Yesterday I wanted to find a new massage place, growing tired of the Thai massage parlor I have been going to. During my walks I had since this place on the third floor of a building that looked good. After I had climbed the three flights of stairs, I found that no one would answer the bell. After ringing the entrance bell a few times I game up and went back down. At the bottom there was an older Japanese guy who in broken English told me that place was closed. He told me that there was a massage place down the street, but I couldn’t see the local sign they have for massages. After a bit he motioned me to follow him to this door with a blue sign. It did have some Japanese writing the numbers 30min 3,000yen on it. Still did not look like any of the normal massage signs I have seen. He said he was a friend of the Mama here.

To my surprise a Japanese lady answered the door. This was a big change since all the massage places I have been either Korean, Thailand or Chinese. I have heard about massage parlors that had Japanese ladies, but they normally only accepted Japanese men as clients. Well the lady and the old gentleman spoke and while I could not understand them, I did hear the word massage in English. Well she didn’t look to happy but let me in and gave me a price list which of course was in Japanese. Since I don’t speak or read Japanese, I pulled out my smartphone and opened Google Translate which really wasn’t much help. After trying to figure out if they offered oil massages I though I found one and pointed to a 90-minute session. The cost was kind of high, 15,000 yen (about $140 US) but thought I only live once and said why not.