I was thinking of going to Travel Maker again for a lazy brunch, but I was feeling a bit poor and fat, so I decided to settle for toast while engaging in my regular morning routine. I finished a salad for lunch, and after a brief power nap, was thinking about heading to Spoland at the World Cup Stadium for swimming and sauna.
However, it was a gorgeous day outside, and some at the hostel was pumped to go out for a run, and I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity. I really feel like I’m having a subtle influence on the people around me in terms of eating healthier and exercising. Now, if I could just get everyone to bed at a decent hour, my work here will be done. Anyways, three of us laced up our running shoes and headed out.
When we got to the stream with the running trail, I suggested going right instead of the usual (6 runs so far) left. So, instead of reaching the Han River, we found ourselves at a mountain — Ansan to be precise. There was a trail heading up into the park, so it might be worth further exploration for some light hiking.
It was a fairly short run overall, especially as we lost one person to a sudden attack of an earache, so I hadn’t quite gotten my exercise fix and was still fixated on going swimming. I took a bus to the World Cup Stadium and utilized enough Korean to make sure I actually got entrance tickets to both the sauna and the swimming pool.
The system of how the spa works is quite funny. You pay and get a ticket and a set of clothes. Then, you put your shoes in a locker. You trade the shoe locker key and a ticket at another desk for a locker room locker key. I dropped my stuff and changed into the spa clothes, then headed over to the swimming pool. You then trade the second ticket and sauna locker room key for a swimming pool locker room key. I suppose it would be inconvenient to have to keep all those keys, but I was amused by the sheer number of times one is trading one key for another, like a real life game of Doom.
The pool was not crowded, though I still had to share a lane. It was well organized with each lane dedicated to a different level of swimmer. Having not swam since August, I started in the beginner lane to warm up and moved up a lane later on. I’m impressed with myself for going a whole 1,000 meters, and I definitely could have gone longer, but the sirens were calling to me and I wanted to be able to soak in a hot tub with becoming a human shaped prune.
After about 30 minutes going between cold pool, sauna, and hot tub, I dried off and hung out in the common area for about hour, listening to podcasts and dozing off. I was feeling the onset of hunger and boredom, so I left around 5ish and enjoyed the fresh air and late afternoon sunlight with a scenic half hour walk home, where I heated up and ate the rest of the tofu-kimchi soup I had made so many days ago.
Most of the evening was spent watching music videos on the television’s YouTube app (both pop and classical), and at some point I decided I wanted a bit of soju. It ended up being quite a late night.
| Spoland | 10,000 |
| Soju & snacks | 5,100 |
| Total: | 15,100 (91.3 RMB) (USD 13.5) |
Running Total: 5433 RMB (USD 802)
Daily Average: 258.5 RMB (USD 38.14)