A New Room and Korean BBQ

As my last post left off, I will get right into the hotel and living accommodations. After two nights in the first room, I switched to a new room with a new layout and design. Each floor of this hotel has a different style of room including the furniture, flooring, bathroom layout, bathroom fixtures, and even the hallways and doors are different. I moved from a dark dungeon-like room to a Japanese Dojo style room. It smells like my humidor at home but there was a pamphlet explaining that the fresh wood is called Hinoki. Hinoki wood helps to overcome fatigue, disinfect, deodorize, increase blood circulation, and boosts metabolism. Maybe this explains why I slept for 9 hours last night and didn’t get anywhere close to that in the dungeon room. The window doesn’t have shades, just four sliding doors which are pretty cool. The tub is wooden which is bizarre; I’ll have to try it out sometime. Still the one foot wide closet and one square foot mini-fridge but at least the TV is centered on the bed and I have a desk now. In the first room the sinks and counters were at Western height (Western in Korea refers to the U.S.) but in the new room they are at about the height of my knee.


The old dungeon room

  

The large sofa was the only thing close to a desk

 

My new Dojo Room

  

The Wooden Tub

 

First time I've ever seen a bidet


 

Very cool lighting and the massive bed

 

Another angle of the room

 

With the doors shut





The hotel is in a very cool location as my amateur exploring has noticed. It is attached to a large outdoor shopping mall much like The Grove or The Americana with a convention center attached in the other direction. The two tallest buildings in Changwon are on the same block so it’s easy to pick out from a mile or two down the road if I ever get disoriented.  This area is referred to as “City 7” and everyone here seems to know about it and how nice it is. There are a few restaurants and bars in the hotel but they are very expensive. Luckily the breakfast is included in the room. Dinner at the buffet is 46,000 KRW (about $42). Seeing as I just ate brunch at the Sunset Marquis in Beverly Hills for $47 a person, I know the Changwon buffet won’t even come close and thus plan to never try it. The local mall has a bunch of places to eat ranging from Dunkin Donuts, The Coffee Bean, McDonalds, KFC, some French places, a pizza place, but mostly cool Korean restaurants. The American places have the same logos but completely different menus. At the hotel there is an indoor and outdoor pool, a fitness center that puts any 24 Fitness to shame, and a Sauna with about 20 hot tubs, all at different temperatures noted by signs. Yes, the Koreans do not allow bathing suits in their all-male sauna. In America we think of a sauna as a hot wooden box. Here a sauna is like a spa – hot tubs, showers, TV lounge, place you can get a haircut, brush your teeth, etc. If it has to do with looking and feeling good chances are it is at the sauna. Although attached to the hotel I think the sauna and pools are part of a membership program like at a local YMCA because there were only Koreans using these facilities and I haven’t seen any Koreans staying at this hotel.

On the first night here we all went out to a Korean BBQ place in the local outdoor mall. You could either sit in chairs or on the ground – we sat in chairs. You pick your protein and they handle the rest. A grill sits in front of you with hot coals underneath and you cook your food. When it is done you eat it in a lettuce wrap with some toppings. Toppings include garlic (abundant in Korea), hot sauce, kimchi, and pickled sprouts. Kimchi is a very popular Korean side-dish which is like pickled cabbage. It has been served at every Korean meal eaten thus far. I wouldn’t eat it by the bowl but it is tasty in its own way. It was a delicious meal – we all had beef as our protein. One thing I am noticing about everywhere we eat – napkins are tiny (smaller than American Tissues), and Koreans don’t drink a lot at each meal. The beer glasses are the size of a triple shot glass, and the water cups are about 1.5 cups.

 

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A little different than the Kogi Korean BBQ truck

 

You can see the tiny glass towards the top



So much has happened already and I wish I could just spill my thoughts and experiences right onto the blog as they are going on right in front of me. My next posting will cover eating lunch at the Samsung Cafeteria and the journey’s experienced over the weekend.