In which Layla and Roz travel to South Korea, suffer jet lag, and have most of their skin scrubbed off

by Layla

It feels a long time ago since yesterday, when Roz and I boarded a night flight to Seoul, South Korea. There is something soul destroying about night flights, particularly when everyone around you is snuggled and snoozing as though in their own beds, and all you can do is watch the minutes ticking by... After enjoying the film Midnight in Paris, Roz joined these happy slumberers and I wriggled and tossed and turned as much as one can do in the middle of a row of aeroplane seats. It was disconcerting to land at 4pm after all this sleeping (or pseudo-sleeping in my case) but Seoul airport was a dream of efficiency, and with zero drama we found ourselves on the 6060 bus heading straight for the IP Boutique Hotel in Itaewon, Seoul, our first South Korea destination and as ever with our first nights on holiday, something of an extravagance.

Apart from lacking a swimming pool, the hotel did not disappoint - mad decor, and very cool, sleek room on the 11th floor with a view of lots of skyscrapers and a tiny bit of the Han river. We dusted ourselves off, consulted our three guide books, and headed off to what we persuaded ourselves was dinner, a 5 minute walk away on a little street packed with restaurants. Itaewon is apparently not especially touristy, but quite popular with ex pats, and the restaurants were fittingly unalarming. We settled incongruously in a much-recommended Thai restaurant called the Buddha's Belly, and even more incongruously sipped mohitos while we enjoyed our tofu-based thai food.

After dinner we strolled back to the hotel via a chocolate shop where we bought a couple of posh chocolates, then to the hotel bar which was cool, sleek, elegant, and deserted, save for a stoical singer at a keyboard in the corner (whose repertoire included a bizarre number of Christmas songs). The wine glasses were the size of our heads, so we settled down for a drink, surreptitiously nibbling the posh chocolates. We determinedly kept ourselves awake til after 10, at which point we collapsed into bed.

At 2:30am, we both woke, bright and perky. Alas. Roz eventually got back to sleep while I read my book on Kindle, using its reading light under the covers til 6:30, at which point I finally dozed off. Roz prodded me awake at 11:30am. DIsorientated!

We had planned to go for a hike today, in one of Seoul's parks, but gazing 11 storeys down to the main road of Itaewon revealed Koreans brandishing umbrellas, and a sky the colour of lead. With guidebooks in hand, we headed for a little breakfast place called the Flying Pan, which was very cool and rather expensive, and gave us fairly pleasant brunch, though both of us felt a tad nauseous. Since pretty much everything in Seoul is closed on a Monday, we contemplated what to do with some confusion. We moved to the chocolate place for coffee (or in my case, a rather tasty berry smoothie) and contemplated again. And decided with our tiredness and the weather, what was really called for was a visit to one of Korea's bathhouses. And handily enough, one of the best in Seoul was literally minutes from our hotel.

Itaewonland bathhouse was rather scary, but no more so than the bathhouse we went to in Georgia earlier this year, on a similarly wet day, so up the stairs we strode, and we were soon given our keys for the first locker, in which we deposited our shoes. Barefooted, we proceeded to the ladies' area, where we deposited the rest of our clothes etc in a second set of lockers, putting on matching pink t-shirt and shorts ensembles that we had been issued. A shout of protest from an elderly lady in bra and pants revealed our faux pas. Off came the clothes and we were pushed under hot showers, apparently coming from a mineral spring 300m underground. The bathhouse was quite attractive, with showers along the back wall, which were filled with Korean women engaged in the very serious act of getting clean. Their scrubbing routines seemed to take a full hour, which was very impressive. Lacking that dedication, Roz and I had paid for a scrub, and before long were summoned to shiny pink tables where two very vigorous women wearing loofah gloves scrubbed us within an inch of our lives, only pausing to exclaim at the dead skin they had dragged from our protesting, very pink bodies, and occasionally point to it with an expression of fascination and alarm.

Feeling pristine, we got into the array of differently-heated hot tubs, all being topped up continuously by fountains in the shape of large, gold-painted penises. The hot tubs were just what was called for, and we spent an inordinate amount of time lazing in them while around us, women scrubbed and scrubbed. We mused over the lack of similar dedication to removing dead skin in the UK, and whether everyone else has a serious, regular scrubbing routine, at home or elsewhere, that we have been missing all these years. Anyone?

Having eventually dragged ourselves from the bathhouse, we returned to the hotel, where I am relaxing, writing this blog, reading, and contemplating dinner plans, and Roz, who is training for a half marathon which is happening in a couple of weeks, has unenthusiastically headed to the hotel 'gym' (a windowless room sporting a couple of pieces of gym equipment) to do a bit of training. Glad I'm not her!