Sunday, February 10, 2008

Beverly Hot Springs -- try it, you'll like it!

Yesterday I had a wonderful time with my beautiful adopted daughter, Elizabeth. She introduced me to the Beverly Hot Springs – on Beverly Boulevard just east of Western. This facility, besides its natural hot springs, offers Japanese style body scrubs and polishes and both Shiatsu and Swedish massages. We both booked the scrubs and Shiatsus and spent some time just languishing in the hot pool with lots of other naked women. Afterward we had lunch at a Vegan restaurant on La Cienega called Real Food Daily – a perfect way to end such an envigorating and cleansing experience.

So a little bit first about the scrub. An Asian woman – I think Japanese – dressed in a black bra top, short tights and flip flops called me out of the hot bath to follow her into the scrub room that contained a row of plastic narrow beds. She told me to lie face down and covered my entire naked body and head –except one leg – with hot wet towels. With a loofa and some kind of soap she began scrubbing that leg – hard and fast. She continued with the same hard and fast movements until she had scrubbed my entire body – back and front, shampooed and massaged my head, and massaged my back and shoulders – all the while tossing buckets of hot water on me or hosing me down. I felt as if she took seven layers of skin off of me. Needless to say, my skin is smoother than it’s been for years.

Next I dried off, put on a pair of pajamas and was escorted into a little room where my Shiatsu masseur, Mr. Kim, was waiting. He told me to lie face down on a heated massage table, covered me with warm towels, and proceeded to find tight and stiff points in my body that I never knew or even wanted to know existed. It was agony. I kept moaning and he kept asking me if I was okay, and dummy that I was, I kept asking for more – for the entire 50 minutes. But, of course the pain was worth it. I’m a little sore today, but really feel so good.

After that was finally over – and I’m not sure that I’ll go back for another Shiatsu – I met up with Elizabeth. We went back into the pool, then into the steam bath, and into the shower yet again. By the time we left we were thoroughly cleansed and exhausted. The massage really took it out of me – while he was pressing into me I was sweating as much as I do when I’m working out at the gym.

Even so, it was well worth it. Already I'm ready to go back for more scrubbing for sure. Wanna try it?

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