Hurt So Good

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Modern sculpture at 54 Park. We asked if there was any significance and were told "no." That's our hotel in the background on the lower right.

















The view from my hotel room (29th floor of the Crowne Plaza) in Qingdao.








After a very successful, but long day, we were glad to have a few hours to sleep in and relax this morning. Sophia offered to come and pick us up to do a little sight-seeing and shopping before we were to go and meet with TripleMaster. We didn't have time to go far, so we stayed centrally located in the city and visited 54 Park. It is one of the beautification projects for the upcoming 2008 olympics that will be hosted in Beijing. The sailing regattas will be held here, in the bay off of Qingdao. All the time we were here, the wind was blowing, so the sailing events should be successful.

The country is rebuilding and beautifying in several places. Where once stood a factory on the peninsula that separates Qingdao from the bay is now rebuilt with more pleasing and beautiful homes and buildings.

Along the waterfront are these awning covered shops. Why is it that every vendor in China thinks that we (who are of the caucasian persuasion) are here to buy watches? I think I have yet to see a shop that doesn't have a fake Rolex for sale.

Word on the street is that China is trying to shut down the copy markets before the olympics because it doesn't present the country well to the rest of the world, but we're betting that if they close one section down it will just open somewhere else.

We have looked repeatedly for shirts that represent China or have chinese characters on them for little girls, but everything we see is from the fashionable clothing vendors, or a copy of some Western or European brand.

This picture looks back towards the sculpture and our hotel (somewhere in the background).

There were a couple of speedboats giving rides to paying customers from here. My first thoughts were "Hey -- the sign says 'wakeless speed'", but then I remembered I wasn't in Kansas anymore. It did look a little funny to see a boat full of suit-clad business men in bright orange life jackets speeding off on a quick circular ride around the inlet, but we didn't stay and watch for long -- there was shopping to be done.

Sophia took us to a market that locals frequent so Mike could start on his list of souvenirs (all the requests from back home). Have I mentioned that I'm feeling pretty good that all I had to find were some silk scarves and silk ties? His list of 3,000 items is down to about 2,994 after about two hours of haggling at this market.

Sophia stepped in and helped with the first one, but it became quickly apparent that the locals were mad at her for helping the Americans -- "let them spend their money", so we started negotiating on our own. I found a shop with silk and looked for something unique. Finding it, I asked how much and they told me 160 RMB. Memories of the markets in Korea came flooding back and I decided to have some fun, so I made some ridiculous sound to show that CLEARLY they were asking too much.

She handed me the calculator (the universal translator for shoppers in China) and suggested I put a price in I would be happy to pay. I entered 60, and she quickly countered with 120. I smiled and entered 60, and she countered with 80. I had her now. This was fun, so I entered 60 and pointed to it with emphasis. She entered 70 and I smiled, shook my head and started to walk away. Before I get two steps towards the door, she blurts out "Ok, ok" (universally understood as "yes, we have a deal" and I walked away thinking I was pretty hot stuff. Take THAT!

I realize that I'm not keeping this chronological... sorry. Back to 54 Park...

I had to have a picture of this sign. The joke in Qingdao, Mike having made the mistake of telling the story of a certain hostess from Shanghai that was a little too friendly (I promised never to mention her name again) was all I could think of when I saw this sign. She did profess to be a true "romantic."




Just a short distance from there I happened on the most gawdy hotel I'd ever seen. I'm not sure the picture is a true representation of just how purple this place was, but I instantly thought of Tessa and that I'd have to put this in the blog for her. I should clarify... not because she's gawdy, but she does love purple.






It didn't take long for us to get shopping out of our system, so we went and had a quick lunch -- at some westernized sandwich shop -- whatever happened to Chinese food?

They had a couple of "club sandwiches", and because you never know, we asked what was really in them. One was pork, and one was chicken. It turned out that the pork was really ham (I guess that makes sense). I wonder if the chicken was really turkey?

We met with Triple Master and had a very successful meeting again. The groups get larger, and the excitement and acceptance seems to grow everywhere we go. We were generally pleased and walked out with them promising to start using the shipping screens and to better utilize the Web EDI system.

Mike and I, along with three other ICON employees that were at the plant, were invited by Logan to go to dinner and have foot massages. That's right, all those stories of Mike's past experiences with Logan in Qingdao and massages were about to be first-hand. Of course, we were down with that.

