October 15 - Spa Day

Before turning in for the night last evening, I decided to enjoy another day in Hangzhou if the hostel had room (they did).  The hostel (Ho Fang) is one of the nicest I've stayed at -- and I thought it would be fun to stay another day, explore a little on my own and rest my feet from the days of walking I've been doing.

I had also had time to do more internet research on massages in China -- and was feeling confident that I might try to get that accomplished as I had identified a reputable chain.  In writing about Chinese massages, Lonely Planet says: "...midrange massage parlours are a must -- for the price of a cocktail or three you get your own set of PJs, some post-therapy tea and Chinese flute music to chill out with.  Just don't expect the masseuses to be gentle. As they say: no pain, no gain..."

So this morning I plotted a walking route to the massage place and with my frequently written about "what's the worse that came happen" actually scaring me -- I set out to get a foot massage.  Little did I know that getting there would be so interesting as I happened down a narrow street which was a local meat market -- men were actually slaughtering and skinning sheep right there in the street.  I snapped pictures as quickly and unnoticed as I could.  Definitely no westerners anywhere around my route today.  Not exactly what I was expecting or wanting to see on my way to a massage, but interesting nonetheless.

Thereafter I walked cautiously toward the massage place. The modest, business-like uniforms of the staff seemed to confirm what I had read.  I proceeded inside -- and with almost no English spoken or understood, I was led to a waiting room where I was seated with another Chinese gentleman enjoying tea and fruit.  Soon I was led to a private room where the attendant at least knew the words "how much" and foot and body.  She pointed to a sign in the room that was all in Chinese except the dollar amounts and I could figure from where she was pointing that a foot massage would be a little less than $30 USD for one hour and a body massage would be a little more than $30 USD for an hour.  As often is the case in China, she used her phone's calculator to show me the total price for both ¥377 (about $62 USD.  I said ok.  She asked if I wanted tea (or at least tea is the one word I understood) and I declined, having no idea what that would cost.  She then said some other things I didn't get except that she did utter the word "included" that caused me to say "ok."  Shortly a male attendant returned with plates of watermelon and grapefruit and a bottled water.  Things were getting off to a good start.

Soon another woman came in with a bucket of warm water, and I was soon enjoying a wonderful foot and leg massage.  The massause spoke almost no English but I decided to try to learn a little by showing her a photo of my family on the Google Nexus pad.  I could discern that she was able to understand what I was saying and from that, I was able to get her to tell me that she had two boys (by pointing to the boys in my family), ages 9 and 5, and she was 33 (by showing fingers) and had been a masseuse for 5 years (questions/answers with numbers always seem to be the easiest to try to bridge the language barrier).  With a little rapport established, I relaxed and felt quite self-indulged as I enjoyed my fruit while having my tired feet worked on.  Thereafter, she led me to another room and proceeded to give my back a seriously deep massage (definitely some pain in both the foot and back massage) She must have been able to tell which muscles were tense because she worked on those the most.  All wonderfully relaxing even with the pain. 

Another adventure success which made my brain feel as good as the massage itself.   I will now tell others what my daughter told me after she and her husband taught in China, that a Chinese massage should be on a the "must-do" list when in China.

The charge was exactly what the attendant had shown me and I left feeling like my feet were walking on clouds -- and purposely routed myself another way back to the hostel area so I wouldn't have to see the dead sheep.