Seoul, Korea Rep.

I braved a Korean hairdresser in Seoul who had been recommended by two of Karina’s blonde friends. Karina had a dentist appointment in Seoul last Saturday so I made a hair appointment for 3pm and we made a day of it with Aalia joining too. We ran late because of a late night before at the reopening of a bar near my house and managed to catch a bus which got us to Seoul in the nick of time. We raced around the subway stations and I got to the hair dresser at 3:15pm having phoned ahead to let them know I would be late. Well clearly time was not of the essence there as Michelle, as he was called, only started on my hair at about 4pm. He was starving, he said, so could he go have some lunch? Um…okaaaayyy… I think I eventually left there at 6:30pm. Karina and Aalia had decided to have pedicures while they were waiting for me so we all had a little something done. The only problem was that Michelle did not listen to me at all and didn’t take any notice of the picture I took in of the colour blonde I wanted. When I tried to tell him it was too blonde he pooh-poohed me and said “no, it looks natural and it suits your complexion”…um…OK, whatever you say!

From there we headed to a Mexican restaurant for some dinner and met up with TJ & Kholo. Then Aalia took us to a place called “Rainbow” – a club with a very hippy feel to it. Something about it reminded me a lot of Dino’s Beach Bar in Tofu, Mozambique. There were colours everywhere and UV & neon lights made my newly overdone hair glow white! At Rainbow you sit on cushions on the floor, drink cocktails and smoke hubbly-bubblies if you so wish. There are plenty of different flavours to choose from. There are also drums and didgeridoos that you can play if you feel like it. All in all, we were having a nice chilled time there and then realised that we had missed the last bus home to Cheonan!

One of the first lessons Karina gave me about living in Korea was that if ever I got stuck somewhere with nowhere to sleep, find out where the nearest bath house is and make a beeline for it. A bath house (or jjimjilbang) is fashioned after the Japanese onsens, where males and females are in separate areas and basically go there to wallow in baths of different temperatures. It’s a strange concept for me but it’s the norm here and apparently works wonders for the skin. After you have bathed you can go up to the communal floor where males and females can chill out together, in the pyjamas the jjimjilbang gives you. This is where families and couples meet up after their separate baths. There are special sleeping rooms – warm and quiet with very thin, hard mattresses on the floor. Pillows are almost solid foam bricks covered in plastic stuff. Generally, everyone is very clean having just scrubbed down in the showers and then soaked in the baths, so it’s not too gross.

Anyway, the point of this explanation is that this is where we decided to sleep as a cheap and comfortable option having missed the bus home. I went ahead in a taxi as Karina & Aalia wanted to go to another club in Seoul and my splitting headache and I weren’t up for it. I pretended I knew what I was doing and that I frequented jjimjilbangs regularly. I made my way to the women’s sleeping room which was pitch dark, hot and filled with snoring women on the floor. Every “mattress” was taken, it was about 2am and I was tired…so I found a bare spot on the floor, put my towel under my head and managed to fall asleep! I woke up at around 5am with Karina and Aalia standing over me and staaaring down at me…trying to figure out in the darkness whether it was me or not. (I would’ve thought the blonde head was a dead giveaway!) They settled down to sleep too (I managed to find a mattress so relocated) and we woke up a few hours later and caught the train home. There we went big and made the most delicious bagels with smoked salmon, cream cheese, scrambled eggs, mushrooms and capers…yes, more eating, and boy was it GOOD after the night we had had.

Needless to say, on Monday morning I cancelled my alarm by accident, fell back asleep, woke up at the very time the bus leaves the station and had to catch a taxi to school! A hectic start to the week after a hectic weekend, but worth it!