Asian Miracle Therapy - Seattle

I love all things Asians. I have an emphasis in East Asian studies and almost enough credits for a minor in it too. I think I’ve told this story before, but, I had a peculiar run in with an Asian man at Target when I was younger that turned me off of Asian people for a long while. He followed me around the store saying....”I buy you that” at everything I picked up. Freaked me out. Anyway. So my fascination with pot stickers goes way back.

I did acupuncture before I left St. Louis- it was in Kirkwood and the woman that answered the phone clearly was Asian, but Stephanie my practitioner clearly was not. Oh well. I let her stick needles in me anyway. It would be rude to say, I’m sorry, I thought you’d be more Asian. The acupuncture was AMAZING. I went in with a headache, which seems to be most days nowadays. She would do pressure tests and when I told her what hurt the most, that’s where she would put the pin. There were two sticking out of my face...right in my site line...freaky! She told me to practice my yoga breathing and relax. It was interesting how different places would react differently. She put one in my arm and I thought it swelled up or something, but it finally calmed down. She said she knows before I do which will react strongly. Something about the energy when the pin goes in. She uses a little tube to place the needle and then taps it in. She says take a deep breath...ok exhale...then she taps the pin. She just starts in this manner, but then just puts the pins in with a rhythm that is quick, but making sure i’m not wigging out.

I was SO hot, and you know for me, that’s pretty unheard of. Between the table heater, room heater and the fact I had pins sticking out all over me...I thought I would stroke out. But she turned down the heat, I relaxed. Practiced my yogic breathing...in out, don’t open your eyes. In out, don’t..doh...there is a pin sticking out of my face.... Eventually my body and my mind relaxed into it. I could literally feel my sinuses open up. Every now and then there would be this WOOSH of energy or draining down my entire body from the pin in the top of my head, out through my feet. Reminded me of Reiki. Then I was freezing, so I’m not sure how much of the woosh was my body trying to warm itself and what was some expression of the acupuncture. After it was over, my headache was gone. woo hoo. You have to go back on a regular basis in the beginning to try to really “cure” or limit them. The woman I went to said she had terrible headaches all the time but now has none. The next day the headache was back with a vengeance. But I’m thankful for any headache free day...woo hoo.

When I got to Seattle and Rob gave me my Valentine’s Day gift it included a package to the AsianMiracle Therapy Spa, I was very excited. Right up my alley. Their website cracked me up because you couldn’t click on any links, you had to click on “read more.” Very literal. We went in to make my appointment - it’s just up the street from our townhouse. By this point he knew he had to work on Monday instead of being off for President’s Day (shame on you Navy) and this gift turned into the Valentine’s Day plus Guilty Conscious gift. I ended up with a package that included a steam, scrub and massage, plus an hour reflexology. 3 hours of spa-y goodness when he wouldn’t have to worry about me being bored while he worked.

I made the appointment for 1 p.m. thinking...I’m going to try that Hot Yoga studio down the street, cool off, then go. Which then turned into..well I probably shouldn’t go to that yoga class for the first time and then go steam...I’ll be totally dehydrated. So I lazed around all morning until my appointment. Had I known the services were going to be so intimate, I would have spent the morning shaving, waxing and otherwise preparing myself.

It’s one of these pretty small places and it literally just opened. Modest, yet authentic asian looking decor - dark woods and dark purples. And what is “Asian” by the way...is this to imply some American prejudice? Give me a country clue...what if I spoke Chinese? Should I have tried it? In college I lived with a girl from Indonesia for a short while - she told me all Americans looked a like. Wonder what ever happened to her.

Anyway, I’m escorted to a dressing/massage room by the woman who made my appointment and greeted me by name when i arrived...nice touch. She “tells” me to put on the robe and go to the steam room. This happens with a lot of pointing and me guessing what she’s saying. I’m loving it.

