Jimjubangs: It's Naked Time!!

Halloween has come and gone, so it falls on me to recap the wild night time goings-on for those souls not living here in the Orient. Our small group of Madison grads had planned to travel to Seoul on Friday night after hearing about 25,000 won (roughly 25 bucks) for an all you can eat and drink buffet in the Gangnam district. And come Friday evening that was exactly what we did. So after a lengthy train and then subway ride, we 4 arrived at the restaurant and we were not disappointed. The choices available to us were quite simply, in a word, beautiful. They had a large selection of precooked meals varying from beef dishes all the way to shrimp concoctions, as well as beef of many preparations for cooking at the table. They even had several choices of sushi as well as vegetarian options for our resident vegetarian, Carrie. Let's just say it's been a rough 2 months so far for her food wise. They like their meat over here. 'Course the food wasn't really why we were there, obviously. Ohhh yes the booze did rightly flow. Taps of Hite/Cass/OB/don't know they all taste the same (a.k.a. piss water) as well as coolers full of soju were laid to waste by our party of foreign invaders. Now would probably be a good time to explain that all of my cohorts are of the fairer sex, so after a short period of heavy consistent drinking it became obvious to me that my party was, well, pretty drunk. Being the responsible one and knowing the weird shit that Korean men are privy to in regards to women, especially foreign women, I slowed my pace so that at least one of us would be sound of mind (as sound of mind as possible, given its me). At 10:30pm the restaurant closed and we left to find more bars and eventually the noraebangs (karaoke) but not without some parting gifts. We were unable to finish all of our soju, so we simply left with a few unopened bottles hidden in the group's purses. Unfortunately, I left my man purse at home, so we couldn't steal as many bottles away as possible. Don't laugh, I'm just fitting in. The men rock the man purses all over here, even designer labels. Korean men, those words just sound like an oxymoron to me. But that's just me. So, upon leaving the restaurant our group decided to hail a cab and head to the Hongik University area, famous for its bars and clubs. After much drunken discussion, yelling and confusion, we finally managed to snag a cab and headed to Hongik. Immediately upon arriving in Hongik, it became apparent that we first needed to take a pit stop at the jimjubang to settle Carrie down for the night, as she was falling asleep in the cab and promptly deposited her dinner on the sidewalk upon exiting the cab. Now, up till now I have had no experience with the jimjubang, only that which was told to me, "You get naked and sleep with a bunch of other people". Hmm, okay, sounds fine to me. We arrived at our destination, settled Carrie down for the night and then headed back to the streets to find a bar. Not hard, considering every thing in this area is bar. Eventually, we found the exact bar we were looking for and headed down for some drinks. Now I knew that I had to make myself kinda scarce so as not to take away from free drinks provided by the Korean men for my female companions. Especially since one of the girls, Anna, is hell bent on finding herself a Korean man. Why I have no idea. Seems to me that all the likable qualities of Korean men are also found in another group of people: women. Good fashion sense, concern for their appearance, sensitivity, etc. If you wanna be with a woman, well then hell, just go all the way and be with a chick. Don't half ass it. Eventually I became bored with being abandoned by my party, so I, as the picture can attest, did in fact "mingle" with some female Koreans. Not for long at all mind you, as the conversation was...lacking. Sorry guys. No Korean wife just yet. The bar itself was enough of a treat to interest me for the most part as it played only mainstream American rap/hip hop through the speakers. Several hours later, we left with several young Korean males in tow. We wandered the streets, thinking about going to a noraebang, then deciding on street food and then bed at the jimjubang. Somewhere along the way I deposited my dinner on the sidewalk, but thankfully it was not accompanied by the usual falling asleep right where I did my business. Just finish the business and then back on my way. The jimjubang was....an experience. It costs about 8 bucks for 12 hours and it is basically a hotel/bath. You head to the front desk, pay your cash and they give you a key and a pair of pjs. You walk into your respective sexes locker room, take off your shoes and stow them in your locker and then enter into the locker room proper, where you are immediately struck by the nakedness of it. I've never really spent much time in health clubs or the such in the US where people have the possibility of being naked around others, but I'm assuming that they aren't as cool about it as Koreans are. I get in there and the first thing that I notice, well after the naked people, is the unabashed nature of everyone. Just dudes sitting around naked watching tv, not because they have to, but because they can. The locker room had a couple of massaging lounger chairs (I stayed away since it didn't appear like people had to wear clothes while seated, yeah gross), a large tv and some benches for watching it, a barbershop, and the hot tubs and saunas. Well, since it was 3:30 am at this time, I didn't partake in the nakedness, but simply went straight to bed. So into my pjs I slipped and headed downstairs for the coed sleeping area. The sleeping area was just a large open space where people picked up a mattress pad and pillow (if available, I had to search for while for the mattress pad and never got a pillow), then found a corner or something and went to sleep. There were concession stands and tvs and arcade machines for time wasters. I eventually got to sleep, which was kinda difficult given that I had no pillow, was much too long for my pad, the lights were never turned off and I found a cold corner of the place. The next morning I headed for the hot tubs and the saunas and also to embarrass the locals with my comparatively enormous "package". After relaxing in the hot tubs, showering, and emasculating the Koreans (that's gotta be the first time I wasn't on the receiving end of the emasculation; gotta say, I like it), it was time to head home. I met up with some of our party (one girl had to leave early and our early drunk was nowhere to be found...don't worry she made it home fine). We did happen to randomly run into another madison teacher, who just happened to be spending the night at the jimjubang too. Now, remember when I warned you about the weird shit that Korean men pull? Here's a brief example: One of the girls of the party actually woke up with a random Korean man holding her hand, and another woke up with some random guy sharing her mattress pad. Now it should be noted that the pads are barely wide enough to hold one person when they are lying on their back. So this bastard was pretty close. If anyone tries this kinda shit when Alyse visits in December, they are gonna get a fucking earful, at the very least. Which means I need to learn some Korean cusswords. Cultural relations be damned.