Post #4 by Miss Em

Mark and I explored Zhong shan Lu, the main drag in Mark and Tina’s neighborhood, and walked up and down the side alleys. There were all kinds of local markets with lots of live fish and seafood, poultry, flowers, tea... you name it. Some of the alleys were so narrow we had to walk single file. It was funny to see Mark, who’s probably over six feet tall, towering through the tiny walkways.

Tina came home from school at around noon, and we met back at the house for Wichmann-style nachos; yum! Then Tina and I went to Gulang Yu island to explore more and climb Sunlit Rock – more tiny stone stairs for our sore legs, but the views and cool breezes at the top made the climb well worth it.

We headed to back Xiamen by ferry at around 5pm, and met up with Tina’s friend Edlin for foot massages. A foot massage in China lasts about 100 minutes and also includes a neck, back, arm and leg massage – it costs about $13 USD. It sounds relaxing but Tina and I were both screaming at times during our massages. The masseuses were men and masters at massage – they had obviously received a lot of training. They used a lot of acupressure (severe acupressure); they easily found and poked all our sore spots. It turned out to be well worth the pain since Tina and I felt a lot better afterward. I am looking forward to seeing if there are any foot massage places back in Chicago’s China Town.

We ended our day by going to a seafood restaurant on the water, where we had “hairy crab” which is in season right now and considered to be the best crab in China.