There is one random pudgy, ruddy looking American man in the front on the phone when I had arrived. I was very disappointed, wondering if he was going to be my masseur. After donning my pink fuzzy robe and stepping out into the hall, I realized he was not a masseur at all, but a client - perhaps in search of the elusive happy ending - I hear giggles from another room and my suspicions grow. This I’m sure is a figment of my imagination, but it further indulges my mind picture that I’m a visitor to a very distant, very remote country and have stumbled into an ancient spa.

I finally hang around in the hallway long enough in my pink fluffy robe that she comes out of the room where I no longer think about what was happening and brings me to the steam room. It’s not a sauna..it’s a person steam table! In short order, I’m out of my robe and all tucked in up to my chin in this steam tent. Awesome. All the benefits of steam and still being able to breath. (No having to pick up your feet or run for cover when the steam starts like The Four Seasons) I want one for my house. Genius! She says she’ll check on me and then off she goes. Periodically a woman comes to check on me. Eventually someone comes and tells me to roll over. There is no holding of the towel so you can adjust, just move your flapjacks to the other side lady. I can only imagine that’s what she’s saying because I do not speak Asian, and again with the miming and interpretation. After a long long while I’m sufficiently steamed. Like I’m in a rice cooker.

The same woman comes back - I wish she would have introduced herself - or maybe she did and I just missed it. Not to beat a dead horse, but.... So I figure out I’m supposed to follow her to the next room where there is this big bath tub that I think is filled with water. She’s trying to help me into the tub and I’m a little perplexed...how am I supposed to lower all the way to the bottom? She’s giving me clear pantomime explanation of how to do it, but i’m certain there will be a big splash. Wrong. It’s not a tub filled with water, it’s a tub filled with a big aqua board that I’m supposed to lay on, which I finally do. So, here I am. Naked on a big blue board with my new friend in total control. I imagine this is what it’s like when Trisha goes to China and pays like $3 at a local spa and gets the Queen’s treatment. My new friend starts pouring water over me. Mind you, this isn’t like porn, this is like the best spa treatment ever. Then she takes what I imagined to be a scouring pad and comet, that really harsh cleaning agent my mom would use, and goes to town scrubbing every inch of me. Very little was sacred...very little. She’d scrub then splash water all over me, not just to rinse the spot she was scrubbing, but also to make sure I was not getting cold...because, believe me, she would notice. At one point me showed me a handful of something and looked all happy...it was my skin. She was scrubbing off an entire layer of my skin....steam makes it easier she informed me. This was way more pleasurable than the time I got an entire new layer of skin when I burned off a layer on our spring break trip to Florida. Ouch.

After both sides were thoroughly scrubbed and rinsed and rinsed and scrubbed, I was off to the next room. The massage bed was interesting...no separate headrest so you could breath...it was cut into the bed. They mean business. She said “medium pressure”? I think. I don’t answer because I’m trying to determine if this is a new friend or the same one who was now so intimately acquainted with me. It was my friend. She asks again...Medium Pressure? I say...Yes. Normally I say, hard pressure, but if she massages like she scrubs or the brief beating I was getting on the steam table I would be in trouble. The massage was AMAZING and I’m glad it was my same friend, because the same no bounderies rule apparently applies to massage too and by this point we were close. I believe the massage style is called Qi which must be similar to Shiatsu - they now tie for my favorite type of massage. She was digging into back and I was once again practicing my yogic breathing - breath through the pain. Deep breath. Don’t scream. Enjoy. Lovely. Relax. Ahhh.

This next part gets tricky because she has to convey to me to get dressed BEFORE I follow her into the reflexology room. Between me being mush from the massage, being a bit disoriented from the afternoon’s events and having no idea what she was saying, that was a rough one. Finally I was dressed and brought into a room with these huge leather chairs (not like the kind you see in front of the giant 4D TVs at Best Buy with cup holders), but softer than you can imagine with these large armrest where I just turned to goo as she starts on the top of my head with reflexology pressure and works her way down to my feet. Damn! Should have gotten a pedicure. That was next of my list of things to do that afternoon, but no way was anyone else touching my feet after my new friend. My feet were feeling special and no local nail salon was getting their mitts on them.

After I regain touch with reality, sadly it’s time to part ways. Even the money part was easy, especially since Rob was paying.