Luckily there are lots of places a knotted-up cheapo can go for an affordable Tokyo massage. There are probably as many massage options as there are vending machines in Tokyo, but it can be tough to tell which are legit — especially if your knowledge of kanji is limited. Hotels, spas and the like usually offer a variety of safe massages — everything from vigorous Korean body scrubbing to Ayurvedic oil treatments, and that one where they walk all over your back.
For some, their entire budget for three days in Tokyo might only be 10 yen! You can usually just drop into a seikotsuin without making an appointment. If you have an injury, a seikotsuin is a great place to go for rehab too.
A few years ago I tore the ligaments in my wrist snowboarding misadventure, ow , and my local guys helped treat it with an ultrasound micro massage device that got right down to, well, the ligaments. Some offer cheaper 1 yen minute neck and shoulder massages, which allows you to test things out before committing to a more expensive, longer course. You usually need to make an appointment in advance. Queensway , Raffine and Temomin are all popular and offer a variety of options, often starting at 10 minutes, but, in our opinion, the treatments are over-priced for the quality of what you get, and also feel a bit impersonal.
Our first-line advice — give your local seikotsuin a go, save some yen, and take it from there. If they throw you and the chair out after making you buy it … we said nothing. This article was originally published in April and was updated by Frances Maeda on July 15th, Our guide to prepay SIM cards, wifi routers, cafe wifi and other places to quickly find wifi whilst visiting Japan.
Events Tours Eating Stay. Suggested Activity. Not suspicious at all. Pic by Jeremy Sternberg , used under a Creative Commons licence. Photo by Jeremy Sternberg used under CC. Ultra cheapo version drawn just for this article! Photo by Carey Finn used under CC. Moxibustion pic via Shutterstock.
