Where You are Treated like a King

Our friends told us about King Spa and Sauna. Weird things. Things we've never done before. So of course we had to try it! And now we've been once a month for three months. It is the best!

This is a Korean spa so there are some "traditions" that we follow. We take off our shoes at the entrance and leave them in special shoe size lockers. Then the girls change into orange t-shirts and shorts and the guys change into gray t-shirts and shorts.
I love it. Everybody is matching. (I would probably have liked school uniforms back in the day too.) I like not worrying what I look like when everyone looks the same.

Inside the big building are nine smaller rooms. Each one has a different theme with different elements that promote healthy changes in your body; like good circulation, or help with joint pain etc. Each one is also a different temperature. Below is the gold room. The walls are covered with 23 K gold. We usually start here, it's not too hot but hot enough to start sweating, just a little.

The first time we went we walked around barefoot. But a lot of the rooms are very hot as they are heated from the floor. We must have looked silly walking on our towels. So the second time we visited we bought little booties. Now I REALLY feel like a spa guru. We can quickly pick out the new people because they don't have booties. Heh.

Below is Adam's favorite room–the Salt room. There are bags of salt hanging from the ceiling. Last time we went in I think we saw Budda— cute little bald man sitting cross legged. He was meditating so deeply I daren't even whisper to Dafni.

There are a few REALLY hot rooms. This one is heated by the bricks in the center. Every so often they are wheeled into a large oven for cooking and then brought back out.

The hottest room, called the Fire room or the Sudatorium is heated by a real fire (and the put out before entry) every day. When it is at its hottest you can't stay in for very long, there is an attendant to monitor the room, and most people cover their faces and skin with towels. It's pretty awesome.

I have never been so proud of my sweat as I am when we visit the King Spa. We like to show off the places where sweat is beading up, like our shins and belly buttons.

Not all the rooms are hot and make you sweat. This ice room is usually around 43 degrees. It's actually one of my favorite rooms. I love the blast of cold air after sweating to death.

The entrance fee covers all the rooms but food and massages are extra. Food can't be brought from "outside" so we look forward to trying something new from the "cafeteria". These eggs are delish and a perfect pick-me-up when we're hungry but not ready for dinner. Read the little sign to see how they are made. I've tried making them in my oven. I bake them around 110 degrees for nine hours. Yum Yum.

Dinner. Sweating builds up an appetite.

As you can see the common area has places to sit and lounge. Between sweating and freezing you can hang out in this area to, eat, read, sleep, watch movies, play games...there's also a little theater with lazy boy chairs.

Above: Trying out a face mask while playing cards at 2:00AM. Below: We like some of their drinks.

But some are weird, like rice (NOT to be confused with horchata), or pure aloe. I like the berry vinegar drink. It's a sucker punch in the throat each time you swallow. As you can see, Dafni doesn't like being sucker punched as much as I do.

Further down is a fish egg salad I tried. It had red eggs, orange eggs, and black eggs. The black ones were bitter. The orange ones were my favorite and tangy.
Some of the side dishes are weird too...like mini fish. But I ate them anyway.

We eyeballed this shaved ice fruit dish whenever someone else ordered it. It's VERY colorful in person. So we tried it. NASTY!

This is what is in it: Shaved ice, milk, sweetened condensed milk, bean powder, red beans, canned fruit cocktail, grapes, weird squishy not quite marshmallows, and a cherry. Gag. It did NOT taste good. But we kept eating it in hopes the next bite would be better. Ugh. Never again. I don't know what it is with Koreans and red beans but a lot of their desserts use them.

Now here's the part I look forward to, the wet spa! Get this, no bathing suits are allowed! That's right. You strip down to your birthday suit and enter EXPOSED. (These areas are segregated of course and you enter them from the locker room.) Now I can say we are friends on a whole 'nother level.

Sure it's a little awkward as it's not something our culture does. But I'm glad we had the guts to try it our second time—it's liberating in a mental and emotional way. All we ever see on the media are perfect bodies...but once you visit the wet spa and see that everyone looks just as unique as you do....it's all a go from there and not really a big deal.

Upon entering the wet area everyone is required to shower. There are standing showers or sitting ones (you can see them along the right side of the photo) and then you can enter different pools which are kept at different temperatures and there's a steam room as well.

Below is the COLD pool—I'm talking 64 degrees. I actually like this one. It's very refreshing and features a rather violent jet stream shooting down from the ceiling, feeling great on the shoulders...but not the bare booty!

Because it's so refreshing we usually hit the water before dinner and then put on fresh clothes to start the cycle all over again.

Normally we spend around 10-12 hours at the King Spa. But the third time we spent the night. People sleep everywhere—on the floors, in some of the rooms, in the lazy boys; naturally we tried it. The verdict is still out on weather or not I will do it again. I'm not sure the spa could ever replace my bed. And the communal snoring is rather distracting.

The best part about all this...we get coupons from Groupon making this a VERY affordable staycation.