Naked Bonding

As a self-imposed condition of living alone out here, I promised that I would push myself to take advantage of social opportunities.  As an outgoing social person, you would think that would not be a tall order- however, you may be underestimating how much I like my new patio and how much I like my wine fridge.  Last night, I not only made good on my promise and hung out with a bunch of new people on my own, I also powered through a situation that was EXTREMELY out of my comfort zone with these new people and had a blast.  Let's start at the beginning...

I've known Steph since college.  She was good friends with one of my Senior year roommates, Tara and the three of us always had great fun hanging out together.  I saw Steph at Tara's wedding this summer; she had been living in LA for almost 4 year and graciously agreed to hang out with me when I moved out here.  Fast forward to last night...

One of Steph's friends was having a birthday party.  Steph mentioned that it was two parts, but said she was only going for the first part- cocktails at the BonaVista Lounge at the Westin in Downtown LA.  Eager to explore parts of the city and converse with people in real life, not g-chat, I told Steph that I would come meet her and figured that I would leave the party when she left and spend the rest of the evening with my DirectTV.

After consulting with my personal stylist (*cough* my sister) and picking an appropriate outfit for the evening, The Duchess and I set off East on the 10 toward the collection of approximately 7 tall buildings that is Downtown (sidenote: I don't care what anyone says and I will NEVER change my mind on this- LA is a sprawling metropolis, it is not a city).

After accidentally valet parking at the hotel (I thought I was going into the garage to self park, oops?), I made my way to the 35th floor and the rotating lounge.

Might not be a "city" but it looks pretty at night!

Steph introduced me to her friends, who all have various cool LA jobs, we ordered drinks, and chatted.  Standard cocktail hour.  While meeting and chatting with everyone, the standard question seems to be "Are you going to "The Spa" later?"  I assumed (correctly) that "The Spa" was the second portion of the evening that Steph had referred to earlier.  I also assumed (incorrectly) that "The Spa" was a club.  More on that it a bit.

Service was taking forever, I can only assume that our waiter kept losing us as our table rotated around the restaurant (literally, we stayed in our area).  When Steph had to leave, I figured I would stay for a bit, finish my drink, and chat with the really nice people while I waited for the waiter to get my check.  I wasn't interested in moving on to a club- those places are not really my scene, especially when I'm driving.  Then I started to hear people describe "The Spa."  Turns out, it was not a club at all but Wi Spa- a 24-hour Korean Spa.

After being enthusiastically invited and encouraged to move on to the second portion of the evening I had an internal discussion with myself.  Yes, it was weird to go to a Korean Spa (and at this point I don't even know what that means) with a bunch of people I have just met.  However my other options were sitting at home alone annnddd yeah, that was it.  I didn't have anything productive I should be doing, nor did I have anything productive to do the next day.  The only reason I would not go is because it would be a slightly uncomfortable situation.  I decided that was not an acceptable excuse for someone in desperate need of a social life and I agreed to meet everyone at Wi Spa.

*IMPORTANT* Please click on the links for the rest of the post- I could not take pictures in the spa and my words alone will not do this experience justice.

After parking at the spa, I walked up to a desk, paid $25, was told there would be an extra charge of $10 if I stayed past 4 am (what!?!  It was like, 9:30...), and was handed a towel, a yellow t-shirt, and a wrist watch-ish scany thing with a number on it (should have taken a picture of this, sorry).  I was then directed to the ladies spa when I was given a pair of elastic waist khaki shorts.  I made my way to the locker with the corresponding number and pressed it to the locker to open it.  I started to change into my camp counselor outfit, when I noticed the other girls were putting on their towels.  Yep, apparently there are two areas to the spa.  The ladies wet spa and the communal co-ed dry spas (there is a guys wet spa too- not accessible to me).  We were going into the wet spas which required- nakedness.  I looked at the three girls I was with- one of whom I had known for all of two hours and the other two I had literally just been introduced to.  I decided this was nothing if not a bonding experience and followed my new friends into the wet spa in my tiny towel meant for individuals of Korean lady size...

After soaking in various hot tubs and steam rooms and having a thorough scrub- we donned our camp counselor outfits: 

Yep, for real. Same colors and everything.

and went to go meet the gentlemen of the party in the Jim Jil Bang- also known as the co-ed common area and dry spas.  After maneuvering our way through Korean people sleeping on mats on the heated floor (apparently this is why one might stay past 4 am) we made our way past the collection of anime comics and into the cafe were we sat on the floor and ate spicy noodles.  At this point, I have decided that I am at an adult lock-in, a notion further solidified by the fact that there was a stage for karaoke (!!!) that was unfortunately not in operation for the evening.  Oh, also, there were kids running all around this place.  Super bizarre.  Like in the naked area too.  Anyway...

After food, we took advantage of the common area.  We chilled on the sleep mats and tried out all of the exclusive sauna rooms.  (<---  LOOK AT THESE!!!!)  My personal favorite was the clay room (Temp 126 degrees)- it feels really good to rub your feet on the clay balls.  The Bulgama (Temp 220 degrees) was a bit too much for me, I think I gave it a good 45 seconds before I peaced.  The jade room and the salt room (both around 126 degrees) were nice too.  The salt room was pretty but ultimately underwhelming and in the jade room I went from feeling fine for about 10 min to feeling overwhelmingly hot (probably got a bit dehydrated).  Lastly, the ice spa (40 degrees, not, in fact, freezing) felt amazing especially after the heat of the other spas.

Finally, after feeling like I could fall asleep on the heated floor and potentially stay past 4 am, I found my real clothes, The Duchess and went back to Santa Monica.  I definitely met a lot of cool people and am excited to hanging out with them in the future.  It pays to be open to new experiences, especially when you are in a new place.  On that note, I'm off to meet Steph to go to the roller derby!  I may be blogging again tonight... :)