After receiving a tip from a tweet by a local Twitterer, Clyde and I jumped in the car, drove out to Duluth, and made our first visit to Je Ju, a Korean sauna.
Imagine, if you will, a space the size of an above-average WalMart. Rip out the retail fixtures and ugly linoleum. Tear down the signage and ugly fluorescent lighting. Now: cover the ceiling with patterned clay or gleaming, colored crystals … cover the walls with earth tones … pave the floor with gently heated ceramic tiles … and give the entire place a magical atmosphere with honey-tinted lights … and you’ll get some sense of the scale and presence of the Je Ju Sauna.
After paying the entry fee ($25.00 each) and receiving our key bracelets (which open lockers and provide a means of charging food, drinks, and optional health and beauty services), we deposited our clothes in a locker and padded off into the gurgling, steamy depths of the men’s bathing area.
The Korean men in attendance had no problem at all submerging themselves in the scalding hot plunge or the icy cold plunge; both of these were too extreme for my tastes. I did enjoy a good soak in the warm plunge though, and liked “sunning” myself on a section of polished black stone beneath a bank of infra-red heat lamps. I lingered a bit in the dry sauna room, but stayed no more than a second in the wet sauna, where air jets whipped the swirling steam into a scalding tropical tornado. Later, I would watch, stunned, as a troupe of Korean teens used that room for a work out — doing ten minutes of sit ups, thrusts, and squats in what amounts to a convection oven.
After donning our sauna uniforms — cotton tees and shorts, supplied by the helpful staff — we wandered over to the unisex area, where both men and women lounge around in any of a series of tiny hobbit houses, each designed for a different psychological or physical impact. I liked the Jade Room (a dark, cool room with green crystals overhead), the Ice Room (white stones and refrigerated air), and the Salt Room (desert heat, earth tones, and walls lined with huge salt crystals), but didn’t care for some of the hotter, wetter microclimates.
We didn’t take a dip in the deserted pool — signs said bathing caps are necessary, and we couldn’t find any caps — but we did buy smoothies at the Korean restaurant (which I understand serves very good, very authentic Korean fare). After, we made our way back to the men’s area, where we once again showered, dipped, and soaked ourselves while watching other patrons get massages and scrubs — vigorous baths administered by stout Korean men with sponges and hoses.
True to Korean culture, Je Ju is a family destination; you’ll see fathers and sons showering together … three generations sharing meals at the low tables in the restaurant … mothers and daughters working out in the fitness room. That said: in the sexually-segregated areas, total nudity is the universal rule, so if you’re prissy about parading around with your pants off, Je Ju ain’t the place for you.
(Note to gawkers and creepy-types: while Americans tend to connect nudity with sexuality, Je Ju is strictly legit, and, despite the bare skin in the cozy lockers and tropical saunas, the sexual temperature is absolute zero — just as it should be.)
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