On a Friday at the end of September, a guest came over from Hong Kong having barely slept properly all week. Every night his mind kept running after he lay down, and he woke again before it was light. At YU SAUNA he asked the manager for one of the Popular packages, because a colleague in Hong Kong had had one and said he slept like a log on a lounge recliner afterwards.
Soon the manager brought a few therapists over and introduced them one by one. He chose the one with the soft voice.
Starting with the left side of his neck
He followed her into a private massage room. Before she started, she asked where he was most tired. He said the left side of his neck: it was the side he pressed into the pillow every night, and after a week of tossing and turning it was so stiff he could hardly turn his head. He lay face down, and her hands landed first on the left side of his neck and the base of his skull, staying there until he could turn his head to the left without effort. In that moment he breathed out in relief.
A week of sitting, pressed out of his legs
With his neck free, she worked her way down his back to his hips and the backs of his thighs. Sitting through meetings by day and sleeping badly by night, he had carried a heavy, tight weight there all week, as if it had been pressed in place and never moved. Her palms, slick with oil, lay flat against it and pressed slowly from the backs of his knees up to his hips and back again, and each time a little more of the heaviness spread out and turned warm. When her hand closed around his left calf, the whole leg went rigid and his toes curled. Her hand did not pull away. It wrapped the calf and stayed until the leg softened and his toes lay flat again.
On his back, his mind finally went quiet
She signalled for him to turn over, and once he was on his back she started on the left again, at his jaw, then his chest and both arms. Each breath ran longer than the last, and the fingers of his left hand, resting at the edge of the bed, loosened one by one.
After those few minutes on his chest and arms, her hands came to the fronts of his thighs, her palms full of oil, sliding slowly up over the skin, oily and smooth, then turning back at the top. The legs that had sat through a whole week finally let go and lay soft and heavy on the bed. His eyes were closed, but he was awake the whole time, feeling her hands push the week’s tiredness out of his legs, stroke by stroke. For the first time that week, he had lain down and his mind had stopped running.
Her hands kept working along his thighs for a few more minutes. By the time she finished, he was so comfortable he did not want to move at all, and his legs felt so light they hardly seemed his own. She laid a hot towel on his chest and wiped the oil away. The towel came off, he sat up, and he turned his head to the left. Nothing pulled.
Falling asleep once, in the lounge
She walked him out to a recliner in the lounge, where another masseuse asked which two add-ons he would like. He chose a foot massage and a head massage. When both were done he leaned back, meaning only to close his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them he had no idea how long he had slept. It was the deepest sleep of his week, just as his colleague had said.
Staying on to sleep
Can you stay and rest afterwards? Yes. YU SAUNA is open 24 hours, and after the hour you can rest on a recliner in the lounge. If you would like a room to yourself, there are private rest rooms for a fee; ask about prices and times when you book.
Leave the arranging to us
Book through us and a free private car collects you from where you are staying in Macau, anywhere in Macau, with the ride back arranged in advance. After the hour there are two free add-on services, for bookings made through us only: they are done outside the room, on a recliner in the lounge, by a different masseuse, and you choose them once you are there. YU SAUNA is on the 4th floor of the New Orient Landmark Hotel, NAPE, Macau.
Send us the date, the number of guests, your hotel and anything you would like, and we will arrange the rest. Just leave us a message on the contact page.
