Riverside Spa Land, Seoul (강변스파랜드)

Riverside Spa Land (강변스파랜드) is a Jimjilbang located in Seoul. It's located right next to Gangbyeon bus terminal, so it's pretty handy. 

A jimjilbang isn't like the spas you have back home. They have a room with various baths, some which are deathly hot and others which are freezing cold. There are also sauna rooms. The key thing is, you have to be naked but, it's separated by sexes. Anyways, if you aren't prude, it's not too bad. 

Once you check in, you get given a set of clothes to change into after your bath. It's about 9,000 won to stay the night. 

This jimjilbang was fairly big. The bath room had about 6 baths, but when I went, they switched off most of them. This sucked, I went late at night, and they must have been cleaning. They also had a couple of sauna rooms. I couldn't stand them, they were way too hot. 

You then ventured upstairs with your clothes on and find a place to sleep. They also had various rooms which were sauna like too. There were salt rooms, coal rooms, ice rooms etc. There was also a games room where you could pay for arcade games. Other things were on offer but we went super late at night and they were shut. 

There were sleeping caves, but due to the location of the jimjilbang, they were all taken. 

We were pretty tired. We only had one mat, which David kindly gave me. People were so selfish, some took about 4 pads and spread out over them. 

This was the ice room. This was such a nice room. The whole jimjilbang was a million degrees. How anyone could sleep in it, I don't know. They had about 4 aircons running, and it was still roasting. 

This was the coal room. The walls were covered in charcoal. Apparently, this is good for your skin. I'm not really sure how it works...charcoal particles in the air maybe? 

The salt room. It was a bit stinky. I assume everyone's sweat gets soaked into the salt...ew.

There were games too, but you had to pay extra. A bit pointless, but he ho, most young folk would dig these. 

I hated it here. Even though it was dirt cheap, I hated it. The baths weren't even clean, and they shut most of them apart from one when I arrived. The sleeping area was roasting hot. There wasn't enough bed mats as other people took more than their fair share! It was overcrowded. There were no sockets. People were super loud. It was a nightmare. I didn't sleep at all. Not even for a minute due to the noises people were making, talking on their phones, snoring, playing music, coughing...uh everything! 

I wouldn't stay there again. I might go back for a bath or check our their special rooms, but I will never sleep in a jimjilbang again. I'd rather fork out another 30,000 won for a love motel. 

You might enjoy it, maybe you'll get there on a quiet night. I for sure hated it and couldn't sleep a wink. I slept better on the bus. In fact, I slept the whole 3 hour journey back home!