This weekend was absolutley amazing - in fact it was close to being perfect and was exactly what I needed. Everyday something new and exciting happens that makes me fall in love with the city all over again, and the weekends just bring it all together.
On Friday I got off of work and was just able to relax and spend some time with myself. Which doesn’t necessarily sounds like an exciting time, but when you do as much running around as I have been doing lately it was quite welcomed. So I just did I guess what normal people do, I did laundry, cleaned my apartment, and read more of my book. I was almost asleep when I recieved a phone call from my friend Di. He had a play an early morning concert, so he asked if he could sleep at my place, to which I of course said yes to. Once getting over to my place though to repay the favor of letting him sleep over, he decided to take me out to get a foot massage.
Now - let me tell you, massages are crazy over here - and they’re cheap. We went in to get a foot massage, but this thing came with loads of extras. First, we walked into this weird little room that had these two sofa looking chairs in it and a television. We put our stuff down, rolled our pants up, and had our feet placed in these huge barrels of hot water. Then this guy and girl came in (opposite to your sex) and started working on both of us. My guy was actually really funny and we tended to communicate well for not speaking each others language. Di was also more than happy to translate anything for us. While my feet were in this steaming hot water we were given a back, neck, arm, and hand massage. By this point I almost wanted to fall asleep - but it wasn’t even close to being done yet. After that we had these weird hot packs placed on our knees and were given foot and leg massages. It all ended up having a different guy come in and cleaning up my feet. Finally after two hours and being completely exhausted we made our ways back to my flat where we both passed out within minutes of hitting the pillows. It was the best sleep I’ve had in a long time.
Saturday also looked like it was going to be a lazy day at first. I took my time around my place and made my way out to buy a few new movies and music albums. Note to everyone - Fantastic Mr. Fox is interesting and while not following the book very well is still a good time and is worth seeing. I’m not sure if I would personally want to spend more than what I did on it (which was an American dollar). Also I finally got a chance to book my plane ticket home for the Winter Holiday. Unfourtantley, I waited a little too long and now am stuck with a really early morning return flight…which at the end of the day is much worse for whoever has to drive me out to the airport on the 17th. While I was booking a ticket I got a phone call from a friend and he was looking for the address to a cigar shop and asked if I was interested in going out for a while. This outing turned into an extreme adventure, which is why I love spending time with this person.
Not really knowing how to get to the shop we called the owners several times, and they gave us several different subway stations that could possibly lead us to their store. Taking our chances I first took us down to the cigar shop that I had discovered earlier in the semester…because afterall I did have to find a corncob pipe for our Frosty skit at the New Years Show. Getting back on the subway and going in the wrong direction (thanks to me) we ended up spending about forty-five minutes on the metro, and then took a ten to fifteen minute walk in some really local areas to find this shop. Did the person I go with buy a cigar…no.
Moving onwards with our adventure we decided that we should probably grab some food. We got off at People’s Square and just started walking and ended up in Jing’an. We walked passed a building that had these crazy lights and sounds going off on the second floor and ended up going in to see what all of the fuss was about. Turns out that we walked in on a private party of some famous Chinese singer - who knew! Walking further Nanjing Dong (East) Lu turned into Nanjing Xi (West) Lu and soon we had already made our way down three metro stops. At this point that was it, and it was pretty late as it stood. Getting some food we got a chance to warm ourselves up and talk. However, once the food was gone we continued on our way, now walking down even futher we made our way down a few more metro stations and stopped at a small local coffee house to get a warm drink. Needless to say, late at night the coffee in Shanghai get’s rather strong and tastes rather burnt.
Unfourtantley because I am so used to waking up early sleeping in just never occurs anymore. However today was going to be exciting because I finally was going to get my hair cut. A good friend of mine had made appointments for Liza and I - and I had another friend come along to serve as a translator. Being a reasonable price the cut is awesome, and the hair designer did a really good job. However it was a little scary at first. I told him that I wanted sidebangs - and he didn’t even bother to wet my hair, he just grabbed it and sliced his scissors downward taking off inches of my hair. After seeing the look on my face everyone started laughing at me. So from that point I just closed my eyes and let him do his job…and it worked out, because my haircut is awesome and I’m quite happy with it. They had to laugh though because apparently the salon doesn’t get a lot of people with my hairtype; and even less people come in with Liza’s hairtype.
So there you have it: a massage, an adventure, and a haircut…..it’s just another weekend in Shanghai.
Days until I return to the states: 14