Fighting Fire With Fire

Inside the Jim Jil Bang

The Jim Jil Bang is a Korean bath house.

They have hot tubs, mineral baths, massage tables, sauna rooms, hot rooms, cold rooms and the oven (above). But there’s so much more to it.

Koreans will spend half the day there if they can. There are rec rooms where guys sit around naked, eating noodles and hard boiled eggs, watching soccer games on big screen tv’s, getting massages, shaves, haircuts. And you can even stay overnight. I’ve often used them instead of a hotel. It beats a hotel, if you ask me.

Anyway, the Korean solution for beating the insufferable heat of summer here is by fighting fire with fire.

They drink hot drinks, eat hot food and go to the sauna.

I’m thinking, my apartment is a sauna. Why would I pay to go to one?

There are special hot soups they eat in the summer which they figure help give you energy to work in the heat. Two examples I can think of are Seolung Tang – a chicken soup and Bo Shin Tang – dogmeat soup.