Ganban'Yoku

I had a delightful relaxing treat yesterday! One of my coworkers (Mel, who I mentioned before has been in Japan quite a while and knows all sorts of useful stuff) invited all the English speaking girls from work to try Ganban'Yoku. Its a kind of detox spa treatment where you lay on hot stone tiles and sweat for set periods of time. The idea is that you sweat out all of the impurities in your skin and leave all warmed up and refreshed. That sounded lovely to the rest of us, so we willingly followed along.

When we arrived, we paid for the treatment, registered as members (because it was cheaper to buy a membership than to pay for one treatment as a non-member), left our shoes in the entrance and stepped up into a hallway where we were presented with tote bags. Inside each tote was a pair of cotton - well - pajamas for lack of a better word, two small towels and one big towel. Mel showed us to the locker room and then told us that we could choose to shower before the stones or after. She recommended before, so we followed suit. We scrubbed down in private showers and changed into the "pajamas." After we were all clean, we followed Mel into the resting room. This room has benches to sit on, an oxygen bar in the corner, and lots and lots of purified water (purified with black silica from Hokkaido, no less). We drank a bunch of water and then headed into the hot room. The humidity was oppressive (but what would you expect?). We had four stalls in a row, each with four large slate tiles lined up body-length on the floor. Mel showed us how to arrange our towel on the stones so that we wouldn't bur ourselves and then instructed us to spend five minutes on our stomach and ten minutes on our back - then we would meet out in the resting room again. To judge time there was both a small clock and a five minute sand timer. The sand timer was way cooler, so I just used that. After fifteen minutes was up, we met out in the resting room and sat for five minutes before round two. One of our compatriots decided to experiment with the oxygen bar. She put 100 yen in the machine (about one dollar) and scented oxygen blew out of a little nose piece she hooked around her ears like earphones. The novelty wore off quickly, though, and she was soon trying to get one of use to spell her because she was bored. Too bad. She didn't seem to sense much benefit from the experience.

We repeated this cycle - fifteen minutes in, five minutes to cool down - three times. Each time we would come out sweatier than before, but dry off most of the way before going back in. By the last time we emerged we were all mostly soaked through. We returned to the locker room, and toweled off. Next we moved on to the primping room - where there were moisturizer products and blow-dryers. Once we were all fancied up, we moved on to our last stop - the tea room. We had a choice of two complimentary teas and two complimentary jellies. The tea choices were yuzu (a citrus gel that is dissolved in hot water) or ginger tea. The jellies were agar agar in cubes in a cup. There were hibiscus flavored jellies and another plain but slightly sweet jelly that had this powder on top that I absolutely love but can never remember the name of. It has a vaguely peanut butter taste, though there isn't any connection to the nut. I opted for the yuzu tea and powdered jelly. It was delicious.

Since we became members, we also got a gift certificate for an inexpensive facial with our next ganban'yoku treatment. I would never have ventured into a place like this on my own, but for $15 all told I may just have to go back.