Return of the Guest Blogger...

We are back from Guilin and what a beautiful countryside. I'll let you know about this area later. We've finished our sightseeing in Beijing and now we are onto our next destination. Xiamen. Here we will stay at Wichmann Bed and Breakfast, hold off on the breakfast. Actually, we had to bring our own from Canada. Accommodations are pleasant, extra space was converted into a bedroom. I have the luxury of a portable bed (better known as an air mattress) with an extra feature of an instant wake up call. Basically, once I hit the floor I have to get up. Its not all bad, I can look forward to breakfast?????

Today is a relaxing day according to our hostess, I thought maybe we would just hang around. Nope. Actually, we had to look for a bank. Banks are a little different over here, instead of waiting in line for a teller, you have to take a number and wait. And wait. And wait. Luckily, you have nice seats to wait on.
Tina mentioned a foot massage today. I was looking forward to this as this will be a real treat for me. My concern was dad. According to him, it is a waste of money and time. If you knew DOD (dear ol' dad) he tells it like it is and doesn't stop until you are convinced. He was pretty much convinced that a massage was pretty much a useless endeavor. He thinks that a massage is an extravagance. He really had no say at time. His arguing and bitchin' would prove to be waste of energy on his part. We are now finished with the bank and on our way to lunch. We met up with Siew (Mark and Tina's friend) and enjoyed nice lunch at a crocodile farm.
Now it is time for the massage. Yep, he's still yapping. If you knew Tina, she basically said "enough already sit down and enjoy." We all sat and waited. First, large vessels with water to wash our feet. We're still hearing DOD's "2 cents" . Once our feet were washed the conversations were becoming less animated and more relaxing. Now the fun part, the massage. First, the back. I could say that is was really relaxing and exhilarating, but I won't. It was painful. I didn't realize how tense the muscles were. I did hear a lot of 'ughh' , 'oh, my God, this hurts', 'wow they've got strong fingers' and that was just from Tina. Actually, everyone felt the pain. Next came the feet, this was really painful. Again, all of painful comments. Again, they came from Tina. The real funny part was not a PEEP from DOD!!!! He was just enjoying himself. He was really getting into the message.
After an hour we were done. We really did feel rejuvenated and wonderful. We then parted from Sue and took a cab back to our Wichmann B&B. The first question out of my dear Dad's mouth was 'when are we going to have our next foot message??? Go figure. So far I heard this question a least once a day. So we'll see.