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Published: April 10th 2011
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I woke up Saturday morning to a gray sort of day. The sun was hiding behind some clouds and there was a cold chill in the air. After a breakfast of fruits and coffee, my dad and I decided to go for a bike ride. We loaded up the bikes in the car and headed over to the Chinese University. After not having ridden a bike in whats probably been years, I was a little worried that there might be some injuries (both to me and possibly innocent bystanders). However, after a quick ride around the parking lot, the saying "its just like riding a bike" proved true. All geared up and ready to go, we took off on the bike path. And after remembering that they ride/drive on the other side of the "road," I was off!
The weather had changed from a cold grey morning to a nice and sunny day. There were already people out "riding" and running at 11am. Some were die-hard bicyclists who would go wizzing by us, passing on the right ofcourse. Others were groups of young friends just out riding in order for them to talk and joke around (these are the ones you have to be careful of). We rode down different bike paths and across busy intersections, all the while I was following close behind my dad as to not get left behind or hit! Finally we made it to the end of our route which was a park with throngs of people everywhere, that proved to make riding the bicycles much more dangerous (for all parties involved). After a quick water break we were on our way back to the car. As it got later in the day the bike lanes got more congested with people and you really had to be on your game. I felt like I was back in China where no one stays in their lanes and basically makes their own rules. With only one close call (riding down a hill and a girl decided to come into our lane) we made it back to the car.
A short ride back to the house and it was time to shower, eat, and read my book. We decided to go into town for dinner at The American Club, where we got to sit outside and have a gorgeous view of the city. Dinner was great and after we headed out to get foot massages. The first place we tried was called "Happy Feet." We weren't able to get in there without a reservation so we headed back down in the elevator to try another place in the same building called "Relax City." Which turned out to be the total opposite. After we sat down they brought out tubs of warm water for us to soak our feet in, and then the foot massagers came out. I decided on getting a pedicure, which they took as though I wanted a foot massage AND a pedicure. The result was TWO people working on my feet. One person massaged one foot while the other worked on taking my nail polish off and filing/clipping my toe-nails. This was a strange sensation which is extremely hard to explain unless you've had two people doing two different things to your feet at the same time. I was trying my best to not focus on that fact; however, since this place was extremely busy and the girl that was doing my pedicure was also the one working the front door, every couple of minutes she would have to get up to check someone out or check someone in. This made for a stressful situation. All-in-all the verdict was that we are NEVER going back there and that they should rename it stress city!
We headed back down the elevator an hour later, no more relaxed and a little more stressed (probably not the result they were attempting to achieve). And I headed off to meet a friend that I hadn't seen in years. We met at the top of the street and then we were off to charge his phone and have a beer on his friends apartments' rooftop. This was another chance for me to see a different view of the city and even through the haze, its a sight to be seen. There are different colored lights on all the buildings, some that change colors and some that seemingly dance along the sides. We all talked on the rooftop for about an hour before I had to make my way back to the MTR to head on home. A stress free MTR ride and short taxi later, I was back home in my bed with barely enough energy to turn off the lights.
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