Seoul - Day 2: EcoJardin Spa & Korean BBQ

I woke up around 3am today...about on par with the previous Tokyo trip experience. But this time without the twins in the same room, I actually managed to fall back asleep at 5 for another two hours or so, making my overall sleep total for the night a full 7 hours! But according to my Fitbit, it wasn't great sleep and my resting heart rate is very elevated. Oh well -- at least it's not complete sleep deprivation. 

Today our plan was to begin the day with a visit to the Google Seoul office -- it was actually a really nice walk from the apartment to the office - cold but not unbearable, perfect for feeling more awake.

Visitors are only allowed on Mondays and Fridays so this was basically the only day we could come this trip. As with Tokyo, the view from the office was quite impressive:

Very clear skies too -- could see the mountains in the background really well. Someone told us today that Seoul actually has a lively hiking culture -- one day when we come back as a family I'll be sure to add some hiking to the itinerary.

The cafe spread was not outrageously elaborate but it was still cool to see how different it was from a US cafe breakfast spread. I was told many of the things weren't very traditionally Korean though -- like the fried cheese stick in the middle of the right plate and the Caesar salad. But hey -- still tasty!

The highlight was definitely the juicer though. There were fresh whole apples, kiwis, carrots, and pomegranates that you could cut up and personally press into juice. Everyone had multiple glasses -- gotta keep up the vitamin C immunity when you're traveling!

The Google office was helpfully on the same subway line as our Eco Jardin scalp treatment location so off we went to experience the subway system in Seoul: 

Learnings here: like in Tokyo, cash is helpful for using the subway. So...perhaps unlike China, having at least a little cash in Korea is still necessary. We were very glad that V was able to spot us - having a "local" friend is so helpful!

Eco Jardin is a chain with a bunch of different locations in Seoul. I think they're known as the ones who first introduced this 18-step scalp cleanse concept so lots of people recommend them. I'm sure there are lots of other spa places who do very similar things but hey, in the name of travel research, we figured we would go with the originals.  We made our appointments for the Eco Jardin Jamsil mall location -- which is the same mall that has the Seoul Sky observation tower and the Studio Ghibli store (important info to store away for future trips with family!). 

I started off with a color consult -- I knew it would be a little gimmicky/questionable in value but I was so curious I couldn't help myself. Y and H both got haircuts -- they report that the cuts were very simple -- felt like they were a little rushed and didn't feel like the folks were really that precisely getting it perfect (compared to haircut places in Taiwan). Probably took 10 minutes, but they reported that they did do a good job styling it. To be fair the haircut was also pretty cheap -- so good deal if you need a haircut anyhow but otherwise not worth adding.  

So - back to the color consult! Here's the first step -- confirming what numbers you are based on your lip, cheek, skin, and hair colors. I was basically all warm. My hair was a slightly browner tint than I expected, same with my eyes, my skin was actually more peach than brown and my cheeks were pinker than I expected.

Then we started comparing my face against various swatches. First we did comparisons of cold vs. warm swatches to confirm that I was warm. This part I found interesting because it really was quite noticeable that the cold ones made my cheek redness stand out and the dark circles under my eyes more prominent whereas the warm colors just made my face more generally one single color. We did this for all the major colors - blue, green, yellow, red, and pink. 

And then after that was confirmed, we compared the two warm color versions between spring and fall to see those differences. For these, it was more that springs made my face look brighter (second picture) while autumn made my face darker (first picture). 

I do think a lot of this is just being under a bright light and lighter colors making you look lighter because of the light reflecting on your face. Nonetheless, it was interesting enough that I think it was worth the cost to do once. The woman also said I should look to navy and browns instead of black and ivories or creams instead of bright white. If nothing else, this really highlighted how much of an issue dark circles are for me! Will keep that in mind for Olive Young visit...

If some of you folks reading are also Asian and thinking of doing this, I'll say that my consultant admitted that almost all Asians are warm colors, though some are more autumn instead of spring. To summarize my personal results: Pink: aim more for a darker peach -- otherwise it accents my red splotches on my cheeks. Red: aim more for orange-red. Blue: aim for turquoise for darker and seafoam for lighter. Yellow: marigold more than light or bright yellows. Green: pastel or backup olive, not forest or green-blue. 

And now into the scalp portion! Here are all the steps. I took a video of the first 15 min or so with all the red light and blue light and serum cleansers and such. They're pretty good at upselling -- we all came in planning to do the 15 step and we all ended up upgrading to the 18. 

Why you ask? Well they use this camera to show you scary photos of your scalp and how yellow and gunky it looks:

So then it's like -- oof, I better add some conditioning after all! Here's me in the steaming portion. I don't look so amused. But after this there were some massage steps too which were VERY enjoyable. 

They then put a bunch of other stuff and such on my scalp and massaged it in. And then I moved to the washing room which was VERY soothing. These steps now focused on the hair instead of the scalp -- basically involved striping your hair of the environmental elements and then adding moisture back in.  You're also in a massage chair the whole time so you just end up not wanting to move at all. I started feeling very very sleepy...

But after 20 min or so, they made me get up for the final steps: blow-drying, adding hair growth serum and then finally styling. 

They also take you back to the camera room to show you how clean each strand now looks.

Here's a before shot:

And the after! (Yes I look a little dazed -- try to overlook that -- the washing portion was just very sleep inducing!!)

So was it worth it? I'm actually blogging this a day later and can report that my hair is much cleaner and lighter and bouncier even today compared to normal. I do have my suspicions on whether the 18 step was really necessary or how long the cleanness really lasts (my person said she does it once a month) but it certainly was an enjoyable "pamper" experience.  If you are headed to Seoul and want to visit this specific Eco Jardin, I took down the manager's Whatsapp and she promised that I can offer friends (or friends of friends) a 10% discount -- feel free to reach out! (zoubavacations@gmail.com).

After this, we walked around the mall a bit - including popping outside for an obligatory snap of the Seoul Sky/Lotte Tower.

After this we decided Lotte malls were not quite our thing (too many high end brands for our budgets 😆) -- so we decided to go hit up some vintage places instead over in Garosu-gil. We all had a few finds, which we modeled for each other back at the apartment:

By now it was time for dinner -- Michelin starred Korean BBQ at Samwon Garden.

The garden was truly beautiful, especially at night with the lights. Gets us into the Christmas spirit!

The private room was also beautifully set up - I have never been to a Korean BBQ where the chef literally prepares every course right behind you. 

There were so many courses that I have to choose just a few of my favorites to showcase here. This is the nine treasure pancake, apparently very traditional for Korean holidays but very time consuming to make all the treasures:

Here's the spread of kimchis and side dishes that accompanied all the meats:

We had five different meat courses - here's all of them being shown to us (it's like bringing the live fish to the table).

And here's just one of them in cooked form -- the plating was so artful too.

For the LAP crew -- there was crab!! The famous Korean raw crab -- you squeeze out the meat or scoop up the innards and then mix it with rice in the shell to eat. 

We even had a sashimi course. This is when we realized we were going to stuffed...because this was practically a meal sized chirashi bowl.

This was truly a meal for the memory books. Here's the menu for those who are into that sort of thing:

After all that...we were definitely ready for bed again. They even sent us off with some digestive powder (tasted horrible, but we all still took it because we all could tell we were going to need help digesting 😆). 

Tomorrow...skincare treatment day!