Aramsa-ing

Another delayed post. Heh.

About a week before the wedding day, I turned up at Aramsa – The Garden Spa. It was the boy’s very sweet treat.

It was a pretty hot day so I was sooooo glad I took a cab. Since I was going to pamper myself, might as well go the whole hog, right?

I registered myself and was provided with a locker key. Made my way to the changing room and was pleasantly surprised.

Such a pretty erm, ladies room! Steel buckets were used as basins and within, there were lockers, a sauna, shower stalls in the open (ok, not open open but they were ‘nature’ shower stalls), changing rooms, etc.

There was also a corner filled with a hair dryer, cotton buds, moisturing lotion, etc etc. Definitely well-equipped!

I changed out of my clothes and into the bathrobe they provided. I also changed into their rubber slippers and then made my way back into the ‘waiting area’ to wait for the masseuse to call for me.

Available were magazines, biscuits and lemongrass+ginger tea (free flow!) and I helped myself to some. Ahh….life

Soon, it was time for my massage.

It started off with the ‘oil prep’ which is pretty much having the masseuse apply some sort of scented (lavendar, I believe) body oil all over the body. Next up was the ‘floral-infused exfoliation’ which is pretty much the body scrub using some sort of scented erm, scrub.

At this point, I was starting to feel like a a chicken being marinated for dinner. Heh. Once that was done, I had to take a quick shower before the massage. There was an outdoor rain shower connected to the room so after she took her leave, I stepped under it. Very nice.

Next came the ’shiatsu focus massage’ which was ok. It wasn’t the best I’ve had nor the worst. But a massage is always better than no massage. Following the massage was the ‘remineralising mud therapy’. Originally, I had thought that my entire body will be covered in mud but apparently not. Only my spine (!) had some sort of warm bubbling (!!) liquid covering it – I had to lie carefully onto it, ensuring that my spine was over the liquid. Pretty strange. Not sure how that ‘remineralised’ me…

Lastly, I had the ‘relaxing scalp massage’. This was done concurrently with the mud therapy above. Can’t quite remember much because I was pretty relaxed and sleepy by then.

I was quite reluctant to get off the massage bed after. Sigh.

All in, it was a pretty relaxing experience but definitely something for special occassions only. To be honest, I did not think the overall experience justified the pretty high price of the package. Also, I notice that the staff will always try and entice you into signing up for a package. Even though I told them specifically that this particular session was a gift (i.e. it’s a one-off thing!), they did not let up and tried to sell me the 10x package and then as a last resort, the 5x package, telling me all about the savings, blah blah blah. The usual selling spiel.

I am aware that they are only doing their job and granted, they were very polite about it. However, there’s something about stepping out of a spa session feeling all refreshed and then having a sales pitch.

It just leaves a bit of a bad aftertaste, ya know?

I do not rule out returning but again, only as a special treat. Very very occassionally.