Posts

80 Minutes of Chinese Torture: Day 10

Image
If anyone ever asks you if you want a Chinese FOOT massage, it's a trick. Don't do it. Or, in my case, trust your friend (Katherine) who is clearly into torture and sharing the experience with her unwitting friends. The first sign that something is awry is when they make you change into plaid, old man clam diggers. Why would you need to change into these short, loose pants if you're only getting a foot rub? That's a great question! Too bad I didn't bother to ask it. The torture begins shortly after that. The seemingly angry and sadistic masseuse proceeds to bend your body in directions it has no business bending, all while boiling your feet in a metal trash can filled with 1000 degree water. When she is finished bending and boiling you, she brings out torture mallets (something you'd use to tenderize meat with) and begins beating your legs. It was 80 minutes of total body torture. (She even spanked my butt! And all I wanted was a nice, relaxing foot rub!) My fav...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lady in the Water (Town): Day 8

Image
Today Zheng picked me up at 10:30am and drove me to a small, ancient town an hour outside of Shanghai called Zhouzhuang Water Town. Katherine said it's like the Venice of China. The ancient town is built around waterways where you can take gondola rides and shop and eat and watch people make blankets and knit baby booties and make strange foods with mystery meats and grains and other stuff I've never seen, all wrapped up in some kind of leaf and tied closed with some kind of vine. It was cool to watch, but I didn't try one because I think the mystery meat was pork (everything is pork here). So instead, I ate 3 ("THREE! RIGHT HERE! THREE!") scorpions on a stick (video included) and had my feet chewed on by fish (video also included). In the video, you can also hear people asking me my name and trying to pronounce it (like 12 times) Apparently it ain't easy to say. I do love China. I think I could live here (but I think I'd have to change my name to somethin...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Phantom Goes to Hell in Shanghai: Day 7

Image
Katherine sent her driver (Zheng) to pick me up and take me to the knockoff market (I love when my friend's work perks become my vacation perks. There is NO WAY I could navigate this megatropolis alone!) Zheng drops me off and says to meet him back at 3pm (he doesn't speak a lick of English and I don't speak a lick of Chinese, so this was all communicated by hand gestures and talking really loudly at each other in our respective languages, as if that helped with comprehension.) I step out of the car and Zheng drives off (I'LL MEET HIM RIGHT HERE AT THREE!!!) In front of me is a massive building with a sign that says it is the Science and Technology Center. Did Zheng drop me at the wrong place? I can't imagine they sell Louis Vitton purses here. I walk up the steps to its doors and they are locked. OMG. What now? The place looks empty and there is no one around. Maybe it's on the other side of this massive building? I start to walk around the building, looking f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Phantom in Shanghai: Days 5 and 6

Image
Forget the eye patch. Now I need a Phantom of the Opera mask to cover the whole left side of my face. It's all red and puffy and swollen. I'm going to end up on that gross show "Monsters Inside Me". It's probably not a stye, it's some kind of flesh-eating amoeba. You know how Asians wear those surgical masks in public? Well I'm wondering if there is a way to get one and strap it to the left side of my head. I'm weighing my options: Is it better to look like Quasimodo or a dumb American who appears to not know how to wear a surgical mask? So Day 5 was a bust. Between recovering from night 4 and looking like a freak on Day 5, we hung out in our pjs all day (and not in the "high society" way). Today we went to the Marriage Market (held in the park every Sunday). Katherine let me wear her sunglasses to hide my hideous deformation. As we pull up to the park, Katherine pulls an umbrella and a piece of paper out of her purse. The piece of paper con...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stye in My Eye in Shanghai: Day 4

Image
After 5 pounds of makeup and shellac, I successfully camouflaged my stye (I just realized I've been spelling "stye" incorrectly for days now! Where are my editor friends when I need them!?) and was ready for Girls' Night Out. For the last 2 days, I've lived off of nuts, dried cherries, and M&Ms, so it was heaven to have a real dinner last night. Katherine took us to the best Chinese restaurant EVER and ordered almost everything on the menu. She also ordered us the best drinks ever (some kind of lime, chili pepper margarita, but it wasn't a margarita). If food and drinks could make you orgasm, I would have had about 100 big ones. They should offer cigarettes after dinner there. The restaurant itself was very swank with a cool ambience, but the bathrooms were something else. They had a men's bathroom and a women's bathroom that seemed nice and normal and swanky...until you went to wash your hands. In normal society, you'd expect to wash your hand...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stye in My Eye in Shanghai: Day 3

Image
(Warning: morning ramblings. Read only if bored.) It's almost 8am, and I'm dressed and ready to head out for my first day of exploration. I make sure to take a baggy of peanut M&Ms with me in case I get lost in this huge city. (It may be my only form of sustenance for days.) My first obstacle will be exiting the building. I take pictures of everything so, if need be, I can access my "bread crumbs" later to find my way back like Handel and Gretzky (that was supposed to say Hansel and Gretel, but I like autocorrect's word choice better). I take the 3rd floor to the first floor, and the first door I see exits to a playground. The only problem is, it won't open. Am I just weak? Do I stay here and wrestle with the dumb door while the two grounds keepers on the other side of the glass door watch me for their morning entertainment? I can tell I am going to lose the battle with the door, so I look for another exit (sorry grounds-keeper dudes! You'll have to...
Post a Comment
Read more