Warmth

Today Bear and I are here at our local Korean sauna, doing the annual ‘I don’t celebrate my birthday anymore, but I still want to go to the sauna’ trip.  I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.

There are so many good things about this place.  Right now I’m sitting in the red clay room, which is supposed to help remove toxins from your body.  I like it because it’s one of the cooler of the hot rooms, and it’s a good way to start.  We’ve been here about an hour, and I’m just now starting to break a sweat.  Other rooms include the charcoal, jade, gemstone, salt, and silver and gold rooms.  There’s also a pool, and men and women only areas with hot and cold tubs.  No clothes are permitted.

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One of the main drawbacks is the insanely delicious restaurant right in the middle of the common area.  It lures you with its intoxicating scents to eat until you’re stuffed.

But the main thing that I really crave here is the warmth.  From the moment you walk in the front door, the heated floors on your soon bare feet feels like a hug.  To be honest, I’ve never enjoyed the heat much.  I’m very much of Anglo-Saxon/Celtic stock, and sweating usually isn’t my thing.  But the warmth just soaks into your muscles and joints the way that the cold soaks in on cold days like today.  You don’t even notice how cold you were and how tight your body was until you aren’t and it isn’t.

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Love that.

There are also other lovely touches, like the bags of herbs hanging from light fixtures in each room.  From what I can tell, mugwort makes up a large percentage of the blends. I’ve always been very scent-oriented, and the scent of mugwort now takes me here to the place where I can be warm and comforted in the middle of winter.

I highly recommend this.

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