My China: Sally comes to visit!

Well this weekend (March 23, 2008) sally came to visit. On Friday we went and got our hair cut and washed for 30 yuan. That included 3 head massages, a face massage and an upper body massage, getting our hair washed, cut and then dried. Not bad for $4.25!

Sally getting her hair shampooed without water.

with my hairdresser and new hair cut

yayay for new hair! sally and I

On Saturday we went out to dinner with these people who own an English/dance/tai kwon do school. We got free lunch and were promised a trip to the bath house if we went to their school.

the lunch:

amanda and john

blood duck... the duck meat is cooked in the ducks blood, surprisingly tasty.

sally and I getting ready to try blood duck

pigs gums... not awful, not great

So we went to the school and were put on display in every classroom where the kids asked us some questions and we were instructed to go around and ask very simple English questions. The students were awesome dancers and so flexible. And not just one or two could bend their backs in half, almost all of them could. It was pretty amazing to watch. So I found out they have belly dancing, latin, ballet, yoga and some other dance classes so im going to try and go to take some classes during the week.

the amazing thing wasn't the fact that they could do this but the fact that almost ALL of them could do it.

So I gave the owner my number which so far has been a bad idea. That night he called 3 times and texted me asking what I was doing in the evening, this is after spending the whole afternoon with him. I ignored his calls and texts. The next morning he called 3 times and texted again. So I texted him back and he asked me why I ignored his calls and if I could please tell him. So I told him I was seeing my friend off and was to busy to talk at the moment. So we will see how taking dance classes goes cuz I really don’t want to be harassed everyday and put on display. So after we visited the school we went to these Turkish baths which were quite an experience. We wanted to do the Jacuzzi bath so sally, Amanda and I went into the bath room while jesse, carrie and john got full body massages. So we had to go naked into the room, although you do get a towel. First you showered, then you sat in the sauna while one at a time they took you into another part of the room where you had to leave the towel behind and lay down on a table. Then the lady pours hot water all over you and then starts to scrub you skin. It hurts but it gets all your dead skin off and she shows you how dirty you were before washing you off again. Then she puts lotion all over your body and then you have to go sit in the sauna again. The most awkward part of the whole thing is that random Chinese people who are clothed and not customers just come in and watch you get scrubbed and scraped while your lying naked on a table. So after we were done we were sitting in the sauna and a cockroach crawls out from under the floor boards. Not cool. So we run out and get the lady to tell her and she was like ummm so what they don’t bite get back in the sauna. They were pretty strict about the steps you had to take and how long each one took. Haha. So we got back in the sauna with the cockroach and watched it crawl all over the seats on the other side and just decided we couldn’t take staring at the ugly bug anymore and got out and showered. We never made it into the Jacuzzi which was the whole reason we did it because they weren’t full and they wouldn’t fill them for us. We think it was because there weren’t enough people. So we decided to go get our feet massaged too while we waited for the others. So we chose the cheapest thing on the board not sure what it was exactly. Turns out it was to only clip your toenails. So we got it all sorted out and told them we wanted a foot massage which we got along with an upper body massage. This part was amazing.

john getting his full body massage

getting my foot massage

After the Turkish bath we went to milo coffee which has been the nicest place I have eaten at in china so far. Then we went to the night market where we found a tent and some plastic stools and sat around a table drinking beer and eating noodles and peanuts. A random Chinese guy came up to us and started speaking English so we asked him to join us and he hung out with us all night. His English name was Eugene. Jesse and carrie also invited their Chinese friend to come join. Both were funny guys and a lot of fun to talk to. We stayed there till the place closed not sure how late it was, sometime after midnight. Then got a taxi home.

amanda, sally, carrie, jesse, john, and me