do they started yelling at me when they saw me. I started to laugh and decided I should take a picture of them. When I pulled out my camera they started screaming. They realized that the press was present and this could help give them a boost in the points. My friend Mr. Chun was with me and he told me to take a picture with them. I thought that sounded like a good idea so I walked over and stood next to a group of girls. One of the girls handed me a campaign sign so I held it up. This single action electrified the crowd. It was on par with Obama getting the Oprah endorsement. The girls instantly started screaming like crazed Beatles fans to try and get full coverage of the political spectacle. As that happened, I looked over at the boys camp and saw some very disappointed faces. I realized that I had effectively just picked a horse in the race and it could actually make a political difference.

Thursday finally rolled around and that meant it was time for the campaign speeches. Each student was given 3 minutes to address the entire student body. I would have loved to have understood what they were saying, but I was able to read the audiences responses to what they were saying and that was great. My girl went last and at this point I was actually rooting for her, after all she had the best poster. She walked up to the podium, but instead of digging right into her talking points like everyone else, she decided to show the school that, if elected, she would be a servant leader. She got on her knees and gave a very slow deep bow to the crowd, a move that clearly impressed. When she did step up to the microphone she spoke with unbelievable charisma. I am sure she was talking about some of the intricacies of her energy policy and her revolutionary idea to play K-pop over the loudspeakers in between classes, but what impressed me most was what came next. She turned over campaign poster and revealed the reason that I knew I had sided with the right candidate.

Here is what the other side of her poster looked like.

With the Oprah-esque endorsement, the Obama endorsement and the clear superior speech, I knew she would win. The speeches had ended and it was time to head to the polls.

I left the gym and headed to my office to prepare a lesson and wait for the results to roll in. The final result...

...was an outrage.

The one boy beat the two girls. I am currently filling shenanigans with the administration office. I believe there was voter suppression and voter fraud. I cannot prove it yet but, I want a re-count.

Meetings

I have been to a lot of meetings since I have been to Korea. Some have been about my housing situation, some have been about my lesson plans and others have been way more fun. Koreans tend to interpret the word meeting very loosely. Last week I was told there would be teachers meeting Wednesday at 3 o'clock. I asked my co-teacher what the meeting a\was about and she told me it was a sports meeting. I thought this meant we would discuss the schools athletic program, but she told me I could dress in gym clothes if I wanted to. It turned out to be a "volleyball meeting". Apparently every Wednesday the teachers get together while they are on the clock to play volleyball. Every April there is a tournament between schools and our school is supposed to be one of the better schools in the city. My principal was very eager to know if I played volleyball when I arrived at the school, now I know why. When I walked into the gym I could not believe how serious these teachers took the sport. I woman in her late forties was doing warm up laps around the gym and jumping rope. Everyone was in track suits and bumping and setting balls to one another. I was intimidated, but I figured what I lacked in volleyball skills I could make up for in my size. That's right my size, I am the second tallest player on the court. If we were playing basketball they would definitely have me at center (I love this country). I definitely lack the experience that these teachers do but I was able to hold my own. I will now have a sports meeting every Wednesday.

Here is a picture of the gym.

After my sports meeting I had a men's meeting. The men's meeting was held after school at a restaurant 10 minutes from school. 11 other men and I sat down at a typical Korean style restaurant and ordered some food. We had Duck Bulgolgi and a wide variety of side dishes. Shortly after we sat down the bottles started popping and the makeju and soju started flowing. I am not sure that men bond so much differently on the other side of the "large pond", but men here do it with a zeal I have never seen before. There was the traditional ceremonial ways in which the alcohol was served by one man to another, but all in all it just loosened everyone up to get to know there co-workers better. I love the family style nature to the meals. There were 3 table grills for the 12 of us and at any given time you would have 3 to 6 men stirring the food or digging into the duck with their chopsticks. After about 3 hours of eating, drinking , and camaraderie we moved the meeting from the restaurant to a HOF. HOF's are bars were you have to order Anju (drink snacks) in addition to your drinks. After another hour and a half at the HOF I decided it would be best to leave everyone at the HOF and make my way to the subway (I have no idea what time everything actually ended). The next morning was great, there was a definite bond that had been built between myself and the other men. We smiled at each other a little wider and were a little freer in the way we try to communicate. Both meetings were effective in their aims. The Korean people are very communal and they structure their lives in ways that foster deep relationships with the people they work with. I have worked with good friends before, but I have never seen a workplace that is so intentional and inclusive in the way that it trys to bring people together.

