Let's see... highlights from this past week...
Tuesday we went to Papa John's! Tastes like home =-) What's funny? So many people here call it Papa JONES! When did 'John' start being pronounced 'Jone'?
Thursday we had another date night. We had some yummy Italian food at a place called La Botega and met the good ol' Italian owner... Dalio (said with that lovely Italian flair!) We tried out the new massage place closer to our house that so many people had bragged about. It's always a new and interesting experience to get a massage in China. Each place does it differently. This place gave us Thai-looking outfits to change into so they could massage us easier. They also used baby powder instead of oil... strange, and I think it caused some chafing in the sensitive area of my thigh, but since I have yet to learn the word for "oil" there wasn't much I could do. The massage was for TWO HOURS (which after the first 1.5 I was pretty ready to be done) and was definitely not something you could fall asleep to. It was a pretty rough massage, although thorough. They even massaged my stomach... or was it my fat roll?
The part that made me laugh was when they put towels around our hair at the very end and started rubbing some flowery smelling stuff all over our faces. I was certain that it was some sort of whitening cream and that we'd end up leaving looking like scary ghosts! It was extremely funny to picture Rex lying beside me having this semi-facial done to his pure, manly face. They also gave me a 'nose wash' which basically consisted of the girl sticking her fingers into my nostrils and wriggling them around for about 2 seconds. Somehow I was able to keep my cool and didn't scream or slap her hand away! It prepared me for the "ear wash" which I thankfully didn't receive. I guess ear washes only come with a hair wash at the salon. Who'd have known?
Rex picked up some subbing jobs this week when one of the 4th grade teachers got sick. Needless to say, he's had a busy week, with his ESL stuff in the morning and subbing in the afternoon! I've been trying extremely hard to get ahead with planning... but when does that EVER work out the way you want it to?
We had sushi tonight with a bunch of colleagues at a place down the street. I liked the venue... we had our own private room (very customary in China to give a big group a private room) and the tables were the type where you sit on the floor... kind of like the Korean place we ate at a few weeks ago. As we were leaving, we were offered "the dice"... which is a game common for Moon Festival which is coming up next week.
Moon/Fall Festival always accompanies China National Day (which this year celebrates 60 yrs since Mao, or something). In the dice game (called 'bo bing') you try to roll as many 4's as possible. This struck me as odd because in China, 4 is considered to be an UNlucky number, usually. The reason why... it sounds like the word death... or so they say. Chinese people think it is so unlucky that they don't want it as part of their phone number, and most hotels don't have floors with the number 4 in them. So why is that different for this particular game? No idea.
I got "lucky" and rolled two 4's (out of 6 dice) and won a bottle of plum wine. A friend rolled four 4's and got a HUGE 2 liter bottle of Saki! (remember, this was the Japanese restaurant!) Not bad for not having to do anything on my part except drop some dice into a bowl!
You can tell it's Moon Festival time again because of all the mooncake stands EVERYWHERE! People are crazy about their mooncakes, too. When we first got to China last year, mooncakes were explained to us as "gifts that everyone gave for Fall Festival, but nobody really likes mooncakes so everyone just throws them away". Huh? I can see why a lot of people wouldn't like them. They are definitely an acquired taste, made of some kind of bean with different fillings in the middle. I've had some decent ones but I've also had some really bad ones. There are some mooncakes that cost a LOT of money, too... totally don't understand it.
Tuesday we went to Papa John's! Tastes like home =-) What's funny? So many people here call it Papa JONES! When did 'John' start being pronounced 'Jone'?
Thursday we had another date night. We had some yummy Italian food at a place called La Botega and met the good ol' Italian owner... Dalio (said with that lovely Italian flair!) We tried out the new massage place closer to our house that so many people had bragged about. It's always a new and interesting experience to get a massage in China. Each place does it differently. This place gave us Thai-looking outfits to change into so they could massage us easier. They also used baby powder instead of oil... strange, and I think it caused some chafing in the sensitive area of my thigh, but since I have yet to learn the word for "oil" there wasn't much I could do. The massage was for TWO HOURS (which after the first 1.5 I was pretty ready to be done) and was definitely not something you could fall asleep to. It was a pretty rough massage, although thorough. They even massaged my stomach... or was it my fat roll?
The part that made me laugh was when they put towels around our hair at the very end and started rubbing some flowery smelling stuff all over our faces. I was certain that it was some sort of whitening cream and that we'd end up leaving looking like scary ghosts! It was extremely funny to picture Rex lying beside me having this semi-facial done to his pure, manly face. They also gave me a 'nose wash' which basically consisted of the girl sticking her fingers into my nostrils and wriggling them around for about 2 seconds. Somehow I was able to keep my cool and didn't scream or slap her hand away! It prepared me for the "ear wash" which I thankfully didn't receive. I guess ear washes only come with a hair wash at the salon. Who'd have known?
Rex picked up some subbing jobs this week when one of the 4th grade teachers got sick. Needless to say, he's had a busy week, with his ESL stuff in the morning and subbing in the afternoon! I've been trying extremely hard to get ahead with planning... but when does that EVER work out the way you want it to?
We had sushi tonight with a bunch of colleagues at a place down the street. I liked the venue... we had our own private room (very customary in China to give a big group a private room) and the tables were the type where you sit on the floor... kind of like the Korean place we ate at a few weeks ago. As we were leaving, we were offered "the dice"... which is a game common for Moon Festival which is coming up next week.
Moon/Fall Festival always accompanies China National Day (which this year celebrates 60 yrs since Mao, or something). In the dice game (called 'bo bing') you try to roll as many 4's as possible. This struck me as odd because in China, 4 is considered to be an UNlucky number, usually. The reason why... it sounds like the word death... or so they say. Chinese people think it is so unlucky that they don't want it as part of their phone number, and most hotels don't have floors with the number 4 in them. So why is that different for this particular game? No idea.
I got "lucky" and rolled two 4's (out of 6 dice) and won a bottle of plum wine. A friend rolled four 4's and got a HUGE 2 liter bottle of Saki! (remember, this was the Japanese restaurant!) Not bad for not having to do anything on my part except drop some dice into a bowl!
You can tell it's Moon Festival time again because of all the mooncake stands EVERYWHERE! People are crazy about their mooncakes, too. When we first got to China last year, mooncakes were explained to us as "gifts that everyone gave for Fall Festival, but nobody really likes mooncakes so everyone just throws them away". Huh? I can see why a lot of people wouldn't like them. They are definitely an acquired taste, made of some kind of bean with different fillings in the middle. I've had some decent ones but I've also had some really bad ones. There are some mooncakes that cost a LOT of money, too... totally don't understand it.
Your typical mooncake... this one appears to be egg-filled. Yeah.
Where did mooncakes come from? Read the legend of the Moon Festival if you are interested.
It's almost a shame we won't be here for National Day and the Moon Festival. We were offered tickets to some local Communist banquet, which I thought could be pretty cool... except that we're going to be gone when it happens. Also, the fireworks show is supposed to be even better than a few weeks ago! I can't even begin to imagine. I'm really looking forward to the Philippines, though. We're flying to the island of Coron in Palawan. We'll probably do some island hopping and snorkeling and then a whole lot of absolutely nothing! Coron is famous for being the final battlefield of Japanese ships during WWII. There are 32 sunken ships in the area and a lot of people like to dive the wrecks, although I'm pretty sure we'll just be snorkeling them! Haven't booked any hotels yet, but we have our eye on a couple. Looking forward to white sand and blue sea!
