Lilly and Zach: Memorial Weekend

We enjoyed our four day weekend for Memorial day and took advantage of the local pools. Ramon finally agreed to go to a place called Spa Valley, that I had been bugging him to go. We went on Friday, which was great because the place was pretty empty. The capacity of this water park is 100,000, so I imagine it can get pretty crazy. Spas are very common in Korea and you can find them everywhere. It was common in the 1970's and 1980's for Koreans not to be able to afford hot water, so once a week they would go to spas or a bath house to get a good scrub. Spa Valley has 4 floors and on one of the floors, patrons can still enjoy a good bath. They also have a kiddie pool, amniotic fluid bath (not sure about that one!), steam rooms and whirlpool type pools and that was on the inside. Outdoors is a huge water park with a lazy river and slides. The outdoor portion was not open when we went, another thing in Korea- they only open their beaches and pools for about 2 months. Usually end of June to August. Very strange since this last week, the temps have been in the 90's already! I pulled some pictures off the website, since I didn't take many inside.

Dr. Fish is a popular skin treatment for your feet. It was found in Turkey and has been brought over to Asian countries and I've read, some places in the U.S. Of course the U.S. prices for this are outrageous, while I only paid $3.00 to stick my feet into a pool of hungry fish. These fish are toothless carpe, very small and feed off of dead skin cells. I had been wanting to try this since we got here and Spa Valley has an area right in the entrance. I thought I could handle the feel of them, but it was kind of intense and then when I saw them nibbling at my ankles, I kind of freaked out. I don't think my feet lasted 5 minutes in there. I did notice how smooth they were though even for that short amount of time! Maybe I will try it again?!

This was also the day Ramon got his braces off, so maybe that's why he finally wanted to go, to show off his new smile!

Lilly wasn't as excited about the water as we were anticipating, but I think she still had a good time.

Zach enjoyed lounging around!

Lilly is trying to sneak snacks out of the bag.

Later that weekend it was really warm so we decided to try the pool on post. It had just opened up for the weekend, so the water was very cold and we were one of the only ones there. Lilly had the whole kiddie pool to herself. She liked the water a little more this time.