Spa and Wellness Industry

  Since  I signed up to attend a detox weekend at the Discovery Suites (organized by the Wellness Institute)  in Ortigas I decided to book a day ahead of the schedule  since the hotel  was far from my home and I wanted to try out their spa.

I went to the hotel website  to check out any  spa service,  unfortunately there was no mention of such facility so I had to call and ask.  They connected me to the office of Terra Wellness in the hotel and I requested them to email me their treatment packages.  Lo and behold the one who replied said they don’t have any email and if they could just send it via fax.

In this day and age, no website and no email!  A spa supposedly in the heart of the business district located in a suite hotel? I sounded upset so they called the manager who was supposedly in a better way to decide and she said they will email it asap so I can make my reservation. 

I took hours and a few more phone follow ups before I got it.  Apparently they had to call their “IT” person who was supposed to type the packages but what I got was a jpeg file of a scanned document which had a huge resolution so took some time to download.  By the way, it was just a one page thing and all text.

Now let me get back to my spa experience.  Despite the fact that I experienced the worst service in a supposedly luxury hotel, the treatment compensated my frustation. 

 Before I was led to the treatment room, I was made to sit at the waiting area  so they can remove my shoes, provide slippers and do a foot bath.

I chose a detox wrap and massage.  The aroma oils used were certified organic from Australia. The therapist assigned to me was really good and as I ended late at night, I felt very much relaxed after the whole week’s stressful activities including  the one caused by the hotels poor service.

My on and off asthma had been bothering me since end of last year. My allergologist would give me the usual steroids and puffs which I really don’t like to take for long periods knowing it may affect my heart in the long term.  Last February, I went to honkong with some friends for some business and we all made a side trip to Macao. As I no longer have any intentions to do the usual shopping, I instead preferred to look at the chinese pharmacies. I asked around for some herbal medication for asthma. I was not convinced with some of the recommendations till I reached this last shop.

I bought this herbal cough tonic similar to the famous Pei Pak Wa but the difference was the new one had snake bile in it.  I got two boxes. However, one of the salesperson was recommending something they said was a lot effective but they had difficulty explaining this as all the explanations on the box was in chinese. They asked me to go way inside the shop and called the Pharma director to explain the medication in english.  The director told me her asthma was cured instantly from taking this.

The capsules were kinda pricey but I decided to buy one.  When I opened the box, apparently there was some english explanation and only then did I know that the english scientific name of the capsule was Penta Cordyceps Sinenis.  Apparently it is made from some wild mushrooms grown organically in the heart of china.

  I began taking a capsule a day. When i got back in Manila after two days, I was suprised that my coughing was gone.  That was around end Feb and till now I never had to use my inhaler or take any other medecine much less steroids.  I am really impressed so far. I tried to check the internet to know more about this but most of such products sold were supplements from the US.  I can’t find the literature now but from what I recall, even cancer patients benefit from this wild mushroom concoction.