There are always innumerable things to do and try in New York City, but it's always more fun to do them when there are people visiting. For the long weekend of July 4, Bernard came by, so we knocked off a few things off my growing list.
SPA CASTLE
Koreans have this tradition of "communal bathing" that has all these weird twisted connotations in American culture, but really, it's just a bath. Afterall, it is only quite recently that normal people have hot running water in their homes and that people can take regular showers. In the past, people would have to go to their neighborhood bathhouse.
In modern times, the traditional bathhouse still exists, as does the usual long bathing routine. Men and women are in separate bathing areas. When you enter, you first find a chair and some washbowls that you wash out. You quickly soap up and rinse in order to enter the hot tub. Then you sit in the hot tub til you can't take it any longer, and here's the really strange part that most Americans have probably never tried: we rub our skin with a rough cloth to exfoliate dead skin. Then finally, you wash your hair and take a final shower.
However, in modern times, there is also something called a "Jjim Jil Bang". They have unisex areas where women and men wear t-shirts and shorts to enjoy large saunas, food courts, tv lounge areas, and perhaps swimming pools.
The last time I went, I couldn't understand the charm of them. I did used to go to one way back in South Korea with my Grandma, who absolutely loved going. After a full year of neck, shoulder, and back wrenching computer work in grad school, I can completely understand why people would want to go. So I dragged Bernard to Spa Castle!
I tried the sauna circuit. There was the giant Loess sauna, then the LED sauna, jade sauna, salt sauna, and Iceland. Gold sauna was too full. It felt great!
And then there was the outdoor pool in which they had these water jets like a jacusi. The massages were upwards of $75, but the waterjets felt great, and there was no need to dump money on them.
YANKEES GAME
My Chicago friends may consider me a traitor, but then again, I did not go to a Cubs game. They were playing the Toronto Bluejays, and I felt an odd sense of ambivalence towards who I wanted to cheer for. I did used to be Canadian for a while, and I remember liking Bluejays vaguely.
The stadium was pretty packed compared to the White Sox games I'd been to. Perhaps Yankees fans are a little more serious? Or there's just more of them. Bernard bought us the first row of the grandstand (nearly the worst seats there), which wouldn't have been that bad, except that we were in full sun. So we walked around a bit, got some philly cheesesteak for lunch, and nearly missed the best inning ever! 2 full Grandslams, and several more runs. I think the Yankees got 11 runs in the third inning, it was crazy. Obviously, they won the game.
CLOVIS WINERY
Apparently Long Island has a lot of wineries. Who knew? There are like 50 of them, all along the peninsula tip. I got a coupon for one of them, so we tried it out. One of the owners of the vineyard gave us a quick tour, explained a little of the wine making process, and then gave us a really honest account of what it's like to run a vineyard. He's in fact a lawyer, from which he makes real money. The vineyard, apparently is difficult to run at this particular scale (about 7 acres), and they work hard to break even. For one, the growing season simply isn't as long as California, but the hardest part is marketing and getting people to buy the wine. I imagine a lot of the newer vineyards in Virginia are quite the same. I hear there are many Law professors who buy large estates to try their hand at wine making.
Anyways, Long Island is quite different from what I expected. There are parts that are very suburban, but the farther out you drive, the more quaint and small-town-ish it becomes. It reminded me of Madison, WI and many other cute Midwestern towns.
All in all, a nice little break from work.
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