Asan Spavis

I don't remember where or from whom I first heard about the several Korean hot spring spas all over the country, but I do remember that my eyes widened to the size of saucers. I love the whole "taking the waters" thing. I'm not sure if soaking in a mineral bath actually does anything for you, but it makes lounging around in a hot tub seem like a productive and healthy activity. And then when I heard that Korea's largest hot spring spa is in Asan, a mere 20 minutes from my front door, I became ecstatic. I've just added visiting each hot spring to my bucket list of Things To Do While Living in Korea. Asan Spavis - check!
We decided to go President's Day afternoon since its cheaper on weekdays and its not a Korean holiday. I initially had visions of getting the Works - a massage, scrub, wrap and whatever else they do, but that would mean Marc would have to entertain the boys for a few hours in the pool and Jonah likely wouldn't be too happy about that. We decided to just do the family thing for our first time there. Driving south from our house to Asan, the landscape quickly went from flat rice paddies to tree-covered hills. It sort of looked like a poor man's ski resort town, but still rather pretty. 

There she is. Spaaaaavis.

The many pools.

The place is huge and even has a huge outdoor wave pool and snow sledding/tubing hill out back.

Checking in and getting locker keys.

Its a requirement that everyone wear a hat or swim cap, so Toby is all set.

Swim Goods

Shoe lockers at the entrance.

Mr. Cool

One of the food courts.

After we paid and dropped off our shoes, Marc and Toby headed for the men's locker room and I took Jonah to the women's side. 

Entrance to the men's locker room

The locker room was enormous and really nice - much nicer than I thought. It was very clean and tidy with great big locker hallways. From the locker room, the ladies (and men on their side) can either go to the naked same-sex pool area or the bathing-suit-required public area in the middle. The public area consisted of a big pool and fountain in the middle, small hot tubs off to the sides and a kid's pool in the corner.

The big pool in the middle at about 93 degrees. There are little "stalls" in the pool with massage jets, an area for stretching and a section that has beach pebbles set into the floor to massage your feet when you walk over it.

This lousy picture doesn't really show the super fun kid's area.

I really enjoyed floating around the pool in the middle, but of course the boys wanted to be in the kid pool so we spent most of our time in there. The water is all perfect bath temperature. The kid pool had big and little slides which Toby and Jonah, respectively, went down over and over again. And kids have to wear life vests at all times. I checked out the hot tubs in the corner and discovered that they had fish in them! If you haven't heard, there is a type of foot treatment in which tiny fish nibble dead skin off your feet, except this was for your whole body. I can't say I've ever wanted to do it, but it was there, so I told Marc I had to take the opportunity. He hung out with the boys as I boldly entered the Fish Therapy pool.

One pool had small fish (about 1.5-2 inches long) and the other pool had bigger ones. I opted for the little fish pool. Not long after I settled in, they started to swarm. Immediately it felt like a hundred little fingers tickling my very ticklish feet. It took everything in me not to scream and squeal from the tickliness, but I was definitely squirming. If this wasn't a form of "therapy" I would think it was a form of torture. After a while it became more bearable but still really weird...like, why am I sitting in this fish tank letting them chew on me? I had to force myself to stay in for a good 5 minutes to get whatever benefits it was providing. On the way out I stuck my foot in the big fish pool to feel a few nibbles, but it was even worse. Fish Therapy - check! And never doing that again.

On one exterior side of the bath house is a water park with huge slides, but we didn't check out the whole thing and it was too big for our boys anyway. On the other exterior side were more hot spring pools. The only problem is you have to walk outside, wet, to get there. But we wanted to see it, so brave Tobin and I ran out and down the stairs to get to the outside pools. There was a big one and several little ones, each for a different purpose. One was an Herb pool with green water. Another was orange with Ginseng. And another was really hot and bubbling. We swam around the steaming big pool for a few minutes and then ran back into the bath house.

I don't know how much time went by, but it was getting close to dinner, Jonah was growing fussy and I was getting tired of feeling like a soggy prune. Marc and Toby stayed a while longer, while Jonah and I headed for the women's locker room. I wanted to see what the Ladies Only section was all about. Turns out, nudity. Sorry, folks, no pictures! The room was really large with two-story high ceilings and steam rising up everywhere. The first thing I saw was a table with two tubes of toothpaste, a bowl of what looked like salt and a sign that said Dentifrice. Then I saw one of the open wet treatment rooms. A naked lady was lying on a bed being scrubbed to the bone by another naked lady. We walked around the middle where there were more pools for specific purposes. A hot one, a warm one, an herb one, a cold one. Around the perimeter were little sections for rows of showers, all community-style. Some were for standing showers, but most of them were for sitting on a little plastic stool in front of a mirror, kind of like a vanity table, but wet. Each station had shampoo, soap and a hand held shower sprayer. The women at these stations, all naked, of course, were scrubbing themselves like they haven't bathed in years. They use sloughing gloves to scrub their bodies, they wash their hair, brush their teeth and whatever else they want after bathing in the pools. Besides the soaking pools, its the same sort of grooming they can do at home, in private, but for some reason its done publicly. So what did we do? We did as the Koreans and dropped trow right then and there. WE were the ones being stared at because we still had bathing suits on...aaaand maybe also because, yet again, we were the only non-Koreans. I parked naked baby Jonah next to me in one of the little baby tubs they provide and he played happily with a shower sprayer while I rinsed, Korean-lady-style. Its not like I really wanted to be naked but that's just what you do or else don't bother going. It's totally normal for them (and most other cultures, I might add). All ages, shapes, sizes, preggos, you name it. So we soaped up, rinsed off and walked back to the locker room for towels, which are the size of hand towels. That's the only option. On the way back we passed the treatment room again and this time the lady doing the scrubbing was in a bra and underwear. Ha ha! Either stay naked or put your actual clothes on is what I thought. Too funny. In the locker room, the Korean women go to another dressing room area to comb and dry hair, put on lotion, etc. and they stay naked the whole time rather than getting dressed first. But Jonah and I got dressed and went out to meet Marc and Toby. I really want to get some treatments one of these days, but the menu is only in Korean and the staff didn't speak any English. I'll just have to get someone to translate for me so I can show what I want for next time. And I am definitely going again, hopefully by myself, so I can "take the waters" when I want for as long as I want, get worked over and scrubbed within an inch of my life. Ahhh! Spaaavisssss.

On our way out we had to stop at yet another amazing play area for kids which was by the locker rooms. I'm telling you right now - if you have kids and want to spoil them with fun, bring them to Korea. I could give you a month-long itinerary of fun, crazy, crazy-fun stuff for them to do. There are huge play zones at pretty much every large public building.

This takes up less than half of the room.

The slide looks like some kind of kid-factory conveyor belt. Here comes a fresh 2 year old!

I know what some of you are thinking because I've thought of it myself. Hygeine. Are these pools and play areas clean? I doubt that they hose the pool areas down with bleach each night and I didn't smell any chlorine, so I really don't know what the process is. But, honestly, I'm not too worried about it. It's no more germy than any other public pool or play area anywhere else and maybe they're more clean here than I think. We're living here, these places are awesome, and I don't want to deprive ourselves and the boys of experiencing the fun things that Korea has to offer because I'm worried about germs. I wonder about it for a second and then I just don't worry and let ourselves enjoy the lifestyle as the Koreans do.

Here a man is using a long shoe horn available so no one has to sit to get their shoes back on. And no stilettos allowed!! ;)

Bye, Spavis. I'll be back to take your waters!