Advertisement
Published: September 15th 2011
Monday night, 5 of us went to the massage parlour! *Gasp!* Yup, lol, now, I assure you that it was all quite innocent and just a place where one goes to get a deep tissue massage. Now, this is not a gentle Canadian massage, this is get into,and I do mean INTO yer muscles, ouch, ouch, ouch, a little tickly at times, 2 hours of total body massage. One even gets a head massage. The masseuse that I had was a young woman in her twenties who had the most amazingly strong hands! I couldn't believe it--she had musician hands. Well, DUH, I guess she has masseuse hands! LOL She got her fingers dug into places in my muscles I didn't even know existed. Yowza! My muscles were sore the next day, but I will go back, I think. I felt pretty darn good after it was done! When we arrived, we asked for massage for 5 and then Rich and Diane and I were in one room, and Dawna and Joyce were in the other. The girls brought us some tea and some "pajamas" clothes to wear. We changed and lay down on a bed that stretched the whole width
of the room, Rich on one side, Diane in the middle and me on the far side. Then the girls brought in tubs of hot water with some sort of sachets and gave us underwater foot massages. Then we were instructed to lie on our backs and the massage started with my lower legs....and proceeded to upwards...upper legs and the girls even use their feet to administer the punishment! LOL And as much as it hurt sometimes, those poor girls were working pretty hard! Next came abdomen and stomach massage, no chests (good thing, that would have been just too weird!) and then we were asked to move onto our backs....and she again massaged the whole back of my body, while on my stomach...lastly was a head massage with my head in her lap (on a pillow) and this hot bag of rocks.....wow.....the whole thing lasted 2 hours and it cost 200 yuan or about $29.00 Canadian. Yup, it was SOOOO worth it. All that vigourous massaging made us ravenous so we all went out for a bite afterwards to a seafood restaurant and there was a gigantic fish in a tank and that mondo fish was, like, the size
of a toddler...how does if feel knowing your execuation day is likely tomorrow, I wonder? LOL Dawna felt sorry for the fish...I said, "Well, you know, it's pretty pathetic when you start feeling sorry for the food." It's prolly a good thing to be totally NOT in the know that it's your last day on this Earth! Yum, yum, fresh fish! Lmao!
Wednesday morning, Dawna, and I, Jim, Allan and Happy (one of the teaching assistants at Tianjiao) went to climb a mountain. Now, Happy told me the name of the mountain in Chinese alas, my poor brain was so tired after the 2 hour hard climb to and from the summit it didn't register. It was spectacular, outing if, difficult. Jim, who says he is a teacher from Edmonton, but who is really a mountain goat in disguise, jumped nimbly and cheerfully from step to step leading us all up the mountain. We hated him thoroughly by the end of the hike. He kept saying obnoxious things like, "It's just a little further....just a few more steps..." His voice light--HE wasn't breathing heavily! What a liar! LMAO. Dawna says all the hikers she knows are liars (when it comes
to the distances) and she also lumps cross country skiers into this catogory as well. Snort! LOL, yup, for sure, in this case. Well, after much panting, and resting and drinking of water and complaining about the heat (it was 33 degrees and I don't even want to guess at the humidity cuz it's always so awfully high here, we actually DID summit! Whoo-hoo! All my sunscreen slid off my sweating body pretty rapidly and I did get a bit of a burn on my shoulders and face, but I'm ok and it doesn't even hurt today.
One of the most gorgeous sights on the hike was the plethora of butterflies, many of them big black ones.....the first one I was actually startled me, it was so BIG, that when it fluttered by me I gave a little cry, freaking Happy out! I told her it was because the bugs back home are not so big......but these big butterflies, though absolutely stunning, proved to be elusive and I did not capture one with my camera. They flit too quickly, alas. We were so fortunate to have had a cooling breeze to go with the amazing views and at one point
on our ascent we encountered a Chinese lady descending with her high heels on!! OMG. All I could think was, "Are you NUTS lady?" Descending was not the piece of cake I'd imagined it would be because for some reason, my legs had turned to rubber. ACK. After completing our descent, we repaired to a strange little cafe called Greedy Girl and the others ordered these really delicious looking mango smoothies, and although I was tempted, I passed on one because, a) I'm allergic to mangos and I really didn't want to have to b) use my epipen and then c) find a hospital to be treated for anaphylaxis after being all exhausted like that after hiking the mountain--so I stuck with good old Coke Zero. It's all good. LOL Enjoy the pictures and the videos. We think we may try to do this hike ascent/descent every Wednesday. We'll see. It would be great training for the ironman methinks. LOL
Advertisement
Tot: 0.157s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0685s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.2mb
Jeannine
non-member comment
Now you know why Paul & I always stop at Newton Kansas to see our little chinese masseuses. Incredible, aren\'t they? We left Vancouver yesterday and are heading out to la belle province. I must get skype in this computer. Miss chatting with you.