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Read MoreWhen The Gobi Desert Ruins Your Shirt: Clothing Mishaps In South Korea
Somehow, the left sleeve of my sweater had lengthened while the right had shrunk, and my pants were so stretched out that they were only staying on because I had folded and safety pinned the sides.
I tried to make everything look better by putting on a pair of new heels and some flashy earrings, but after surveying myself in the mirror I was pretty sure that the saggy bum of my pants and the stretched out sleeve of my sweater would not go unnoticed by the extremely appearance-conscious women that I worked with at the English School in Ansan, South Korea.
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Read MoreTravel Tales: What's Pie? Or, The Challenge of Celebrating Thanksgiving In a Foreign Country
South Korea is a country with a calendar year jam packed with small festivals, celebrations and special days. Teacher’s Day, Children’s Day, Valentines Day, White Day, Love Day, Peppero Day — the list goes on and on (and on and on — seriously, there are an aggressive amount of festivals).
I lived in the country teaching English for 13 months, and after awhile it was easy to tell when a major holiday was coming by the ten-kilogram cartons of grapes, packages of pears and massive jars of kimchi that took over sections of grocery stores and entire corner markets. Gift packs of ramen, crackers, Soju, lotions and shampoos filled the aisles in preparation for the coming celebrations.
Constantly surrounded by these foreign holidays, my roommate Michelle and I, feeling nostalgic for our own traditions, decided to bring a bit of home to South Korea and take on the challenge of hosting Thanksgiving dinner for our foreign colleagues.
A feat even with a fully stocked North American kitchen and grocery store at your disposal, being in South Korea brought a unique set of challenges to this holiday.
Cooking a turkey was out of the question because none of us had an oven in our apartment (this is a thing in South Korea — most people don't use ovens), so we had to settle on some precooked chickens from the grocery store as our main dish.
It was easy enough to find the vegetables that we would need, and after spending a few painstaking hours combing the foreign markets in Seoul, we managed to track down an ancient looking package of gravy mix and some boxed stove-top stuffing.
It wasn’t until we stumbled upon a lone can of pumpkin pie filling — hidden in a dark, cramped corner of the underground Hanam foreign market in Itaewon (a neighbourhood in Seoul) — that the thought of cooking dessert had even crossed our minds. The sheer luck of finding that can led us to believe that it was our destiny to make pumpkin pie (even though, as you will recall, we didn’t have access to an oven), be heroes to our friends, and host the BEST Thanksgiving dinner made in a foreign country EVER.
You might ask why we didn’t just buy a pie.
The short answer: South Koreans do not eat pie.
The long answer: while there were bakeries in the country, when I lived there, they didn’t make conventional items that would be found in bakeries in the western world. They were full of sickly sweet breads, hard flat pastries, fluffy pink cakes and mystery buns with red or black bean paste concealed inside them (I bit into what I thought was a chocolate croissant one morning to find that I was terribly, terribly wrong). I had never seen anything even resembling a donut, a cupcake or a gooey chocolate chip cookie, let alone something as radical as a pumpkin pie in a bakery. This lack of interest in North American-style baked goods — and the lack of ovens in standard apartment kitchens — also meant there was no baking aisle well stocked with flour, spices, sugar and other ingredients that would be found in the standard grocery store at home.
Acknowledging all that was against us, we did the only logical thing that we could think of — called my mom. Since it was the middle of the night for her, it took me a few minutes to get her to understand that I wasn’t waking her up because of an emergency — I just needed some help making piecrust.
After she stopped laughing, she managed to find and read me a recipe which I scribbled down on the back of a receipt I found in my wallet, and handed off to Michelle who plunged down the small aisles of the foreign market desperately hoping that we would be able to find everything on the list. Luck was on our side, because after a thorough search we managed to find everything but condensed milk, which we discovered was easy enough to supplement by throwing regular milk, sugar, butter and water into a pan (thank you Google).
