Bathhouse and Seafood

For breakfast we went through the subway station in front of our hotel under the street to a restaurant that hand-pulls their own noodles. It was by an alley that seemed to have auto and machine shops and it had kind of a cafeteria vibe, very casual. They have a very limited menu and food comes out quickly. Most of the guests were old people. We ate noodle soup and dumplings for breakfast with the other pensioners. That’s common, since there’s no specific “breakfast food” in Korea: there’s just food, and the Koreans eat food for every meal.

We went to a jjimjilbang sea-water bathhouse. This is like a local neighborhood version of a Japanese onsen with all the things you’d expect there: low stools for showering, various temperature pools, and saunas. The second floor was for women, fourth for men, and a third floor was a unisex relaxation lobby with shared saunas where we sat in an infrared-lit room and on pebbles.

Guy practiced breathing when switching between the cold pool and the hot tubs, and stood under a torrential shower resembling a waterfall. Leia was taking hot soaks and cold plunges, while the Korean ladies were exfoliating each other’s skin with loofahs.

Outside the jjimjilbang we had sea eel (anago) grilled by the owner at a small restaurant not in eel alley, where you buy a single medium or large eel plucked from an aquarium and cooked immediately, then finished at the BBQ at your table alongside seaweed soup, leafy veggies, and sauces. We couldn't figure out how to eat the two sections of head around the skull so Guy put it back together with the tail and a segment from the middle we couldn't finish, and it could have been thrown right back in the tank with none of the other eels noticing anything wrong.

After a stop at the hotel for a shower, because Leia didn’t understand she was supposed to wash the salt water off after soaking, we walked to the cafe district looking for an art museum. We found it well hidden on the second floor of a nondescript building, but it charged an entry fee so we just had a croissant and coffee nearby and stopped into weird stores on the way home. Leia couldn't believe the deep popularity of photo studios to make it look like you're taking a selfie in an airplane bathroom or an elevator. Airplane bathroom she can understand, as not everyone travels frequently, but how hard is it to find an elevator? 

We made a lot of tea in the room today and did our laundry in between going out for food. We dined at a restaurant on our block that specializes in raw fish. We had a generous course of sashimi including a bowl of sea urchin, served with cold tea, and then bought some cookies from a bakery across the street and brought them back to our hotel. We folded some of our laundry in the room while watching TV, once Guy figured out how to get it working.