I recently went to Wi Spa in Los Angeles with some girlfriends to celebrate a friend’s upcoming marriage. Little did I know that a spa day was just what I needed! I highly recommend men and woman alike to check it out. The spa is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It costs $30 to get in and just use the saunas and tubs. My friend said she used to go in graduate school to relax, study and sleep. The facials and body treatments aren’t required but it was worth it in my opinion. How often to you spend that kind of money on yourself? For me, not often. It felt like the ultimate self care to do so.
Wi Spa is a Korean style spa with Korean style treatments and showers, you know, where you sit down. When you enter they give you what looks like a watch that gives you access to your locker, allows you to put things on your tab in the cafeteria and keeps track for the staff what services you are getting. You get a robe, shorts and a t-shirt that everyone gets for the co-ed areas. The spa is broken down into several floors. One floor is for women only. Everyone is completely naked while enjoying the warm and hot tub, a wet and dry sauna and the cold plunge. We enjoyed the women’s only area before we each got a body treatment. I got a 2 hour seaweed wrap and massage. We are were scrubbed raw with a course pad that actually kind of hurt sometimes but also made our skin so soft. They have different facials, massages, body treatments, acupuncture and more to enjoy. They also have a store to buy Korean facial products. They are all in Korean but the lady in the store directed to me her favorite products. When you are in the women’s area of saunas and tubs, everyone is completely naked. It can be a bit shocking at first if you haven’t gone to spa like this before.
They also have a men’s floor, which I assume is similar to the women’s. There is a separate areas for acupuncture and other eastern treatments. There is a even a gym on the main floor! Wi Spa seems to have a bit of everything. I can certainly see why my friend would go when we were in graduate school, it was a very stressful time and Wi Spa really does create a sense of calm.
After our treatment we were all very relaxed and hungry. We put on our matching shirts and shorts as pictured below, and ventured up to the co-ed area to eat at the cafeteria. They have a menu of traditional Korean foods. Anyone with celiac disease or food allergies knows the game. To show up and expect to eat, especially Asian cuisine, is a risk. I did call ahead to ask about gluten free options and I was told to google the ingredients. That response was somewhat infuriating since there is no guarantee a recipe I look up is how they make it. As we also know, flour and gluten can find it’s way in just about anything. I had intended to pack something to eat but forgot. Fortunately, when I scoped out the menu in person I saw they had pho, which I know can often be gluten free. It’s not fool proof, so you probably want to ask some questions to make sure they don’t cook the noodles with gluten noodles and that they don’t put soy sauce in the broth. I asked the cashier and he was able to ask the kitchen for me to confirm it is gluten free, with no soy sauce or anything added to it. It did come with a side of a soy sauce based product which I avoided and Sriracha on the side. It was really good! If you don’t feel comfortable with eating there you could always pack some food for yourself. Don’t let being gluten free hold you back from this amazing experience!
After we ate, we visited the rooftop where individuals and couples were lounging then went back to the co-ed sauna floor. Here, more people were resting, some were reading or using a computer and everyone else was enjoying the different saunas available, including clay rocks and salt rocks. Finally, we were relaxed, sleepy and ready to head out.
Don’t worry, I’ll be back! We all decided that it was so nice that we are going to plan a yearly spa retreat.
Don’t miss the video!