As we rode the subway home, trying to balance our ingredients haphazardly on our laps, we realized we had to face the elephant in the room and try to figure out how we were going to bake the pie.
After throwing out ridiculous ideas like making an oven out of a box (clearly a fire hazard) or cooking it on a small BBQ (just a bad idea thrown out in desperation), we decided to try and put ourselves in the hands of one of our local bakeries and their industrial sized ovens.
Once we got back to our apartment, we set our plan in action by calling Wendy — one of the Korean teachers we worked with who had offered us her services as a translator. We were hoping to have her explain our situation — over the phone in Korean — to the people working at our local bakery and then have her ask them if they would be willing to bake the pie for us in one of their ovens.
Like my mom, Wendy laughed for a few minutes and thought we were nuts, but agreed to help us.
Early the next morning, after prepping the pie, we carried it carefully to the closest bakery. Luckily the store’s owner happened to be working and once we had Wendy on the phone, we handed it over to him. After a few tense moments, he laughed and nodded at us, handing back the phone and Wendy confirmed what we had already guessed — he had agreed to help us out! Elated, Michelle and I left our pie in his hands and ran home to start preparing the rest of the meal.
After a long day of non-stop chopping, mixing and cooking, I left to pick up the pie about an hour before our friends arrived.
The minute I walked in the door of the bakery and saw the owner’s nervous face, I knew that something was wrong.
He slowly opened the lid of the white square box that had been sitting on the counter in front of him, and pointed inside at a lumpy mess, shaped sort of like a pie. Not even thinking that it needed to be explained, we hadn’t told him not to take the pie out of the pan when it was done baking. He — of course — had, and as a result the pie had completely fallen apart. Seeing how badly he felt and not wanting to make him feel worse, I gave him my biggest smile, bowed and thanked him warmly a few times before I left with my sad lump of pie.
We recounted our saga, amidst tears and laughter, while serving our sorry looking pie crumble to our surprised friends. When I finally sat down and took a bite of it myself, I was shocked to find that — despite its appearance — it was (and still is to this day) by far the best pumpkin pie that I had ever tasted.
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The Jjimjilbang Experience: Getting Naked With The Locals In South Korea
When I was first asked by some fellow foreigners in South Korea if I wanted to get naked in a public bathhouse and sauna on my first weekend in the country, I looked at them like they were nuts.
Somehow though, they managed to talk me into it (I blame severe jet lag), and it was one of the best decisions that I have ever made.
Found all over the country, in both large free-standing complexes or on the top few floors of high-rise buildings, the jjimjilbang or public bathhouse became one of my favourite spots, and one of the things that I miss most about living in South Korea.
Now, before we go any further, shake all the dirty, dark, or (ahem) inappropriate images of "bathhouses" out of your head. The South Korean jjimjilbang is the complete opposite, and is part of a tradition of ritualized bathing that can be traced back to ancient Egypt, to prehistoric cities that existed in the Indus River Valley, and to the Aegean civilizations — not to forget the Greeks, Romans, Eastern and Central Europeans, and Japanese.
The bathhouses in South Korea are a cross between an aqua centre, a spa, and a theme park. They are gender-segregated because bathing suits of any kind are not permitted, though most have a unisex area where, after donning pajama-like T-shirts and shorts that are provided, you can meet up with members of the opposite sex. This area usually has a snack bar, a gym, TVs, Internet access, sleeping quarters (with bunk beds or floor mats — yes, you can actually spend the night there) and communal saunas.
The interior of a communal salt sauna. You are supposed to sit in the salt and cover yourself in it to absorb it's purifying characteristics. (image source)
They are usually open 24 hours and have no time limit for how long you can spend in them (seriously, you could spend an entire weekend there for your single entry fee of around 10,000 won or $10 per person).
