I went to a spa last week. The first time I have ever been anywhere called a “spa”, let alone one like this. The idea germinated a few months ago when Kerry was in LA visiting a friend. She went with the friend to a Korean spa/sauna and was raving about how wonderful it was and how relaxing it was and how I would love it. And that’s a gutsy thing to say since I have never been. I have always been a stranger to the concept of “relaxing”. I have been known to relax for about 20 minutes… tops. But I have always liked saunas and the idea of sweating out all the desert toxins I have been exposed to (and there are many!) really appealed to me.

So last Thursday Kerry and I drove up to Palisades Park, New Jersey to the King Sauna (www.kingsaunausa.com). The directions were a bit confused, but luckily I have a GPS program on my cell phone and got to use it for the first time. (GPS is a beautiful thing.) The place is in a large Korean neighborhood, where even the street signs have Korean subtitles. It seemed very nondescript but that could have just been the scaffolding in front of it. We went in, paid our admission fee, and were sent to our separate floors. Men and women have separate locker room areas where everyone is naked, but they give you a “uniform” for the communal areas.

First – let me thank all the non-Western cultures that have come to our shores bringing such a wonderful thing. Turkish, Russian, Jewish, Japanese or Korean – these communal “baths” are a great way to refresh your body and your mind. And they date back to the Greeks and Romans, so there is a historical aspect to it all. I went up to the locker room and stripped bare like every other guy up there (mostly Korean, but a few others). Up here, there were showers, hot and cold water pools, sinks for shaving, a massage area (more on that later) and a steam sauna and a dry sauna, I went with those first as a warm up to the more festive saunas. After a good fifteen minutes in both and showering off, I donned the uniform (a heavy cotton t-shirt and drawstring shorts) and headed for the communal area.

The saunas are all different and based on their mineral content. They look like igloos made out of stone and the mix of the different stones and the heat are supposed to have invigorating or healing properties. There was the gold pyramid sauna, the amethyst sauna, a yellow mud sauna and others. There was one sauna that is heated to 800 degrees… which is pretty damn hot. They give you heavy blankets for protection, but Kerry ran in and out. I managed about three minutes and bailed. There were also many big lounge chairs and dark, quiet areas to relax – or sleep, which many people were doing. It is necessary to sit for a while after some of the saunas. I think I tried a least five of the different saunas over two hours. It is just about relaxing. There is no agenda, no monitors, no hassle. Everyone is there to be in their own space and that is respected.

The pièce de ŕesistance was the full body scrub. Exfoliating is usually something I take care of in the shower, but after two years of dust and sweat and… whatever, I REALLY felt the need for some heavy industrial work. Kerry had this done in LA and could not stop talking about it. So I went back up to the men’s area, shed my uniform and lay on the table and let a Korean man scrub me down. It felt amazing! I didn’t even see what he was using. But he left no stone unturned and in the process massaged every muscle I own. You could literally watch the dead skin fall away with each rinsing. Forty-five minutes later and I felt like a new person.

I recommend this to everyone and though it cost about $300 for the two of us, it might be well worth it every month or so. In such a stressful world – whether it is placed on you or you create it yourself – a good sweat and a massage has no peer.