Sanbangsan Hot Springs in Jeju Island
After getting slapped and punched by the snow and wind all morning, I was shivering with cold. As if she had calculated all this, my sister made our last stop of the day Sanbangsan Hot Springs. She's been going around looking at movie filming locations, and her intuition is no joke. My whole body was aching after driving halfway around Jeju Island, so this worked out perfectly.
Since it's a famous hot spring in Jeju, the parking lot is absolutely massive. I can't even imagine how crowded it gets when there are enough cars to fill this huge lot. Hot springs are best enjoyed quietly by yourself, so I was a bit anxious. In both Japan and Korea, taking photos inside the hot springs is restricted. It would be weirder if they let people take pictures while everyone is naked, anyway.
Sanbangsan Hot Springs has an open-air bath, and you need to bring a swimsuit to use it. We knew this in advance and packed ours, but you can also rent one for a fee if you forget. When I heard "open-air bath on a freezing day," the only thing that came to mind were the monkeys from Japanese tourism ads. But once I actually got in, I completely understood how those monkeys felt. Even if someone sarcastically asked, "Why are they acting like monkeys over there?", I could just smirk and leisurely enjoy the bath, thinking, "You poor fools don't even know how good this feels."
After enjoying the outdoor bath just enough to avoid catching a cold, we went into the indoor baths. Whether in Japan or Korea, hot springs usually have instructions on how to best enjoy their water, but out of all the places I've visited, Sanbangsan is the most complicated. It's a sequence of 3 or 4 steps like, "Go into this bath for a few minutes, then move to that bath for another few minutes..." It feels like eating a French full-course meal: "Hmm... I should start with the appetizer bath. Oh, I've enjoyed the appetizer enough, shall I soak in the main course now?" (Though, of course, you shouldn't actually drink the water.)
While Japanese hot spring water feels like magic that leaves your skin soft and smooth, the focus here is more on pain relief rather than skin care. After completing one full round of the "course," my body loosened up and the aches in my stiff muscles disappeared. It would be great to pair this with something like a Thai massage, but since we're in Korea, it would probably be too expensive.
Once you finish bathing, you enter the jjimjilbang (Korean sauna). Rather than a traditional sauna, it's more of a place to lie down and rest with your group if you don't want to head straight home, but it was way too crowded. With kids jumping around and older ladies talking at the top of their lungs, it wasn't exactly a relaxing place to rest. There's also a restaurant that combines the sauna, a snack stand, and a street food stall all in one, making it really chaotic. I highly recommend just enjoying the hot springs, then grabbing a meal near your hotel before heading back.