I woke up to another beautiful morning. Hiroshi was sound asleep and not too interested in waking up so I went down to breakfast by myself. I walked around and took some pictures of the plants and flowers that were all over the hotel. Then I hung out on the lounge chairs on the balcony and did some reading while watching the palm trees sway overhead (above).
When Hiroshi got up, he was hungry so we went down to lunch. We had a salad and a pizza. I just picked because I was full from breakfast still. We also had coconuts as our drink - whole young (green) coconuts with their tops hacked off and a straw and orchid garnish. Young coconut juice is not milky, but more like water. It was nice and refreshing! We enjoyed the view from the restaurant during lunch too. It was one level down from the other restaurant so we could see the waves crashing into the rocks (below).
After lunch we just relaxed until it was time to go to the spa. Yesterday I booked us the super spa extravaganza - 4.5 hours of indulgence! We started with the herbal steam. It was too hot and hard to breath, so Hiroshi didn't like it. I had to keep leaving the steam room to cool down and get some fresh air. I wasn't too keen on it either. Then we had a body scrub. Hiroshi had the salt scrub and I had the yogurt coffee scrub. It was wonderful. It felt so good! The ground coffee was only mildly scratchy so it felt good to have it rubbed on my back and limbs, and it smelled really good too!
Then we moved on to our herbal bath, but first had a shower to wash the scrub off. It was kind of funny because Hiroshi was wearing disposable underwear (he was a bit unsure about going buff in front of the masseuses) but he was 9falling out the side. He ended up just taking them off because they were made of see-thru gauze like stuff anyway. After the shower we climbed into the bath. There was lemon grass, lime slices, lime leaves and other things. Very refreshing actually. Hiroshi and I were throwing things at each other, putting leaves on our body, making faces out of the herbs and splashing each other. Hey, no one was in the room so we could play! We asked for cool water (after the steam we didn't want hot) and it was really nice.
After the bath we moved on to the massages. We had foot reflexology - I wanted it because I'd never had it before. It actually hurt. My feet are really sensitive. I had the masseuse with fingers of steel! She was really good though and listened to me and ended up using the perfect amount of pressure. It felt ok, but I'm not sure if it actually did anything. I don't think I'd get it done again. Some people swear by it, but the other treatments were just so much better.
After the foot reflexology we moved on to our massages. Hiroshi had a Thai massage, so he got Thai pajama pants (because you have to move and twist your body) while I got to stay au naturale (covered with towels of course) because I had the combination massage. Hiroshi felt his massage was too rough - Thai massage uses a lot of pressure. He didn't realize he could ask them to be more gentle. He enjoyed it, but it hurt a bit. My massage, however, was the best massage I have ever had! It was so relaxing! This was because I am usually tense because the masseuse uses too much pressure and hurts me. This time, she had perfect pressure. At the very end she did this cool thing that cracked my back and I was in relaxation heaven.
But we weren't finished yet! We still had the facial to go. Usually I love facials. This one was ok. Hiroshi had fallen asleep and was snoring so it was a bit hard to relax LOL. I also had a bit of gas, and well, you just don't want to let one in the middle of the treatment room! While the facial wasn't relaxing in itself (it might just have been that I was already relaxed) it did wonders for my skin! My face was all glowing and soft and moisturized when we were done. So it did what it was supposed to. I love the spa!
So we ended feeling pampered and relaxed. Originally we had wanted to go to a spa one beach north of where we were, but we couldn't reach them on the phone. The hotel spa was much more expensive, but the treatment room was much nicer and the professionalism was fantastic. They even had flowers floating on water in pottery bowls so when you were face down on the massage table you had something pleasing to look at.
Afterwards we were hungry again so we went to the Italian restaurant in the hotel. It is only open Fridays and Tuesdays in the low season, so this was our one night to go there. Throughout our whole stay we just ate in the hotel. I had originally planned to go to the restaurants just down the street, but they are really quiet - which means there is a higher chance of getting food poisoning. Hiroshi didn't have health insurance (we totally forgot to get it) so we didn't want to risk anything. While our food bill was astronomically higher by eating at the hotel, the food was wonderful and the service was great. There is a big difference between having your chair pulled out from a linen-topped table and plastic backyard chairs too.
The food at the Italian restaurant was incredible. Very, very good. The service, however was lacking. It took them 10 minutes to come and take our order - despite making eye contact with the waiter and indicating we were ready. After our canape, they removed my plate and the table cloth underneath was moldy. I asked for a wine recommendation and it didn't go well with what we ordered... I think she just recommended what bottle was already opened (we ordered a glass rather than a whole bottle). And then I asked for regular water and she brought a US$8 bottle of Evian!
Once the waitress went away, we had a lovely dinner though. We had both ordered the same pasta - it had sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and other yummy things in it. Dessert was this yummy chocolate creation that had hot liquid chocolate oozing out of the center of a small cake - mmmmmm. Towards the end of dinner Hiroshi came up with the depressing comment when he asked "This is the last time we will do something in luxury, right?". Until he asked I had never even thought of that! How depressing! We hadn't planned on going anywhere until we leave Japan next October for our world trip (which will be backpacking) and when we finish travelling it is time for kids, so that will be at least 25 years of a restricted budget! I think we're going to have to go somewhere again to rectify this! LOL
After dinner we went back to our room and packed and got ready to leave. It was so sad because I wanted to stay at least another day. Well, another year would have been nice LOL.
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