I love bathing cultures of all kinds. It’s the beauty girl in me. I’ve been lucky to have worked in a number of wellness and fitness settings professionally and it’s privileged me to experiences that make one feel deeply human.
The modern Korean spas are dazzling and as enjoyable to me as natural Rocky Mountain hot springs. Baltic and Nordic sauna feels like home. One day I’d like to do a Japanese Onsen.
Being in Istanbul I wanted a chance to experience the Turkish hammams. If I was a bucket list sort of person this would be on it.
In a past life I worked on the Standard Hotels whose Miami property has a local spin on hammam culture. I loved the baths and cisterns with the heated floors.
But I’d not had the pleasure of experiencing the real thing until today.
The domed architecture with the elephants eye lighting is a wonder of the world. Humanity has been finding ways to incorporate beauty into uplifting our bodily function for all of recorded history.
To lay on warmed marble and look up at the light while cocooned in warmth and water is a fine way to be embodied. And for a little aside for a certain set would you believe the name of the hammam? It was qualia. If that isn’t the inverse tugging at me what else could it possibly be.