TOKYO AS A TONIC

THE MEGA METROPOLIS OF TOKYO is about as frenetic as a city can be, so it’s all the more pertinent to a place of respite to fully recharge. Mandarin Oriental’s new Totally Tokyo “Five” Journeys from Nihonbashi is the perfect yang to the city’s yin, comprising five classic Japanese ingredients to stimulate the five senses: pine, bamboo, plum, green tea and rice hulls, all designed to restore a sense of calm and clarity to both body and mind. Available at the hotel’s sky-high Spa, the 90-minute treatments begin with a relaxing foot ritual, using pine oil to calm the mind with its fragrant scent, followed by a plum salt foot scrub. Next, rice hulls are applied to warm the body during a full body shiatsu-style massage – all priced from 41,000 yen (US $377).