It's been a long time!

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I've written last! These past couple of weeks have been crazy, and the next couple of weeks will be too. I'm taking final exams next week and am trying to finish up three papers, pack, see all my friends and go home! I leave here on the fifteenth, so I now have less than two weeks left!

Despite the short time I'm still up for some Chinese adventures, although my motivation is waning. Last week Sarah, Deborah and I decided to go and get a "cupping" massage. We all went out to dinner and while we were talking, someone began to discuss the funny bruises they had seen on one of the locals. We'd all heard of "cupping" before and seen the marks on people to know it was more than just a crazy Chinese myth. Suddenly it hit me-- we had to go and try this before we left China! I turned to Sarah and mentioned the idea, thinking we would put it off until another date when we had summoned up sufficient courage to go. Another person at the dinner table piped up and mentioned a massage place nearby where they had been once. Before any of us could chicken out, it was agreed that we would go as soon as the meal was done.

Stuffed full of Chinese food, we waddled on down to the twenty-four hour massage parlor. The place itself was kind of shady, the front room was full of massage beds laying end to end. We were taken out the back door, and then up to a small apartment that had been converted to a massage parlor.

The massage itself wasn't bad. It definitely wasn't a massage for comfort, it hurt. The cupping was preceded by a treatment called "gua sha." Basically, after the massage the masseuse scrapes your
back with something that looks like a shoehorn. He scrapes long
enough that after a couple of minutes, we all had stripes across our backs that still haven't healed. After this was completed they brought out glass bulbs
which they lit a fire inside to suck out the oxygen. About a dozen
bulbs are placed on your back suctioning up your skin and leaving HUGE
round bruises. Sarah and I returned home that night and looked in the mirror; we looked like victims of torture.

Despite how the pictures look, it really wasn't painful. It was awkward and weird, but definitely not painful. I woke up the next day pretty stiff and sore, and we've all been wearing tee-shirts instead of tank tops to hide the extent of our injuries.

We rode home from the 24-hour massage parlor in a massive lightning storm. Perhaps God was trying to tell us something...