Seoulscapade

One rainy Sunday afternoon we went to this cafe, though not for the coffee. You can get the usually assortment of overpriced coffees and beverages, if that’s what you want, but if you pay a little bit extra, you can also get your feet cleaned by doctor fish—little fish that chow down on the dead skin of your feet. Yummy!

We had a tub—one of three—opposite the couple above, over by the other window. It looks like it is designed to seat four, but as couples were the main clientèle, the monitor was delegating a tub per couple. After buying coffee, we had to wait about fifteen to twenty minutes for our turn. Buying a beverage is required. You can’t just walk in off the street to dip your feet. So, we paid 9, 800 won for two coffees and 2, 000 won each for fifteen minutes with the doctor fish.

Some people will definitely find this creepy. Actually, one of my wife’s friends found the sensation abhorrent, and has sworn she will never allow doctor fish to visit her again. It’s a little disconcerting at first, as it’s not what you would call ticklish, having a hundred or so little mouths chomping on your soles. Nonetheless, I got used to it, and I was actually disappointed when the time ran out because I obviously needed more treatment.

It’s a reciprocal relationship: people get their feet cleaned and the fish get a meal. You could argue that this is exploitation, but I couldn’t see how the fish would suffer. I presume at night that they are returned to a more natural environment. The tubs would have to be cleaned, wouldn’t they? I’d be interested to know what happens behind the scenes.

At least the fish seemed happy and healthy enough. One has to be thankful for a rare instance, when human beings are not subjecting exploited animals to torture and cruelty before an inevitable death—the usually practice, for example, in the meat industry.

I did notice a difference afterwards. Once I had put my shoes back on, it felt like I’d just walked on mildly hot sand or bitumen. Even now, hours later, my feet are kind of tingling, but not uncomfortably so. Their skin seems smoother too, unless I’m imagining it.

Other bigger cafes like this one—part of the same chain—can be found in Jongno and Sinchon. People refer to them as the Doctor Fish Cafe, or the Korean name of the cafe chain translates as Tree’s Shade Cafe, which is suggestive of a kind of shady resting spot. That idea, resting under a tree, is alluded to in the chain’s website name: http://www.restree.net. The site is all in Korean, though.

I might look into the exploitation side of it more, and if everything checks out, I’ll return for further treatment from the doctor fish. The way they were attacking me in great numbers did suggest that I was in need of it.

This is the famous Woodstock bar, well known to many foreigners and Koreans alike, in the middle of the Sinchon bar and restaurant district. It’s rough and casual, and all about loud music, loud reverie, quick waitresses, and free flowing beer. Small and dimly lit inside, it is full of old wooden tables and chairs and booths; and by the door, a wall of shelved LPs are presided over by a DJ. You can request any song you like and there’s a good chance he’ll have it, or else your second choice, on vinyl, and he’ll add it to the list. It’s grubby and unkept looking, with garbage strewn just by the main entrance. It looks like it really has been there since the 70s. What a romantic venue! This is where I met my wife.

Every kind of bar you can think of can be found in Seoul. And there are bars everywhere. Three kinds exist that I know of. The first kind is like Woodstock, just a straight forward drinking bar, the second kind is known as a hof (the name, I think, has German origins), where eating and drinking are done, and the third kind is a Girly bar where throwing away money is done.

At a hof one is obliged to have food; you can’t order a drink on its own, although this rule has been bent for me once or twice. I love these places and their variety. You’ll always get served as quick as they can. But you have to understand going in that the food won’t be of the highest quality for what you pay. It will nonetheless go well with what your drinking.

I haven’t taken nearly enough bar pictures given the number of bars I’ve been to. I often haven’t a mind to because that’s usually not the priority on a night out drinking. At the bar above, however, everything about it called for a photo. It’s the Platinum microbrewery bar in the wealthy Gangnam area, whose decor on three floors is themed according to the elements, earth, fire and water. Water is obviously the theme of the basement bar here.

A great many bars and hofs are not nearly as classy. And as a rule, if the bar looks a bit shabby the toilets are going to be very basic. At another bar in Sinchon, the gents was like a long narrow passage and did not even have a light. That’s not to say there wasn’t light; there was neon filtering in through a hole in the wall at one end, where you could see people passing by. It only had one urinal, and what the floor was made of is anyone’s guess; dirt, I think.

At a hof I visit in Shillim, a renowned student area, I went into the toilets in the stairwell to find two cubicles side by side, one male and one female. These were the old-style squat kind of loos. I went into to do my thing and was squatting there while next to me some strange women, obviously drunk, was doing her thing. She sounded like a horse. Not only did I hear it all, I could see part of what was going on because of the gap between the floor and the thin partition. Quite frankly, as I am free of most fetishes, this did nothing to delight me.

