Mexican Torture

As we mentioned earlier Rene was back in town and we've been enjoying hanging out with him these last few weeks, and we figured that we give him a chance to experience the full fun of China....

That's right, we took him for massage and cupping...

Mexican after the torture

He screamed like a little girl when the cups were applied. He actually snored during the massage, so that couldn't have been that bad.

Me, with my least amount of toxins ever...

Overall, we were all incredibly light, so we must not have had many toxins in us. Mexican says it's the tequila and we think that it's the week between drinking that bottle of tequila amongst the three of us and then having the cupping that pulls the toxins out...

Last weekend...

So in returning to talking about our regular life here in Xiamen, we will share with you the things that we have been doing. First, as we mentioned before we left for Xinjiang, our friend the Crazy Mexican - Rene, is back in Xiamen for a few months with work. Although it's not the same as when we would head over to the villa that his family was staying in last year, it's still good to catch up with him for a few beers or whatnot.

We took the Mexican over to the barber that I use so that he would look presentable when he was going to work.
Then last weekend over at Havana's they had a party to celebrate the Mexican independence day, September 16th. There was quite a crowd and too much tequila was drunk.
Yep, we were a little slow moving on Sunday and our plans for going to the local massage parlor for cupping were put on hold for a week. We are heading over to Me&You 2 now to meet up with the Mexican again and this week we will make it to cupping, and with a lot less toxins then the would have found if we had gone last weekend....

The adventures of Barb and Nancy part deux

If there were words to describe this place I haven't found them. From the very modern to the very ancient. Tina and Mark as with all their guests are awesome. Yesterday we started out at the botanical gardens very nice flora and fauna of the area then on to a lakeside restaurant for a bit of imbibing in the local beer and snacks.Then onward and upward to APPLE TRAVEL to meet Grace our travel agent but actually Tina is training her and catches all her mistakes; I guess the apple does fall far from the tree but I digress. One beer stop later we head over to have the torture of the century known here as cupping . Lets just say by the look of our backs the toxins couldn't have come out too soon but the massage made up for it. Feeling like id been beaten we head out to GU Lang you the agenda for the night is a free (and i cant stress this too much) drinking party followed by running to catch the ferry and home to our abode.

Weekend recap

This weekend we just enjoyed ourselves, relaxed, and caught up on lots of little errands that we needed to get done. We're still behind on some things that we need to complete - but we are getting them done.

First thing on our task list was to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather the Xiamen is having. This weekend the high was 27C (about 80F) very different then this same time last year when Xiamen hit a record low of 3C (about 40F) - this was the weekend last year that we gave up and bought a heater. We enjoyed our Friday evening by cleaning off the months worth of dirt on our balcony (Tina did this), dragging our ipod and sounddock outside and just relaxed with music, whisky, cigars, and happy conversations about the weather...

Saturday was apparently a holiday here in China and Siew Yih wanted to know if we would be celebrating this Valentine's day over at Temptations with their special dinner. Of course we would - not having to cook and getting a special, probably overpriced, meal - how could we say no? Most of day the we relaxed at home organizing our music files on itunes. Dinner was pigeon and pork, it was delicious and not too expensive - and of course there was good wine to enjoy with the meal.

Today was another full day of things to do, a fog as wrapped itself around Xiamen and the temperature dropped down to 20C - the heat wave is over... So with colder temperatures we head through the market to our friendly shoe shine girls to get our shoes all cleaned up. A little extra work on mine raises the cost so that for the two of us it totals out just over 1USD. From there we do our grocery shopping in the market and I go spend another dollar for a haircut.

A happy plate of nachos for lunch and then we wander off to get a nice massage and cupping. It had been too long since we forcibly removed the toxins from our bodies...
Look at how clean my body was - hardly any toxins this time. You can look back at our first time cupping to see just how dark the spots were on my back then. I think that it was the whisky from Friday that helped to keep my system clean....

Cupping

The other day we allowed our friend Siew Hong to take us to the spa for the traditional Chinese health remedy of cupping. Sounds fun doesn't it?

Cupping is supposed to be a great way to help remove toxins from your body and apparently fix a whole list of other ailments. Basically, it's just a bunch of cups stuck to your back with a slight vacuum so that it pulls your skin up into the cup, this leaves some nice marks on your back that they tell you will take about a week to fade away.

Me having the first round of cups removed.Tina with the first round of cups on her back.

Tina getting her second round of cups added to her back.

Me getting my second round of cups.

So they tell you that the darker red the spots are the more toxins that are in your body. Tina was the healthiest of the three of us. The girl told us that was probably because Tina is always doing the TaiChi and that helps to keep the body clean.

It's nice, a little painful at points but nothing worse then a deep massage. It's relatively quick taking only about 30 minutes and inexpensive at 30元 (4.50 USD), and you do actually feel better once it's finished.

Yep, that's how unhealthy I am.

And for added fun you get a video of the cupping process.