Bleaargh

A truck drives by as I walk to the bus--



It’s been a little while, I got pretty sick on Friday and haven’t felt like writing. Friday itself was awesome, the two laps of frog leaps I’d been dreading all week were replaced with sprint races— the first of which Tom and I won. Sadly we lost the next round and got a hundred squats, but I’d take even three hundred squats over those leaps.

Things went south in the evening. I started feeling ill, bloated and nauseous, eventually throwing up a couple times between ten and twelve. The morning was little better, which upset me since I was slated for a mid day massage with Charlie (for the rest of the weekend I barely felt like eating). Nevertheless, I caught the bus downtown. My condition improved as the ride went on, thankfully, despite the limited standing space onboard. I was joined by an exceptionally intoxicated man with a large bottle of alcohol in one hand and a shopping bag of cherries in the other. He lurched around spewing gibberish for a few minutes before disembarking, to everyone’s relief.

Some of the outlying area--



The plan was to ride for around forty or fifty minutes, get off, and find a taxi to my destination (This saves on cab fares. A cab to the same area would run me something like 20 bucks, whereas the bus is around fifteen cents). Of course, I could barely talk to the cabby, but the thing to do is to call Andy, or Charlie’s girlfriend in this case, and have them direct the ride. This I did, and got a funny look from the driver. Unwittingly, I’d hailed him only a few hundred feet from my destination, a branch of the Bank of China.

I met Charlie outside and we walked up to his girlfriend’s place for a few minutes to chill out. Inside he handed me an odd fruit, the name of which I forgot, but have just relearned using Google. It was a Mangosteen, something I had never before seen or eaten. A bit smaller than my fist, it had a hard outer skin with a fleshy, deep purple body underneath. Charlie told me to peel off the shell in big chunks, but it wasn't working too well. The fruit chipped like a hardboiled egg gone wrong. Looking to Charlie for guidance I saw he’d snapped his whole Mangosteen in half. Comprehension! The purple stuff was actually a part of the rind. Hiding inside was a cave dwelling mandarin orange— a sweet, squishy, pale white citrus fruit.



Unlike an orange there was a smallish pit at the center, but it was no difficulty to avoid (I’ve taken this pic from Wikipedia). We scarfed them down, washed hands, and headed out for the massage.

I recognized the parlor as we arrived. I had glimpsed the entrance from the bus, cavernous, red, and gold, and wondered what lay within. At the time I settled on “fancy restaurant,” the reality was superior. We dealt briefly with a woman at the front desk and were ushered by our masseuses, upstairs, into a nicely decorated room with several beds, various other furnishings, and a large television. Describing a massage in detail is futile, but it was definitely money well spent. We paid 120 kwai (scarce shy of twenty dollars) for a full body massage including feet, hands, legs, back, and head. It was all incredibly pleasant, except a short bit during the head massage— she apparently wondered as to the tensile strength of American hair. Oh, on that note, those girls were strong! I have limited massage giving experience, but I know a few minutes of gripping anything wears one out. Seriously, she had hands like a vice, didn't look it though. Charlie went back to his girl, and I took another bus back to camp. Along the way, somebody walked in smoking a cig. The driver immediately snatched it, threw it out the window, and scolded the man, who then offered him a Pepsi. I was astounded to see that it was the same very drunk man from the morning. Yantai has ten million people, what are those odds?

So, that was Saturday. I fell asleep around six thirty with the light, and my clothes, still on, didn't wake until three, and slept again until eight (Friday night hadn’t afforded me any real rest). Sunday was spent not doing laundry, sitting around, and browsing the Internet. Monday’s past now, it wasn't terribly exciting though so I’m going to do something else. Oh great, I know what I need to do. Squats, the master wants a hundred every evening, because he can’t really ask me while I’m all tired during the day.