Not may pictures from the Turkish bath "Hamam", but it was fun! :)
There are public baths in Turkey similar to Korean ones, and those are tourist spots. We found some brochures from our hotel, and decided to give it a try. We chose the one for mixed genders since it is usually for couples. :)
The concept, public bath, seems very similar to the ones in Korea. Moreover, they also have massage service. However, it is completely different from my point of view.
First of all, the locker rooms were in different form. I guess it was because the Hamam where we went to was for couples. Once we enter to the building, there were locker rooms around the Hall on the second floor. We received some clothes to cover our bodies and a key for the locker room from the counter. The locker room was small that only two people can change their clothes. A big bath towel for man, and bikini-like clothes and a small bath towel to cover the lower half of the body for woman. Like the picture below.
only the upper half of our bodies ;P
And then we came back to the hall wearing wooden sandal, and went into the waiting room. We couldn't bring our camera. ;( When they called our name, we could finally get into the bath hall. The biggest difference was that there was a flat stone bench(?) in the middle of the hall with high ceiling dome. Around the middle point, there were faucets in four ways, and two massage rooms and the entrance and the exit in between faucets. See the picture below.
The hall was filled with warm steam. It was hard to endure in the end even for us after 30 minutes of waiting to be called.
Finally they called our names! We were excited to peel off our dead skins from the last six weeks of traveling Europe. However, they soaked towels into lots of soap bubble, and they used the same bubble to wash my hair.. LOL.
After rinse the entire body with cold water, we left the hall. And then an assistant came to us, and rolled our body and hair with dry towels.
There was a tea time(?) while waiting our body to dry. And it's end! We didn't feel refreshed as much as Korean style of massage, however, it was worth to try.
Those kinds of Hamam, the tourist spots, are usually have hundreds of years of history. I would recommend to try a Hamam to get exotic experiences.
연구실에서 처음 사진 두장 보고 화들짝(?) 스크롤을 내리고 뒤 돌아봤다는...;; ㅎㅎ
^^;