Massages

In honor of July 4th we were officially off work today. Cara decided to use her free day to get a foot massage with Maya. Now, we have mentioned these wonderful massage things before, but we have not given you a full description. Here is how it works:
- You show up at the lovely massage parlor of your choice. If you are Cara, you have most likely selected Bodi. The people manning the front desk ask you (first in Mandarin and then in English!) which massage you wish to have and then show you to your room. If you are getting the foot massage, as Cara and Maya were getting today, then you are shown to a room with two oversized armchairs.
- Then you are asked if you would like any of the complementary drinks, snacks, or meals. When Cara's sister was in town, they had lunch at Bodi twice.
- Next the masseuse or masseur comes in with a small tub filled with a hot herbal bath. If you are paying the full rates rather than the half-off daytime rates, there will be flowers floating in your hot herbal foot bath.
- While your feet are soaking, the masseur asks you (mostly in Mandarin using a lot of hand gestures) to sit on the ottoman so he can massage your neck, then back, then head, and might as well cover the arms too for about 30 minutes.
- Guessing that your feet are now well cooked, the masseur encourages you to go back over to the armchair, removes your feet from the still warm bath, and wraps one of them up in a towel to prevent it from getting cold while he starts massaging the other foot. And foot here means foot, toes, ankle, calf, and maybe thigh.
- At some point during this process, another employee of the place will come in with heated pillows for your neck and the small of your back. This is a good time to ask for more drinks if you are thirsty.
- Eventually the masseur will wrap up the foot he was working on and move to your second foot.
- At the end of this whole process (a total of 80 minutes has now passed) the masseur will let you know he is finished and is leaving. He then encourages you to relax and rest in your comfortable armchair with perhaps your hot ginger and cola drink and your heated pillows until you feel ready to move.
- Before you walk out the front door you stop at the front desk and pay nice people. Because this is an expensive place the regular rate is 156 RMB. Since we visited during the day, we gotten the promotional 76 RMB price. This is about $10 US.
- You leave feeling that pretty much everything is right in the world.