The room is warm. The music relaxing. Aromatherapy oils perfume the air. I am wrapped in hot towels after an hour of sheer bliss. And the years have fallen away. Off my face, that is.
Better known on her home patch of Kichijoji, Cathy Kamino is one of Hiroo's best-kept secrets in central Tokyo. Just around the corner from the station, Segafredo and the Azabu supermarket is a hair salon. Upstairs are two small rooms that the owner rents to practitioners of alternative beauty treatments. A Thai masseur uses one. Cathy -- who is a U.S.-licensed Belavi Facelift Massage specialist -- uses the other.
"I travel in on the Inokashira line three days a week," she explains later over lunch. "Treatments are by appointment only, on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Thursdays are off and the rest of the working week I'm busy teaching yoga."