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I’ve always been curious about acupuncture, and it intensified after my mom told me about the clarity she experienced while undergoing it recently back home. I’ve had other friends who have said the same thing.

So my fiance and I finally decided to go for it. On Koreabridge message boards, we found this place: the Shimhae Clinic (심해  한의원) in Gwangan. People posted how they got acupuncture for 8,000 won a session – which beats the pants off of the $150 my mom is paying per session back home.

I tried calling ahead of time to make and appointment (051-751-0999), but they don’t speak English. We decided just to go for it. The language thing was a very small problem, but after some miming (don’t worry – acupuncture is easy to mime), we filled out our names on a card, and were whisked away to the back and put on beds next to each other.

There’s a decent amount of waiting involved – so allow yourself some time. You wait a little bit in the beginning, lie down, a little, get hooked up to a machine, wait a little, the doctor comes, wait a little, the needles go in, wait a little… yeah. We were there for about 2 hours in all.

Some of the treatments were crazy – the kind of crazy that I was hoping for from my first experience with alternative medicine. I got hooked up to a sucker/massager before my needles, while my fiance got a pot of incense put on her stomach, then needles, then a weird blood sucker thing on her back. Weird and awesome!

Anyway, it felt great getting it all done. Afterwards, we actually got put into a room with a doctor who spoke some pretty good English, and she talked to us about what we had done. She also mentioned some herbal medicine that we should get… but be warned… it costs 200,000 a bag, so don’t make a mistake by accidentally buying it. The acupuncture treatment was about 8,000 for each of us (use your health insurance card, or just your ARC card).

Get some acupuncture!

Directions:
The Long Way (metro):
Metro Gwangan, exit 3. Do an about-face and turn LEFT down the main street towards the beach. Go 7 blocks down and turn LEFT again. It should be the first main street you come to. Walk down a while, and you should see the Shimhae clinic on your right, in a free-standing house. If you get to the big fork in the road that goes to Suyeong or Haeundae, you’ve gone too far.

Alternatively, and for a more direct route, take the bus:
FROM EAST OF GWANGAN: any metro line 2 station between Jigegol and Namcheon: Take the 41, 83-1 or 108 to the Gwangan-li Haesu-yokjang (광안리해수욕장) stop; exit the bus, walk about a minute, and you’ll see the Shimhae clinic on your right, in a free-standing house.
FROM WEST OF GWANGAN: any metro line 2 station between Jangsan and Dongbaek: Take the 38 to the Gwangan-li Nonghyeop-ap (광안농협앞) stop; exit the bus, do an about-face, and you’ll see the Shimhae clinic on your right across the street.