Fish Spa

Last night we had an appointment with Dr. Fish. We had a fish spa. On trips, I wanted to try it for the longest time,  but everytime fish spa was available, I didn't have time. I've seen major version of it,  like in one resort I had stayed in_ the fish spa was in a big man made pond. I know Manila Ocean Park has a decent fish spa,  I was glad thu'  to find one within the neighborhood. This was just a mini version. Fishes were in aquariums.



By now, I'm sure you know how this works. Kindah symbiosis. You feed the fish with your dead skin, the fish gets nourishment from it and in return the procedure relaxes you and leaves you a healthy expoliated skin. I'm sure there's a down side, but I'll get to that later.



Except for the youngest family member ( she had one during her school field trip in a resort ), it was basically our first time. The three of us were a bit apprehensive  to dip our feet with those little monsters waiting to eat our skin! haha. We were joking around the possibility of the fish to be piranha  and eat our flesh instead. haha.
Husband braved it and had a foot dipped.




Up close - look how fishes swarmed into his sole. It was like they hadn't eaten for a decade!

Then my turn. I'm sharing a secret_ my most tickling spot is my foot!!! So it wasn't easy for me to let go. The spa attendant kindly suggested that I had to do it first with a heel. .



aiming for numbness so I would be able to do it easy with the rest of my feet. But it had been long minutes and I was still tickled hard. haha.



After awhile, the attendant was right, numbed with familiar  sensation, I was able to do it with both my feet totally sunk. I enjoyed it. It was relaxing like a foot massage.

Older daughter took longer (than me) to dunk her feet. The fishes might have had felt her prolonged hesitation, cos initially they totally ignored her foot.



But after awhile, they became friends and ate her dead skin too. haha. The dipping time was limited, she only got to use a partial of it.

The downside of this ofcourse still boils down to sanitary condition of the spa. The risk of infection is high cos this is a shared facility. What if the previous user had skin infection and the spa staff failed to change the spa water in the tank?  I actually raised this issue to the attendant of this particular spa. She assured us that the tank is regularly sterilized (to that effect). I hope so, cos among the three tanks that we used, mine was the only one looked clean with clear water. The other two were a bit cloudy. 

After the fish spa, we all enjoyed a foot massage that came with the package. We checked our feet and were all happy with softer soles. 

Good job Dr. Fish.