It’s happening again: the lazy bug has bitten me once more.
Despite a number of happenings the past few weeks, I found myself not having the mojo to post any content. Not even on my IG.
But since I have some free time right now, I’m here, trying to put out another blog post.
So what happened:
– Baked at IDIM again with the kids, and this time with hubby. Haven’t posted anything, hubby might be wondering if I did take pictures of him doing his cheesecake (which he’s super proud of).
– Bunso’s 8th birthday (posted about this on IG).
– Kids’ passport renewal, since theirs were expiring next year. Received their new passports exactly a week after. And my sister and I had a blast looking at my daughters’ passport pics. “Parang mang-aaway sila,” my sister said. LOL!
– Office Christmas gathering at New Lasema Spa. I thought this was the most interesting of the bunch so I’m gonna give a low-down on what we did there.
Okay, since I said I was on lazy mode, admittedly, I took only a few photos. Guess I wanted to really relax, haha! I mean, after all the work and stress, we deserve that, right? And that’s why we chose to go to New Lasema Spa in Estrella Street, Makati City.
New Lasema Spa is an authentic Korean spa or jimjilbang. I first saw this in CLOY, where the North Korean soldiers stayed while they were in South Korea, so I barely have an idea of what we can experience here. But upon going in, I realized that what I knew about it was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
The facilities at New Lasema Spa include jacuzzi pools, steam sauna, and traditional Korean kiln saunas. They have sleeping pods as well, a KTV room, gym, kids area, and a common area where you can watch Netflix or connect to the internet for work. But, you know, why work there? 😛
They have different packages with different inclusions. We got the 12-hour Lasema Package, which allowed us to experience almost all of their offerings. Yes, you can stay for up to 12 hours since they’re open 24 hours a day.
Upon payment, we were each given a shirt, a pair of shorts, and 2 small towels, plus a bracelet with a key. The bracelet is what we used to pay for things that weren’t included in the package, like the snacks.
Anyways, we then proceeded to the locker that’s connected to the jacuzzi pools and steam sauna. This area is gender-segregated, so if you’re visiting with your special someone, well, you gotta let go of each other for a while, haha!
So why is it gender-segregated? That’s because you have to strip naked to be able to enter the shower and jacuzzi area. Yes, no swimwear, no underwear, just your courage and kapal ng mukha.
For first-timers like my colleagues and I, it was a bit unnerving. But the female staff was so nice and encouraged us to relax and release our inhibitions. Well, do as the Romans do, right? Or in this case, do what the Koreans do.
We were, however, able to rent a medium-sized towel for cover-up. But in the jacuzzi, we had to ditch it so yeah.
Personally, I was able to overcome the hiya by just thinking that my body has been seen by countless nurses and doctors during the times I gave birth to my daughters. Plus the other women in the room didn’t mind at all. They didn’t stare or anything, they were just minding their own business. The time we went in was also a factor — it was after lunch on a weekday, so there weren’t a lot of people yet.
After shedding the nerves of being naked around my colleagues, I got to enjoy the pools. There were 4 hot pools and one ice pool, each infused with essences and feature their own benefits. Note that you have to dip slowly in the pools to allow your body to get comfortable with the temperature.
Inside the jacuzzi area is the steam sauna, which we didn’t enter because we found it too hot. Couldn’t last 10 seconds in it so we skipped that.
After that, we dried up and dressed up to be able to go to the common area where the kilns are. But before that, we made our yangmeori or the sheep head with one of our small towels. There’s an illustrated tutorial but you can ask the friendly staff to help you out, too.
And so up we went to the common area where you can find the other amenities: sleeping pods, snack bar, common area, KTV, and the kilns. There are 5 kilns with varying temperatures: 4 hot and 1 cold. They look like dry sauna rooms, one even looked like an igloo. First impression was that I felt like a pan de sal in a pugon, lels! There’s no real order in using the kilns but I did the hot ones first before entering the ice room (which looked like a freezer that hasn’t been defrosted for so long) so that my pores would close up. Hehe!
Our package included a one-hour full-body massage and boy, was that an experience. It was relaxing until the masseuse did that neck-crack thing. It was my first time to experience that so I kinda panicked, haha! Also, she made sure to eliminate all the lamig in my muscles. My back and shoulders did feel a bit better afterwards.
After that, snacks and videoke. No heavy meals inside the spa but you can try out the restaurants at the first floor for a filling lunch or dinner. But inside New Lasema Spa, we had ramyeon, fish cake, kimbap, tteokbokki, fries, and some beer.
We were there for about 9 hours, and I noticed that more people were coming in by late afternoon. By evening, the locker room seemed packed. Take note, that was a Monday. I guess many people really needed that sort of break, especially this hectic month.
Overall, I actually liked my first time at New Lasema Spa. Maybe next time I can bring hubby there so he can experience authentic jimjilbang where he can take off the stress. He’d like it for sure.
If you’re curious about New Lasema Spa, you can visit their Facebook page to see details. They’re not very responsive to messages on FB, however, but the testimonials of customers posted on their page are pretty helpful especially if it would be your first time to visit.
Will definitely be back!