Thursday, April 22, 2010

A KOREAN SAUNA

The word sauna is an ancient Finnish word which means the traditional Finnish bath as well as the bathhouse itself. The oldest known saunas were pits dug into a slope or hill in the ground and used as homes during the winter. The Finns used the sauna as a place to cleanse the mind, rejuvenate and refresh the spirit, prepare the dead for burial and, because it was usually the cleanest structure and had water available, as a place to give birth. The sauna is still an important part of daily family life and most homes have a sauna.

Saunas can be found in most cultures: Finland, the Baltic countries, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, the UK, southern Europe, Central America, the US, Africa, Japan, Australia and Korea.

In Korea, the sauna is essentially a public bathhouse. Families come to enjoy the day together, with the sexes doing whirlpools, massages and showers in separate facilities, but coming together for the saunas.

A friend and I decided to try the Korean sauna I had heard so much about. I have enjoyed a dry sauna for years, whenever I was in a spa or hotel that offered this amenity. My friend, a client of my partner and our business, was in the process of a detox program and wanted to use the sauna to help "sweat" out some impurities.

We passed the entrance to the Spa and had to double back. Not expecting the facility to be marked by a gate with a family of giraffe sculptures on the crossbar, we had missed it the first time, thinking it was the entrance to a safari-type park. When the Spa came into view, the parking lot was quite full for a Sunday and I felt like I was looking at a small town casino. Once inside, I don't know that casino would have been the word chosen.

We entered, taking our shoes off, getting locker keys and being ushered into the woman's locker room. Various shapes and sizes of women were walking around nude, as I had been told we had to be when I called for information. We put our shoes in one small locker and our clothes in another. Grabbing a towel the size of a guest hand towel, we walked into the shower room. With a wall of showers on one side, four whirlpools in the middle, each with a different mineral bath, a wet sauna and a cold pool in the middle and the open massage area on the other side, the room was moist, to say the least. Moms, with little ones, young girls, older women in head scarves: a real cross-section of the female condition.

Showered and in a pair of pink short with top (guys get blue), we entered the co-ed portion of the Spa. A restaurant, rows of pink fake leather couches trimmed in Victorian white-painted wood, and the various saunas awaited us. Some people were asleep on the couches or on mats on the floor. Some ate. Some watched T.V. Children played. Gongs would chime and a soft Asian voice would say something. We were not in Kansas anymore.

First we entered the Pyramid Room. The walls are covered with 23 carat gold to help cleanse impurities. The pyramid shape channels metaphysical energy. The sauna felt good. At 115 degrees, I hadn't started to sweat yet when my friend started to feel a little light-headed.

We left the Pyramid and headed for The Ice Room, the equivalent of a cold plunge pool. Chilled to just above freezing (35 degrees), it was suggested that you rub your towel over you skin to get the best out of the stimulation to blood flow.