A little R&R

If you have been reading my blog for awhile you may recall an early post about Ganbanyoku. This is the spa treatment where you lay a towel over hot stone tiles and sweat away. I went twice with an early co-worker and while I quite enjoyed the experience I never really established a routine for going. Once my co-worker had moved away from Japan I just stopped going.

One of the reasons it was less appealing was because it was for women only. I couldn't take Russell and I felt bad leaving him out. Especially when the only time I could go was weekends.

Recently, I had been talking with a different co-worker about going, but we never seemed to get around to it. Finally, her husband looked around online and discovered that there is a rather enormous spa in Kobe that not only has Ganbanyoku, but is open to men and women alike. The two of them had tried it out during Golden week and came back raving about it. They both wanted Russell and I to join them the next time they went.

This weekend turned out to be the weekend.

The spa was amazing. It cost approximately $24 each, we were given cotton pajamas, a robe, towels, etc and then had access to an impressive array of hotspring baths and saunas, several different ganbanyoku rooms, relaxation rooms, an internet room, comics room and movie theatre. There was also free tea.

We started in the hotsprings (these were sex segregated), scrubbed down and soaked for a while. We tried some different saunas and then my co-worker and I changed into the cotton pajamas and met the boys in the ganbanyoku area. There were several different temperature/ atmosphere rooms with a large resting area in the middle. The resting area had a variety of mats, cushions and chairs, all overlooking the Kobe view from the 13th story. It was night time when we went, so the lights were beautiful.

Technically we could have stayed until 3am, but after three hours (we arrived around 7pm) we decided to head out in search of food.

Maybe if I need to work late one night I will just go spend the night at the spa? Could be worse...