>Female Feet

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Beginning last year, on her fifth birthday, I decided to make a tradition out of our birthdays: girl’s time for pedicures.  Last year out feet looked like this:

Then for my birthday this past summer:

Because her Grammy was here this year – and because my mom is a fan of all things pampering – it only made sense to include her in the fun.  Instead of just taking an hour and a half to ourselves, though, we made last Saturday a designated Girl’s Day Out.  My boys took off to return one of Tony’s collegues to the airport while we took the morning to do a couple loads of much-needed laundry and clean up the house a bit, after which we set off for what turned into Foot Day.

First stop: Dr. Fish.

I can’t say if this is an Okinawa thing, or a Japanese thing, or even an Asian thing, but it was NOTHING like I’ve ever encountered before.  I’d seen the advertisements for Dr. Fish in several publications but because Tony can’t stand having his feet looked at, much less touched or tickled, this wasn’t something he would have done with me.  My mom, on the other hand, is up for almost anything.

I don’t think she really had this in mind.

Your eyes are not deceiving you; those are actually fish nibbling on her legs and feet.  According to the literature, these are a special species of fish who feed off of skin impurities.  I didn’t know what to expect but it was actually a really fun sensation, much like a gentle brushing of my feet with a feather.  (No, my feet are not ticklish.)

Though Bear dangled her little feet in the water too, the fish mostly ignored her legs and feet.  They sure loved me and my mom, though.  We guessed it was one of two possibilities: my mom and I had both applied lotion to our legs earlier that day; Bear had not.  Or because our feet were in far more need of nibbling whereas her skin is already tender.  Fifteen minutes later we reluctantly pulled our legs from the pool, dried them off, and discovered that they were “soft as doe skin”, as my mom has told anyone who will listen.

From there we went to the open-air mall – for lack of a better way of describing this store – where my mom partook in a twenty minute reflexology session.  While she had an intense foot massage Bear and I grabbed some freshly baked goodies and a cup of coffee at next-door Starbucks while we waited.

And then I made the mistake of introducing my mom to the 100 Yen store.  I’ll spare you the details, but we made two more trips back thereafter.  Given that I am not a fan of shopping, my mom was highly impressed with my tolerance of her repeated request to return again and again, especially given that it wasn’t exactly close to our home.  After tearing her away from the 100 Yen dishes and bowls and other such goodies for someone who loves using 20 dishes for a single meal, we headed home long enough to say hi to my boys before heading back out for our pedicures.

Because she’s the Queen of Best Part/Worst Part, I turned it around on her.  Her worst part of this day?  “I didn’t have a worst part because it was all wonderful, but if I had to rank these three activities I’d say my favorite was the reflexology, then the pedicure, then the fish.  But I loved them all!”

I laughed at her, because that’s what I do, but really she’s right.  I couldn’t imagine a more pampered set of feet on all of Okinawa. At least on this day.

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