countdown again

The road to a friend's house is never long.
Monday after work I got to the airport as fast as I could to meet Terrell at the international arrivals gate. As fast as I could turned out to be a three hour subway ride. But when I saw him for the first time in almost a year, there in the dim, empty airport it was all worth it. I had one of those dramatic, surreal moments where I couldn't believe I was really looking at him, standing right there in front of me, in Korea of all places.

It was almost midnight so we took a cab most of the way back to my place. And he was here for almost a week. There were a lot of differences between Terrell's visit and my brothers' visit. Ryan and Corey mostly came just to see me. They learned a few phrases in Korean and found their way around and were so brave. I was really proud of them. But Terrell took it to the next level. He came to experience Korea and really tried to assimilate as much as he could in the short time he was here. He learned some Korean (with a great accent), wore a face mask to prevent getting H1N1, and even went with me to the jjimjilbang. He also had more patience with me than my brothers did, but I guess that's because brothers are allowed to be needy.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. I decided to forego any attempt at making a traditional Thanskgiving meal, because it could never live up to the home-cooked stuff and all those holiday feelings I've accepted I'm going to miss this year. Also, as the thing I'm most grateful for this year is my decision to run away to Korea, I couldn't resist the symbolism of a sit-on-the-floor Korean BBQ in place of turkey and stuffing. Luckily Thanksgiving isn't a big deal to Terrell, so he understood and supported the sentiment.

On Friday morning we went to the Folk Village, which is hands down the best place to take visitors. I have great memories of taking the boys there, and going with Terrell was just as memorable. There are a bunch of small restaurants and a large outdoor cafeteria to grab authentic Korean meals or just snacks. Terrell and I were in the village long enough to do both. We strolled around endlessly, never running out of things to see and talk about (we had a lot of catching up to do, after all).

That evening, we unexpectedly pulled an all-nighter that I would rather erase from my memory, Eternal Sunshine style. In a nutshell, we got really lost. Six hours, one molestation by a cab driver, one feeding of an orange to a different cab driver, several frantic phone calls and one miraculous discovery of trains running at 5:30 AM later, and we made it to the USO just in time to catch our tour bus to the DMZ. However, Terrell will spend the rest of my life reminding me how badly I handle stressful situations in a foreign country.

A couple weeks back I toured the War Museum in Seoul and learned a lot more about the Korean War than I had known the first time I saw the DMZ. So this weekend I had a whole new appreciation for what I was looking at and got closer to North Korea than ever before. But my favorite part was still the tour guide, PFC Coleman, an adorable soldier fresh out of AIT. I think we must have been his first ever tour group. It was a foggy day so we didn't get to see much. I'm really grateful I went on a clear day my first time.

The tour ended around 3pm, and we were home by around 5, passed out from exhaustion. I still wanted to cram in a little more Korean culture for Terrell before his flight on Sunday, so we decided to walk around as much of Hwaseong Fortress as time allowed. When we got to the top, I went up the steps of the last lookout point, the one I'd been saving for my final visit to the wall. Looking out at the foggy view from the top, I felt an amazing sense of closure. I think I'll always wish we'd had the time to make one last go around, for both of our sakes.

For the ultimate Korean experience, we decided to squeeze in an abridged trip to the jjimjilbang. Terrell was (understandably) too intimidated to do the full-on naked scrub, but we spent time together in the saunas, restaurant and lounge. That's what I love most about the bathhouse anyway - getting to just hang out there with my friends, wearing our matching uniforms. Then, after a relaxing chair massage while sipping lemonade tea, it was time for my amazing friend to leave. I waited with him at the airport-bus stop and was sad to see him go.

jjimjilbang

Yesterday I went to a bath house (jjimjilbang). It was amazingly relaxing. You can't go alone your first time, you'd have no idea what to do. Thankfully I have Alex. She brought me and two other girls, and showed us the ropes.

First we paid and each got a bracelet with our locker key, two tiny towels, one T-shirt, and a pair of shorts. It was really cheap (6,000 won / $6) considering you can stay as long as you want and there's so much to do.

Then we went to the locker/dressing room. It was similar to locker rooms at a pool in the states, in that women are walking around naked or half dressed. It was different because it was decorated with ornate mirrors and chandeliers. In the dressing room were rows of stations with everything you could need for getting ready to leave: fans, blowdryers, lotion, q-tips, combs and brushes. There was also a little shop to buy toiletries and things to scrub off dead skin. One of the main purposes of the baths seem to be to get all your dead skin off.