My visits to a jjimjilbang usually went like this:
I would walk up to a bright front desk area fully staffed with friendly people who spoke zero English and looked at me like I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Holding up one finger I would say “Hana juseyo” (one please) and they would hand me my towels and key and charge me the entry fee. Shoes off, I would walk barefoot across the warm, heated floors and into the large locker room where my numbered key would open a corresponding locker. This is where I stored my bag and ALL of my clothes.
Don't get me wrong, this was TERRIFYING the first few times.
Being stared at on the street, fully clothed was one thing (a tall white girl in a very homogenous South Korea stands out like a sore thumb), but the idea of being naked in a room full of other naked women who would be staring right at me — and at all of my bits — was horrifying. But, I was surprised to discover that for the most part they completely ignored me. I know this is hard to believe, but I usually felt more self-conscious on the street fully clothed then I ever felt naked in a jjimjilbang.
Once I had stripped off all my clothes, it was time to head into the pool area.
But, before even thinking about getting into the steaming pools (which were emptied and cleaned once a day), protocol required that I hit the showers and completely scrub any trace of the outside world off of my body. I’m talking shampoo, condition, foam, wash, scrub, mask and anything else that I could think of to eradicate any dirt or dry skin.
Alone at the jjimjilbang one night, I had just started my process of cleaning when I was startled to suddenly feel someone scrubbing my back. I quickly rinsed the soap out of my eyes and turned to find a small, grey haired ajumma (grandmother) smiling at me and holding a coarse yellow cloth. She had seen that I was alone and had come over to help me wash the parts of my body that I couldn’t reach myself. Over her shoulder I could see her family watching and also smiling as she motioned at me to turn back around. Korean families would often visit the bathhouse together, taking turns scrubbing each other's backs or washing each other's hair. After my initial shock had worn off, I shrugged, thanked her in Korean, turned back to the shower and continued to wash my hair while she scrubbed me raw from my shoulder blades to my tailbone.
A photo of the female pool area at the Hurshimchung Jjimjilbang in Busan, South Korea
No other feeling in the world compared with sinking into a pool after the scrubbing was complete. My skin would be tingly, and every muscle in my body would un-clench as mini waterfalls carrying scalding hot water would fill the air with steam. The pools came in all shapes, temperatures, and water types that when used in a certain order were supposed to help one attain a high level of ‘purification’. There was usually a pool lined with fragrant cedar, one filled with green tea, one scented with eucalyptus and a lavender scented one with violet colored water that made me feel like a member of the ancient royal family. Jumping into the glacial plunge pool was always a rush, but it usually made me feel like I was going to pass out and it always took me a few seconds, clinging onto the edge, to see straight. In one corner of the room strong jets shooting down from the ceiling gave a life changing back massage and through heavy glass doors a latticed outdoor area, open year round, had a cold bath, a hot bath and at night, a full view of the stars.
Once my fingers and toes had started to prune, I knew that it was time to take a break from the pools and I would make my way across the warm, womb-like room to the saunas. There were only a few of them in the segregated area, but all were scented with a different essential oil or herbs that were meant to aid in even further inner and outer cleansing. I would usually just lay on the floor, letting the heat weigh me down, and let my mind go blank. Time seemed to disappear on my visits to the jjimjilbang.
Leaving the saunas, I would spend my last few minutes recovering from the extreme heat by laying on one of the warm marble slabs that were scattered throughout the main room. My body would slowly cool down while I listened to the steady trickle of running water and the quiet chatter coming from the corner where women were getting massages. A board on the wall advertised the different services available, but because I couldn’t read hangeul, I never knew what they were. They ranged in price from 10,000 won to 30,000 won (between $10-$30) and from what I observed the most popular were either a bone crunching full body massage or allowing a serious looking women in mismatched lingerie to scrub you raw. Ok, so maybe it wasn't just the fact that I couldn't read the board — those women scared me a little.
My skin has never been so soft, and I have never been so relaxed as I was after visits to these incredible cultural spaces. Don't let your fear of being naked in a room of other naked people prevent you from missing out on this amazing experience — trust, me it's worth it.
