Photos from the hot spring in Bugak Hawaii

It was 3 1/2 weeks ago now that we went to the nearby town Bugak with Kang and his wife Choi, and two of their sons: Xavier and William (Amanda and I gave all three of their boys "English names" for them). But better late than never I thought it would be good to write a blog about the experience. We had a very fun day with the whole family at Bugak Hawaii, which could be minimally compared to Vallyfair theme park. Bugak Hawaii has many attractions, even in the winter. It's very old; Amanda's parents said they even visited it when they lived in Korea for the military some 20 or so years ago. But since then, I think the park has grown even more. Back then it was just a hot spring. A natural one :) But now, it is a hot spring both indoor (the original part) and outdoor (new); there is a large area with kid-rides, a large building that exhibits ice-sculptures annually, and they also have a huge junk of land dedicated to a park with obstacle-course like playground stations. And even further up the hill from there is a nice sized snow-tubing hill. Needless to say we took full advantage of all Bugak Hawaii had to offer.

Here's all of us standing in front of a snow-sculpture in the middle of the park. 2011 is the year of the rabbit according to... something. In the back row from left to right is Kang, Choi, Amanda and I. In front are Xavier and William.

A very happy William after enjoying a couple hours of tubing.

These are some photos of the first thing we did: snow tubing! It was a blast. The weather was just perfect for such a day as well. It was sunny and warm but not too warm for the man-made snow to melt.

We came across these extremely hungry fish in a large pond that was just down the hill from the snow-tubing area. They were moving quite slow in the frigid water but once we started feeding them some snacks they kicked it into high gear.

Amanda made it quite clear she wanted to have a photograph in front of the ice-wings inside the ice-sculpture building. However, there were a number of little kids that had a more legitimate reason for wanting the Kodak moment. Well, after being budged in front of a couple times Amanda made her way to the wings and made the little kids wait :)

After all the snow-tubing, park climbing, walking, and ice-sculpture viewing, it was time to make our way to the hot springs! The best part of the day. Amanda and Choi made their way to the Ladies' dressing room while Kang, Xavier and I headed for the boys'. We met outside at the new outdoor natural hot spring. It was not extremely large but a good size. The pool was in somewhat of a horseshoe shape. It was all naturally heated and it felt great! We spent about an hour laying around in the hot water. Kang tried out his new waterproof camera, and the kids fought over the floaty tube they brought. It was extremely relaxing.

After we were finished outside we went indoors to an area that was open to both men and women where you could stand in large hot tub like things and be pounded with hot water. This also felt fantastic. Shortly after entering this area Kang suggested we head to the showers. Expecting a normal shower room like back home I thought nothing of it and said ok. So the girls went their way and we went ours. Well, it turned out Kang meant we should now go to the separate mens' and womens' indoor hot spring area; nude. It was a bit of a shock. I thought we were going to a normal shower room to clean up and head home, so I asked if I could keep my suit on so that I could take it off in the shower and give it a rinse before we left. Well, after we walked upstairs to an area that looked nothing like a shower room, and more like a lobby, Kang said: Ok, here (take off your shorts). So we did, walked through the lobby among a handful of naked Korean men, and passed through a set of doors that lead to the huge indoor hot spring area, full of nude men. It was then I realized I had misunderstood. Well, standing naked among a bunch of other men thankfully wasn't completely unfamiliar for me, being that I have a couple years of high school wrestling shower room experience under my belt. So, after about 10 minutes of awkwardness I got over the fact that I was the only 24-year-old Caucasian American in the room of about 200 Korean men. The experience turned out to be quite relaxing in the end. There were a number of different pools you could enter: a cold pool, warm pool, and hot pool; a green tea pool, a sauna hut, and a traditional Korean sauna room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling which had traditional Korean spices hanging in burlap sacks from. In the center of the entire room were two long washing stations you could sit at and bath with soap and shampoo, so at about 7:40, realizing we had only about 15 minutes to get out of there, we quickly scrubbed down and with soap and scrubby brush things and then made our way out. All the while, just on the other side of a large aquarium were the women, doing the same thing as we were. It's safe to say we had a unique bonding experience with Kang and his family that day. After we all reunited outside the locker rooms, Amanda and I looked at each other and said, "Turns out we weren't just going to take a shower!"

You can view all the photos from Bugak Hawaii here.