No, not in your pants but for your foot massage . . .My weekly treat is a pedicure/foot massage along with a neck, shoulder and back massage. This 90 minute event is wonderful. It is so relaxing and relieves all the neck and shoulder stress after sleeping on a hard 'mattress' all week long. (I am not sure most of you would define it as a mattress).
Last week was particular funny. When we jumped in to a cab, I showed the cabbie a business card with the address in Chinese of our destination. As we were driving along rather dangerously, I noticed we were going in the wrong direction. Having been ripped off so many times in my past travels, I was sure this driver was trying to pull a fast one. All of sudden, I realized we were in front of the vegetarian restaurant that I ate at last week. Oh no. I showed him the wrong business card. Oops! All the cards are in Chinese and look the same to me.
When we finally arrived at the right place, my colleagues and I were whisked into a private room with TV and AC. We lounged back on 1970s style chaise chairs while specifying we wanted the $10 treatment and not the $6 one. While drinking tea/beer and the complimentary watermelon, a line of pink shirted workers walked in with big old fashioned looking wooden buckets. They poured hot water into them along with a packet of white powder. As I put my feet in to soak, I saw a dead ant floating around. Before I could say anything I saw dozens more floating about. I guess that is the difference between the two treatmenst. For $4 more, you get ants! Some of you will be surprised to hear that I wasn't grossed out. China has been good for me. My 'grossness' threshold has changed quite a bit in the last month.
Apart from the ants, everything else was pretty much normal...except when the petite young woman ground her knee into my back. For a little thing she had a lot of strength in that knee. It didn't hurt enough for me to have her stop. In fact, I will return one more time before departing Wuhan. But maybe next time, I'll have them hold the ants.