대 신 Daesin Elementary

Rhythm is the thing that is lacking most in my life right now. I am nearing the end of my second week at school and tomorrow will be the one month mark for our time in Korea. We have lived in four different places in four weeks and we still have one move to go. My teaching schedule has begun, but it is far from routine. I found out today that I will also be teaching classes to the teachers of my school. I have been without productive internet time for a while so I will try to get out a few short blogs over the next couple of days to get up to speed. I am teaching at 대 신 Elementary School. I will be teaching 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classes. The school I am at is in the Seogu neighborhood of Busan. I have two co-teachers. The school has about 1200 students and there are aproximately 30 students per class. The school'd facilities are amazing and the faculty are super nice.




The view from my office.


Another view from my office.

The front of the school.

A Few Things I've Learned So Far

In our week long training they told us that Korea is dynamic. It is completely normal for things to change on a moments notice and we should not be suprised by that. Today is my second day of school and I have not been in a classroom yet. I don't think I will see the classroom until the end of the week, at the earliest. Jill and I are getting settled in Busan, but we have a long way to go. When we arrived at our schools we were told that we had two seperate studio apartments instead of one 1 bedroom apartment. My school (Daesin Elementary school in the Seobu districy of Busan), is currently looking for a new place for us. Meanwhile we are tring to get internet, cell phones, and students. This is why we have been somewhat off of the communication grid. I have some time today for a short post on some things I have learned so far, hopefully pictures will come soon.

1. Largie - When in doubt add an "ie" to the end of an English word to make it Korean. This is similar to what many of us do to make something spanish by adding an "o". So, instead of a size Large, it becomes size Largie. Orange becomes Orangie and so on. This has greatly helped my communication.

2. Bery Largie - For those of you wondering why I said Large instead of Medium, it is because that is the size I wear over here. That's right, in Korea, I am a large man. I have a friend here that weighs just over 200 lbs and is 6'1 and is hard pressed to find anything that fits him. I have lucked out in shoes since I happen to be a 280. This is the largest size most stores carry (10.5 US). HoweverI am also a size 45 depending on what shoe I pick up. In coats I am either a Largie, 100, or 48. So much for standardization. Good news is, most of the clothes are inexpensive.

3. Bring your Tech 9 - Korea is a very safe country with a low crime rate, so you don't need a semi automatic tech 9, but you will need to bring your technologically advanced 9 year old. Yesterday all of the new teachers were introduced to the school through the morning video announcments. I was waiting in line to be announced, looking into the room where the principal was being filmed. All I could see was the principal and one of the monitors that showed the live shot. As each new teacher was introduced the line got shorter and I made it closer to the control room. When I finally made it into the control room I expected to see a couple of grown men on some sort of AV team. Instead, I saw about five 3rd and 4th graders in front of cameras and editing equipment. They all got big smiles as they turned and waved at me. I could not help but think that America has lost any sort of technology war that may be fought in the future. Everything is wired here (except for our apartment). Cell phones work in subways (unlike New York), Doughnut shops have electronic sliding glass doors, and they let their children use equipment we would be too afraid they would break in the U.S.

Soju is a social lubricant - People like to drink in Korea. I have had a few converstions with people who say they don't like to drink. Right after that they will tell me they "just like to have some beer or wine with firends." I went out for lunch yesterday with the Principal, Vice Principal and some of the teachers. After everyone had sat down, the principal started walking around the room and pouring everyone some alcohol (not sure what it was, but it was delicious). At one point, one teacher said she did not drink, so he said he would only give her a little bit. Halfway through the meal the V.P. made the rounds filling everyones glass. Now I know that there are a number of buisness people that will have a cocktail at their lunch hour or during a business meeting, but this is the first time I have heard of people drinking at lunch before they go back to the second half of thier day to work with children. Soju is the alcohal of choice, it is a vodka like grain alcohal that is unbelievably cheap. Makeju is their word for beer and would be the 2nd runner up to soju. Here is why it is so importnant. The Korean people I have met seem to be pretty shy, but once you start having a glass of something with them they quikly open up.

I think I am supposed to do something now so I will have to continue this later. Much peace.