On another occasion, at a coffee shop in another part of Shillim, I sat myself down in a cubicle (on a regular porcelain this time) only to sense that a woman was already occupying the female one next to mine. Now, the trouble with these arrangements is that you become incredibly self-conscious of every sound; your body is put under a lot of stress with the restraints imposed on it. It’s bad enough as a foreigner, never really being anonymous, but if you were to emerge from a toilet and someone in the place has recently heard your ablutions and can now put a face to them, well, it’s just too much exposure for me.

While I was concentrating with all my faculties on keeping it quiet, the woman next to me began talking to herself. I thought she must have been on her cell phone. Really, I wanted her to just get it over with and leave, so I could let go, so to speak. I waited, and it was then that another woman started talking—in the same cubicle. There were two of them in there!

Here’s a photo of a room at an upmarket bar/coffee shop in the ritzy suburb of Apkujong. The bar/coffee shop had a number of different rooms like this one. It was a slow night. Upstairs was a stylish bar with girls wearing fishnet stockings. I wanted to sip my beer up there—yes, I confess, I do have one fetish—but I was with a work crowd, and we took over another room similar to the one photographed, with no girls in fishnet stockings, for a private party.

Well, that’s a start. I’ll try and be more diligent about getting photos all the weird and wonderful premises I come across and put them here.

The massive interior and “ice crush” at Lotte World.

There are many forms of entertainment here that you can’t find where I came from. I’ve become a regular patron of a number of them. Before you jump to conclusions, Seoul is not Bangkok, got it? However, hostess bars and other establishments do exist. I don’t think I’ll go to one soon; costs are exorbitant. I’ve heard of $30 being paid each time a hostess pours you a drink. Now, that’s not for the drink itself, it’s for the act of pouring it! I’d hate to think what a favour beyond that might cost. So clientele are often businessmen, whose antics are paid for by their company. At least, that’s how it used to be until a recent tax department crack down.

A close up of the . . . er . . fun at Lotte World.

No, my preferred venues are the Chim-Chil-Baang and DVD-baang (”baang” simply means “room”). The first is usually a large multi-floored place with saunas, hot and cold tubs, oven rooms, perhaps an ice room, movie and TV rooms, sleeping rooms, massage rooms, massage chairs, restaurant, ice cream shop and coffee bar, and sometimes entertainment areas and a gym. You pay around $7 upwards and can stay as long as you like. They’re open 24/7.

Some people even use them as a cheap alternative to a hotel. Mostly, couples and families visit them, so I don’t know why they have a reputation for being packed full of adjuma–maybe it was like that in the old days.

Everything is centred around the oven rooms, averaging four, built with various heat releasing materials: jade, wood, charcoal, mud, salt. You just go in and sweat it out, then cool off somewhere before doing it again. It’s great for the muscles and seems to improve the skin. After an average of 4 hours (time goes really quick), I always emerge totally relaxed and refreshed.

Some Pretty Xmas lights

A DVD-room is where you can go and pick a movie to watch in a small, private, darkened room. It costs about the same as movie ticket, which, by the way, is cheap here. There is a couch for two or three, footstools, a wall-to-wall screen and big sound system. The room would be a bit bigger than half an average apartment bedroom. The good thing is that you can lie down, eat, drink, talk—whatever. I much prefer it to a cinema.

Some places have rooms with a window, but people hang their coats over it to ensure privacy. This is because a number of them are not interested in the movie. It is well known that couples have other things to do, which has given DVD baangs a bad name. In fact, I’ve accidentally seen some strange activities through a window when walking past a room. A girl was bobbing up and down, but I could swear she wasn’t watching a musical. Thankfully, attendants clean rooms after each customer has left.

More Xmas lights—another way to recycle plastic bottles.

Another thing gaining popularity is the Game Cafe. This is like a coffee shop where you can hire board and parlour games of every description. I couldn’t see how it would be viable, but that’s probably because I was thinking from the point of view of a small city full of suburbs, like the one I came from. Here, it works. The problem for me is that the games are in Korean, and, besides, there are just so many other things I’d rather be doing, like going to a Chim-Chil-Baang or watching a DVD-baang musical.

Above is a radical building in downtown Seoul, which so intrigued me that when I found out there was a restaurant up top, I booked a table for dinner and took Sumi, my only contact in town at the time, to dinner. It was to celebrate my first pay check. We had a seven course meal of rather small but delightfully tasty portions that ended up costing me around $280. What the f…?! That was without wine.

But if you ever want to visit there, you could just sit at the cafe beside the restaurant, as it has an equally magnificent view. A latte will only set you back around $13. Enjoy!

If you haven’t even got the stomach for that, just visit the toilet near the elevators. It has a magnificent view you can admire while relieving yourself.