March 1-6, 2010

March 1 - 6

What a Fantastic way to start March.

Today was by far the best day I have had in China yet! The 1st of March started as my day off. I slept in a bit and stayed in bed until 11:00am; I would have stayed longer had I not already made plans with Anna to go belly dancing in the afternoon. The class was a lot of fun and really hard so we are going to look for an easier level. We learned that the center where we did our belly dancing also holds classes for traditional Chinese dancing; which we now want to try as well.

After our belly dancing class we grabbed lunch and headed back to Anna's place so I could see all her clothes she's had made by her tailor. I can't wait till I can get mine made. :-)

We headed back out to go for a massage which only cost 65RMB for an hour. It was really good; my head was massaged and he stretched the muscles in my arms, legs and fingers. I want to go back!

After the massages we decided we should pamper ourselves by getting our hair washed. This is quite the routine. You sit in a chair and they put this liquid in your hair and it turns foamy like shampoo, they massage it into your hair while giving you a head massage, you then go to the sink to have it washed out, go back to the chair where they lean you back and clean your ears, massage your arms, hands, shoulders and neck. Once this whole process is done you move to the styling chairs where they dry and style your hair. I chose curly, which might have been a mistake since I walked out with REALLY puffy hair. Ha ha. They didn't use a curling iron to curl my hair though, the guy used a blow dryer and a couple of those round brushes. How much, you must be asking, does this kind of treatment cost? Well let me tell you: it's only 15RMB (2.34CDN) how fantastic is that!?

Now I am home being treated to sweet dumplings and tea from Frances and her boyfriend Alex. They offered me duck feet but I couldn't bring myself to trying it just yet. :-)

I’m still living with Frances but am making the best of it for now. it does have it's positives, for example; the shower tap in the bathroom is leaking and what would normally take a week to get someone to help me get it fixed, only took a day because Frances asked. So far it’s not bugging me too much, but I will eventually get tired of it and ask for my own place. For now I have decided I will use her to practice my Chinese. I haven't been able to put too many sentences together yet, but hopefully I can shed my embarrassment and just take a stab at it. :-)

I was bitten on my cheek bone by a mosquito while I was sleeping the other night and the bite has swollen up and looks terrible. :-S the very next night I saw a cockroach for the first time in my room. I squished it and sprayed raid under my bed just in case. I guess spring is here if it means bugs are coming out.

Lessons are good so far but nothing too exciting; I don’t even have very many per week. :-) Story forest started up again but for one reason or another I haven’t had to go to any of those classes so far which has left me with quite a bit of free time. I am almost done my first Rosetta Stone lesson then I can start on disk two. Although the program is really cool and does teach you a lot, I haven’t been able to make too many sentences yet. Some of that is my fault though for not really trying very hard.

I might start teaching private lessons soon if everything works out. It will be one girl, two lessons a week and 100RMB/hr so that’s not bad for a starting point. I would have said 150RMB to start but Jeff started arranging it and passed it my way because he didn’t want to lose his free time and he knew I wanted to earn some extra cash.

I get to go to Anna's tailor on Monday (the 8th) to have my dresses made. :-D I'm very excited for that.

Well that may be all for now. Until next time...