First Time for Everything

Well on Saturday I sat in a pool and had fish eat the dead skin of my legs, how was your weekend?

We went to a hot springs on Saturday (pictures coming soon). Super fun. Different. They had several different pools, lots of massages. A cucumber flavered(?) pool, a rose pool, etc. And there was one pool where they had little fish about 2 inches long, and if you sat still enough, they came up and nibbled on you. Now I've always been afraid of swimming with fish. I don't like things touching me in the lake, and snorkeling was scary enough. But I clenched my fists, actually my whole body really, and I sucessfully sat there for about 20 minutes! Those little suckers tickled soooo much! It was a full on ab work out just to hold still. One of them really liked the arch of my foot. And there was also a naughty little fish that would sneak up high on my hamstring. Surprise! This is also when I learned that the Chinese are not ticklish. You could always tell when Daniela, Julie and I were getting nibbled on because of the uncontrollable laughter or the tension in our faces. The Chinese were all submerged up to their necks, and from them, no reaction. Crazy.

And okay, so many this isn't a first-ish, but it was awesome. Coming back from the hot springs, I got Daniela, Julie and I dropped off in Ningbo where we met up with people in LaoWaiTan (foreigner's land), and we had TWO dinners. YUM. First gyros from the Greek restaurant, and then on to enchiladas at the Mexian restaurant. Oh so good! Once again, you could probably have rolled me into the taxi and prayed that I would fit. So now I can't understand after so much food, why I woke up at 3 am STARVING, when sometimes I only eat 1/2 a dinner and I'm barely hungry the next morning? Where is the reasoning in that, body? I'd like to know.

I've never been openly stared at by so many naked women. We've been swimming at the pool lately, and the culture difference just cracks me up. The foreigners are okay with the itsy bitsy bikinis in the pool, but are totally disgusted by the locals who just walk around naked in the locker rooms. While the locals wear the most conservative bathing suits (full body tank tops + shorts/skirts) and then, well, walk around naked in the locker rooms. And me, just by walking into the locker room (fully clothed) they all stop and stare.

I actually got my first WOOOOOWW! I was at the Chinese school next door, they have a better playing field for soccer, and I was just leaving in all my sweaty gloriness. As I walked out into the courtyard, I crossed paths with 2 eighth graders. This was the full dropped jaw effect, kinda reminds me of when Aladin first saw Jasmine. That kinda wow.

This weekend I also drove for the first time in China. Woot woot! Going to go check up on my life insurance policy before I do that again :) Daniela let me drive the e-bike to the pool the other day. I'm starting to become Chinese. I only froze up once in a game of chicken. Other than that, I'm really starting to understand the rules of the flow of traffic. It's probably going to get me killed back in the States, but there really is something beautiful about the way traffic flows here.

I went out to dinner with Alice this week. I tried octopus for the first time :) And as long as I wasn't thinking about ocotopus while eating it, it was actually okay! She also took me to the produce guy who sliced up some pineapple for me. Yum yum! I call this my pineapple lollipop!