Review: Hyundae Health Spa, Koreatown

Amenities: 2/5
Cruisiness: 1/5
Price: $10

Pros: Inexpensive, unlimited small towels, open 24 hours
Cons: Not very clean, limited parking, privacy issues

I'm running out of spas to review, but I found out about this one a few months ago and finally got around to checking it out.

I first tried going there a few weeks earlier, and the parking lot was totally packed, and street parking in the area is limited. So I gave up and ended up at Wi.

I went back recently and was able to find parking. So I went.

When you first walk in, you walk past, basically, a pool hall. Kind of a strange thing to see in a spa. I got to the front counter. Based on their price list, I had assumed that the price was $15, but I gave her a $20 and she gave me $10 change, so I guess I read it wrong. She handed me my key and I headed toward the locker room.

In the lobby, at the entrance to the locker room, is a wall of shoe lockers. Your locker key opens both the corresponding shoe locker and your clothes locker in the locker room. I put my shoes there.

Once in the locker room, I found my locker. The locker room is kind of average. I'd compare it to the locker room at Lions Spa. As I was undressing, I looked at the sign on the wall above my locker, which said something about video surveillance to deter theft. And sure enough, I looked down the wall and there was one of those dome video cameras on the ceiling. IN THE LOCKER ROOM. I mean, I'm a nudist, and there are plenty of naked photos of me on the internet, so I wasn't all that upset by it. But still, as far as I know, that's illegal, right? And I'm sure others might have an issue with it. (Note, you can see the camera on their website here, in the first photo of the gallery: http://www.hyundaehealth.com/facilitiesservices/)

Off the locker room, there was a TV room with recliners, and a restroom.

Once in the spa, the decor and feel of the place was odd... The ceiling was painted blue, and the walls were a brown marble tile that almost looked like wood. And there were some fake plants, and a few large photos of nature scenes on the wall. It felt like I was in the 1980s.

In the middle of the room, right in front of the entrance, were the seated showers. It seemed like a really awkward place to put them. The upright showers were arranged strangely, too. There were clusters of two or three upright showers to the left and right of the entrance, and another pair of showers around the corner. The showers had no barrier between them, and they were pretty close together, so you ended up pretty close to your neighbor. Some of them only had one soap dish to share the bar of soap with your neighbor, too. When I got there, it was actually pretty crowded, with all of the upright showers in use.

The "jacuzzi" (that's what the sign said) was pretty big, and a pretty good temperature, but the jets weren't working. I looked on the walls to see if there was a dial or something to turn on the jets, but I didn't see anything. There might have been a sign, but everything was in Korean. They didn't make much effort to translate many of the signs. While sitting in the jacuzzi, I noticed ants crawling along the wall. There was also a smaller cold pool and hot pool.

The steam room was a moderate size, could maybe handle six or so people. The floor was pebbly, so it was odd to walk on at first if you're not really paying attention to the floor.

Then I went into the sauna. The sauna was a good size, and the temperature seemed ok. I didn't stay in there long though. It had a typical sauna layout with the two-level stair-step benches, but the bottom level had carpet on it. And the carpet looked NASTY. Seriously, looked like several people had ejaculated on it or something. The top level was wood, but it was severely worn down and looked really splintery. So, anyway, I didn't stay more than a minute or so in the sauna. 

They also had a heated-floor room sort of behind where the body scrub area was. (I didn't see anyone getting a body scrub while I was there)... The heated floor room was very large, and there was only one other guy in there while I was there, but most of the time I was in there I had the room to myself, which was kind of creepy. Also strange, there was a restroom off that room. Just for that room, apparently.

The clientele was entirely Korean, probably aged 30s to 60s. I was the only non-Asian in the whole place for the time I was there. And absolutely no cruising going on while I was there. This is not the place to look for sex.

In a nutshell, not my favorite spa, but it's cheap, I guess. I probably won't be returning.

Hyundae Health Center
3625 W. 6th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90020
(Cross streets are 6th and Ardmore - Enter through the parking lot on Ardmore)
http://www.hyundaehealth.com/