Jim Jil Bang

For those of you who follow Jill's blog you will notice that I do not post with the consistency or the frequency that she does.  This is due partially to the fact that she is so exhaustive and as of right now our experiences are tied so closely to one anothers that for me to comment would be a bit redundant.  If you have not checked her blog out, please do.  As we get into our daily life the content of the two blogs will begin to differ more.

Even though she wrote about the Jim Jil Bang I have to write about it as well.  If there is a single piece of culture that I have experienced so far that I want to integrate deeply into my way of living, jim jil bang is it.  We only spent hours in the little slice of heaven on earth, but I can assure you there are many hours of jim jil bang in my future.

We went to a place called Dragon Hill Spa.  It cost 10,000 won (roughly 7 USD) to get in.  We were given key bracelets for our wrists, which would soon be the only things we were wearing.  We took off our shoes and put them in a shoe locker.  We walked to an elevator on heated floors and Jill left for the woman's floor and I left for the men's floor.  They had also handed us cloth outfits to wear when we were in the coed areas.  Once I reached the mens floor I went to the locker and took off my clothes.  You start with a shower before getting in the spas, which is a little awkward for a germ conscious westerner with no sandals on his feet.  I went into a main spa area and hopped in a tub that was 41 degrees C (105 F).  It was green and called a health bath.  I have no idea what made it green or healthy but it was cooler than the two next to it so I thought it was a good place to start.  The bath directly next to it was called a hot bath; it was 45 degrees C (113 F).  Across from me was a cold spa with three teenage boys playing in it.  The water was 17 degrees C (62 F).  The boys were splashing around like they were at the beach, which was kind of funny for me to see because as a teenager I don't remember ever frolicking around naked in the water with other guys, apparently I missed out.  After I spent some time in the hot bath, with a father and his son, I ventured over to the body scrubbing area.

For reasons I will assume are obvious I did not take my camera in, this is the best I could find on the world wide web to illustrate what the scrubbing room looked like.  There were a number of massage tables with men lying naked on the tables and men standing next to them in tiny shorts.  If this was not intimidating enough, I had no idea what they were asking me if I wanted when I walked up.  They started motioning with these rags back and forth on their arms.  They wanted to know if I wanted a body scrub.  In the I'll try anything once vain I hopped up on a table (or rather slid on the table, since it was wet).  One of the men then poured hot water on me, grabbed an arm and started scrubbing.  I had thought it might be a nice relaxing experience, like getting a massage.  I was wrong.  It was not as rough as sandpaper, but maybe rough green side of a sponge.  The idea is to get all of the dead skin off and leave you feeling smooth.  He worked over my entire body, with the exception of one part, although with his broad brush strokes I may have winced a few times.  After the scrubbing I got a more

 traditional massage and some sort of adjustment.  I say this because I definitely heard some cracking and popping.  After my scrub down I went and stood in a steam room that was 50 degrees C (122 F) .  This was a bit more familiar for me so it was relaxing after my tense scrubbing experience.  I had been their for just over an hour so I went down stairs to check in with Jill.

She was sitting in the common area watching a magic show (they also have a movie theatre).  I sat next to her for a bit and then we got some food from the snack area.  She had done all of the bathing she was up for so she decided to go take a nap in the Oxygen room, where you grab a pillow and lay down on a wooden floor in a room they pump with pure oxygen.  I went back up stairs to keep exploring.  I took another shower and went to the 6th floor to the salt sauna.  On the outside it said 70 degrees C, which is 158 F!  Needless to say I did not spend much time in there.  I decided to try out sleeping on this block of jade.  It was called an ion bed and apparently the large Korean man sleeping on one of them was getting a lot of ions because he was snoring pretty heavily.  I decided to move on to something more tranquil so I went into the next room for the outdoor spa.  Cold on your chest, hot on your legs is always a good combination.  It reminded me of all the times I'd go hot tubbing at Vanguard.

As I said you could have stayed there a whole day.  In fact you are allow

ed to stay their over night.  It is a 24 hour facility and there were many people sleeping there.  I decided to go back downstairs so I rinsed off again and put on the shirt and shorts they gave me.  There were quite a few more rooms to try out.  

There was a cold room.

 A couple pyramid rooms; One with all of the walls covered in Jade and one with coffin like cubbies for people to sleep in.

and rooms that I never even made it into like a charcoal sauna and this sweat room.

Last night we found out there is an amazing jim jil bang in Pusan, where some of the saunas overlook the ocean.  I can't wait!

Luggage, Pagoda, and a New Friend