In the next room were the baths and showers. The showers were lined up on the right wall, with those ornate mirrors hanging at each one. The baths were in the center. There were hot baths, cold ones, baths with jacuzzi jets, some with little waterfalls, most lined with tile, and one lined with wood. On the left wall were saunas. In the back of the room was where the scrubbing happens. There are sink stations where you can scrub yourself in a mirror and there are scrub tables were you can pay to have someone else scrub you, which is what I did.

The initial shock of seeing a huge room full of naked women wore off pretty soon, but not completely. (It wore off completely after the scrub, which I'll get to in a bit.) It helped to look around and see all the kids there with their mothers and grandmothers. It made me realize these women had been coming to the bath houses their whole lives, week after week for years and years, so the nudity was probably nothing to them. I tried to get in their mindset.

Alex told me the order of things. It is: shower, bath, scrub, shower, bath, go upstairs to the hot rooms.

That's basically what we did in the fewest words possible. We had to shower to get clean before going into the baths. The baths are just like skinny dipping in a hot tub. Very relaxing. We paid for the scrubs ($15) and waited for our number to be called. There was a space by the scrub tables where you can lie on marble slabs and rest your head on one of those wooden neck pillows the Egyptians are buried with. We went back and forth from doing that and sitting around in the sauna while we waited. It was a practice in staying the right temperature. When it got too hot in the sauna I would get a drink in the dressing room and lie on the marble. Back and forth, or soak in the baths some more.

Finally it was scrub time. There were three massage-like tables lined up. The woman scrubbing me was wearing underwear, but the scrubbing women can be naked too. I don't know Korean, so she had to just nudge, pull, move me, and throw in the occasional grunt. I started out on my back, turned to either side, and ended up on my stomach. She scrubbed every inch of my skin. The only dead skin left on my entire body was on my face, which is literally the only part that isn't scrubbed.

Initially the scrubbing hurts. It feels like someone scraping you with sandpaper. She scrubbed so hard I thought I would start bleeding. But after a while I got used to it and it felt very relaxing. I closed my eyes and could almost have fallen asleep. It felt like it lasted for about 30 minutes, although I have no idea if it was much shorter or longer. When I opened my eyes for the first time to flip over I saw my dead skin lying on the table in little chunks or pellets. She threw warm water over me and the table a few times during the scrub to rinse me and the table off. I literally laughed out loud when she scrubbed the bottom of my feet. There was no way I could hold it in.

I have no doubt that every bit of dead skin was removed from my body. After the scrub she gave me a very quick facial with some liquid. Then she gave me what I guess could be called a massage. All of a sudden I heard this loud popping and felt myself being slapped all over my back, from my feet all the way up to my shoulders.

When we were getting ready to leave a group of girls started following us and throwing buckets of water on us. Everywhere we go we stand out and the bathhouse was no exception.

We showered and met up with Patrick, Alex's boyfriend, who went alone to the men's baths. Upstairs is unisex, and everyone is wearing the same shorts and T-shirt. There are a bunch of things upstairs: a cafeteria where you sit at low tables on the floor, a computer room (PC bang), and the hot rooms. We grabbed a little something to eat in the cafeteria before heading to the hot rooms.

The hot rooms were pretty damn cool. A bunch of families are just chilling out in front of a TV in a common area. There are massage chairs you can pay like a dollar for. Around the common area are these globes or domes with little doors. It's a bit like what hobbits live in. Inside are floors covered in smooth stones which are then covered in linen cloths. You can lie down and rest your head on pillows and sweat and sweat. There was sweat coming out of pores I don't think sweat has ever come out of, pores I didn't know I had. We played cards, but it became hard to concentrate with all the sweating. We eventually ended up in the cold room, which is essentially an igloo in all ways that count. It was half globe-shaped like the hot rooms, only instead of being in a furnace we were now in a freezer. You just sit on logs and carve your initials into the ice walls.

When it was time to leave I didn't want to go. I have never been more relaxed in my life. Korean people may work really hard, but they relax even harder. If that makes sense.

My dad turned 45 today. Happy birthday, Dad! I love you.