Coffee, Sake, Wine! Oh, my!

Wow! A wine spa is now open (reopened, actually) in Hakone, a very popular spa & hot spring area in Japan. Here, you can bathe in red wine, sake, green tea and even coffee!

Check it out for yourself here:
Hakone Kowakien Yunessun

I heard about it first from Oddity Central's article.

Seoul, Dongdaemoon - Haevitch (Havitz) Spa World

Guest reviewer: Cami 

This spa is on the 12th floor of the Cerestar building in Dongdaemun, right behind the Migliore building. Exit Dongdaemun station at exit 8, and walk towards the Migliore building. It will be on your right, and the signs are hard to miss. 
Equally distant is Dondaemun History and Culture Park Station (동대문역사문화공원역). Use Exit 14 (green line) and walk straight, then it will be on your left.

Haevitch Spa World is a brand new place, very modern and clean. The whole facility is one floor, and has a Korean restaurant, snack bar, noodle restaurant, noraebang, PC room, small sleeping room with beds, small workout area with treadmills, men's and women's baths, and a jimjilbang area. The baths are nothing to write home about- just warm, hot and event, 2 small cold pools, and a steam room that is super-hot. The woman working behind the counter in the women's bath speaks limited English and is very nice and helpful. It is brand new and very clean, but quite small. One interesting thing in the baths are the skin-scrubbing ladies...they are wearing...wait for it...printed bras and panties! I saw red, pink, animal print! It was wild and crazy since normally its always plain black everywhere you go around the country. 

While the baths are pretty small, the awesome thing about Spa Haevitch is the incredible view from the main jimjilbang room. It looks out over Chong-gyae-cheon stream, the fabric market, all the way up to the mountains up north. The workout room also has this great view. In the jimjilbang area are a bulgama room (pine wood), a charcoal room, a salt room (the hottest), an ice room, a gold room, and some sleeping caves and a wood room that is room temperature. To me, the jimjilbangs are not quite hot enough, but they are very clean and smell great. The main room is the best part though, try to score a mat by the windows and you can lay around checking out the view. I've been on a Friday night and Saturday afternoon, and it was not crowded and there were few children other than mine. There is a very small game room, but my kids just loved gazing out the window and trying all the nice jimjilbang rooms since they weren't too hot. The restaurant has your usual Korean fare, but also samgaetang (chicken soup) which I haven't seen at a spa before.

I highly recommend this place as a spot to warm up and relax after a hard day of shopping in Dongdaemun's many markets and department stores, or as a place to crash in the wee hours if you are out in Dongdaemun doing midnight shopping. 

Rates:

Sauna only
5am~8pm Adults: 7,000 won / Kids: 5,000 won
After 8pm (overnight) 10,000 won / Kids: 7,000 won

Sauna + Jjimjilbang5am~8pm Adults: 10,000 won / Kids: 7,000 won
After 8pm (overnight) 13,000 won / Kids: 10,000 won 

(Kids= 6 & under)

Spa Website (Korean only)

Wikimapia of Haevitch Spa World (in the Freya Tower marked on this map)

Visit Korea site on Havitz Spa World

Seoul, Sinchon - Sinchon Rest

Sinchon Rest has a very old feel to it.  For some reason they don't give the women keys at the desk, but the give the men some.  Instead you go in, find a locker, and grab the key from the locker.  The wet area had an assortment of standing and sitting showers.  There were two saunas, one stone and one wood.  For bathes there was a hot, a hotter, and a freezing.

In terms of sleeping this jjimjilbang is amazing, especially for women.  There were sleeping areas right there in the wet area if you didn't feel comfortable going to the mixed area to sleep.  The sleeping room was on the fourth floor and had a large mixed area, as well as a glassed off area with bunks for women only.  There was a small room just for men on the floor below next to the gym and nail/hair salon.

They had four of the dome shaped saunas in the mixed area.  Two were open and not hot at all, while the other two were likely to scorch your skin off, nothing in between.  The ice room was very nice though and actually had a window to the street, though it wasn't much of a view.

The restaurant only served the most basic of dishes, but was open twenty-four hours and they had a wide assortment of beverages, even beer.

My complaints with the place:

There were very, very few mats, despite the abundance of pillows.

There was no vendor or even a vending machine in the wet area to buy shampoo or anything else you forgot.

The place was rather old and a little rundown in places.

The bath area was very basic and the pools left a lot to be desired.

My Conclusion:

I'd stay there to sleep, but I'd make sure to bring anything I might need to shower, and I wouldn't look to stay there for just relaxing.

If you're female, this is probably one of the best places you can stay without a worry about an overly friendly ahjussi.

Directions, as far as I can tell from the map: From Sinchon subway station, go out of Exit 3. Walk north along Yonsei-ro towards Yonsei University, turn right at the Paris Baguette, and you should find it near (across from?) the GS25.

Google Map of Jjimjilbang (Click on Sinchon Rest in left hand column)

Written by guest reviewer: Caitlin