Virgin hot spring experience! - Part 1

Ok, ok, so I dreaded this moment for the longest time. I almost went for hotspring in Taiwan but I did not make it. Chickened out. Gave no time as an excuse.

This time, it is in far-away Korea, a seven-hour flight away from sunny Singapore.

I was told to bring swimming costume and cap before the trip as, the tour leader explained, we were going to a hotspring. Yipee! I can actually wear swimming costume into the hotspring! I was so looking forward to this, I could hardly wait!

Guess what? When we reached there, the local tour guide told us we had to do the full monty!!!!! SHIT! So not prepared for it and really did not want to 'torture' myself that way. It was a struggle between a go or no go.

I gave in in the end. One of our tour mates told us that most of the time, there are only o ba sangs (old ladies in Japanese) who are using these hotsprings. It was quite a laugh, I must tell you.

First, we went into the ladies' locker and realised we had to strip there and then. One tour mate went to find out if there was a ladies changing room. There wasn't. She managed to find nice towels, face towels to be exact, to save our modesty.

However, the lady in-charge refused to let her take more than one, we had to go take our own. We did not know where to start covering!!

As we walked towards the hot spring pools, the lady in-charge was back at her work station. She insisted that we use the thinner blue tea-towel looking towels and made us return those thick white ones that we were clinging onto for dear life. It was a mad scramble to quickly cover ourselves up in that thin piece of cloth.

There were not much directional signage, and if they had, it was all in Korean. Can't figure out what it is. WE naturally just walked upstairs to where we thought were the pools. Then I heard one of the tour mates exclaim,"This is the male section!!!"

Man, I ran for my life, right back to the bottom of the flight of stairs. It was after much investigation, which involved lots of cautious steps and peeping, that we finally all affirmed that we were in the right section. Phew!