Bathhouse Basics (8): The ‘Special Event Pool’ (이벤트탕)
- a ‘special event pool’ (이벤트탕)
I’ve always found e-bente-tangs to be the biggest disappointment in bathhouses and always a tongue-in-cheek anti-climax. I can remember sitting in e-bente-tangs in the past, waiting for something to happen and rarely anything did. Most often, the ‘event’ I anticipated was already in play. Don’t let the title mislead you, e-bente-tang are much like the ‘Korean holiday,’ or ‘final exam,’ by which I mean they are usually the opposite of what they claim to be.
- Special event pools outside
E-bente-tang are smaller sized pools which are usually mid range in terms of temperature and which have some added feature such as: coloured or scented water or coloured lighting radiating from within the pool. They may also uses a combination of features or have the capabilities of a jacuzzi.The most frequent colours are green, red or blue and the most common scents are ginseng, lavender, berry, herb, mugwort (쑥) and pine.
- Coloured water ‘event’ pools’
Despite being less eventful than the name suggests, e-bente-tang are great places to relax and are often one of the pools in which you can languish for long periods without getting too hot or cold. The addition of coloured water or aromas adds a touch of pampering to the experience.
© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Elwood 5566 
Thanks for explaining the ‘event’ bath a little bit – I have always wondered what it meant, and what ‘event’ could possibly happen there!
Ari, ‘what happens there??’ – not much. Thanks
[…] baths looked good. There were seven inside and two outside. I slipped into one of the two ‘event pools’ , an unusual ‘lemon’ flavour as I recall. It was all right, I suppose. I hung about […]