Paging Dr. Fish

Mel pointed out earlier this afternoon that we came to Korea for the first time exactly four years ago today. If you'd told me in 2006 that I'd still be strutting around Seoul four years later, I'd have been pretty surprised. But, we're still here and Korea has been pretty good to us.

We didn't have any special plans for the day, and we're trying to live frugally until our trip to Beijing, so we decided to check out the nearby Dr. Fish cafe in Gangnam. At Dr. Fish you can put your feet in fish tanks where special fish will eat the dry skin off your feet. It's meant to feel like a pedicure.

It was raining, so we took a bus up the road (it's only a 20 minute walk) to the cafe. On the way there we passed by dozens of cafes that don't have fish that will eat your feet, but where's the fun in stopping at a cafe like that?

The cafe might be a little hard to find because the signage is all in Korean and it doesn't mention anything about Dr. Fish on the sign. The cafe is actually called "Namu (tree) something something". It's on the second floor of the big BSX building.

When we arrived we were told that we should first buy a drink, then finish the drink and finally we could use the fish tanks. The cafe was actually really nice and we were able to get seats by the windows overlooking Gangnamdaero, which is probably the busiest street in the country. We'd both been sick earlier in the week and missed one of our Korean classes so we brought our textbooks to study and catch up in the workbook. There was also a complimentary self-serve bread buffet, with a half dozen types of breads to toast up and butter as you see fit. We'd only had a light breakfast and took much advantage of this.

Nobody used the fish tanks the whole time we were there- at least an hour- and just as we were ready to use them a western family of 50 sat themselves down around the tanks. Actually, we noticed that the whole time we were there only western people were using the fish tanks. Maybe the Koreans know something we don't? Anyway, we had to wait a little while for our turn, but one of the waitresses actually approached us and offered to let us in next, which was pretty nice of her. We took off our shoes, showered off our feet and sat at our tank. It took me a good minute before I was ready to put my feet in that water, but after Mel pointed out that the entire cafe was basically staring at me, I decided to man up and serve my delicious feet to the hungry fishies.

It was revolting. I wanted to puke the whole time. Really. This is how Mel looked during our pedicure:

And here's me:

At first there was only a few fish on me but soon I looked down and there must have been 30 slithering their way over each foot. It felt like someone was rubbing gummy worms all over my feet. They were so hungry!! After a while... let's say 10 of our allotted 15 minutes, I was able to relax a bit, as long as I didn't look at the fish. I know I'm a puss, but how would you like it if this was happening to you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP6zHTmTVNc

When we got out of the water we realized things could have been much worse. There were only two tanks and the other one was full of much bigger fish... possibly piranhas. I don't know if I could have handled that business because their mouths were huge and they looked like they ate toes.

The whole Dr. Fish experience was really weird but I'm really glad I tried it. I'm writing this a few hours after we went and I will say my feet do feel different. If I were to choose one word to describe how they feel I'd say they feel shaved. We'll have to try the piranhas next time...