We went to an authentic Mongolian BBQ -- funny, it isn't at all like the one's I've been to in Logan. This was upscale, do-it-right, delicious fare. Logan didn't know what we'd like best, so he ordered lamb and beef for us to try before we decided. It all started with us mixing up our own peanut, hot pepper, pesto sauce for dipping.

We cooked the meat in a pot of boiling water placed in the center of the table. After just a few seconds in the pot, we were instructed to retrieve and enjoy our meat. Now I've never been much for mutton, and the only other time I've liked it enough to eat it was at a BBQ in Provo where the farmer instructed us to cook it medium rare. This was much the same, and we pretty much all decided we like the lamb best.

From there it was an incredible feast, from steamed wheat buns stuffed with some meat and hot peppers dish to a spinach-like vegetable that was actually pretty good. From a large variety of mushrooms to fruit and other dishes that are too numerous to mention. We gorged ourselves and gorged ourselves until we literally could eat no more. They brought out a skewer of meat for each of us that was encrusted with sesame seeds and pepper and told us that for every sheep, there is only one of these (hmmm... I don't want to go down that path again of what it could be, and was just content to enjoy it). Mike had mentioned that he loved the stir fried peanuts, and they brought us several plates of them as well.

We were fed like the fat slobs we are, and ate every last bite.

Afterwards, we went for the foot massages... all six of us (5 from ICON and Logan). Having been restricted from oriental massage parlors while on my mission, I didn't quite know what to expect, and went in with a little hesitancy.

Logan and I were talking and he mentioned that we could get any kind of massage here that we wanted... a head massage, a foot massage, a full-body massage, and ... (we'll leave that one to your imagination.) He knew we were up for the foot massage only, and made the arrangements.

After setting everything up, they escorted us back to a room where we all sat in chairs that all but laid down flat. The massage "artists" (I'm avoiding the term "girls" here) came in with scalding hot tubs of water, and helped us remove our shoes and socks and had us soak our feet.

My "therapist" had trouble with my socks, so I helped her get them off and dipped my foot in. I knew it would be in bad form to scream "Holy S**T that's hot!" so I refrained, and instead dipped them in and out several times until I was able to leave them in the water. I just hoped that the blisters would be healed by the time we were headed back to the states. There were the chest-thumping, man-proving comments like "wimp" and "baby" being thrown out for those that were complaining that the 2000 degree water was a little too warm for their toes, but soon enough we all settled in for the ride.

The girls left us there to cook for some time before returning to inflict the real pain. Having saved our feet just short of soft-boiled, they wrapped them in a towel and left again to let them breathe. Hey... I don't blame them. I was kind of noticing an unpleasant odor myself with 6 men who had been working all day in one room with their shoes off.

Soon enough, they came back and started the massages. You wouldn't think that shoulders and arms had anything to do with reflexology and foot massage, but it did feel nice. They liked to not only massage, knead and roll, but slap and punch (with the force of an old mule kicking his way out of the barn), as they worked us over. At one point, they would intertwine their fingers with ours and wave our arms around to get them fully relaxed, then whip it from the wrist down to see if they could dislocate it from the shoulder socket. We all survived, and no one screamed out in pain (at least not yet).

From there, it was the calves and feet. Oh my hell... Now I've had a deep tissue massage before (painful), but the way these girls would find those painful pressure points and push those little knuckles through all the tissues and muscles and all the way to the bone, brought new meaning to the words "hurt me baby!"

I couldn't take it when she worked between my toes, and because I'm so ticklish, would have to fight from pulling my foot away. Throughout the massage she would slap the top of my foot to tell me to relax, inasmuch as we didn't seem to communicate on any other level, and I would try to oblige my torture master and let her resume her assault.

Here's a tip... when this little Chinese girl presses her knuckle into the bottom of your foot and finds a nerve you didn't knew existed, then rides that nerve all the way down to your heel... be prepared to cry. It was helpful that there were six of us burly, brawny men there to not let each other wimp out, but I can testify that at more than one point we were all ready to say... "that's enough honey."

All good things must come to an end, and thankfully, this torture did too. Actually, it was very relaxing (once it was over), and worth the "free 99" (as Chelsey would say) price we had to pay for it. Would I do it again? Yes... it seems to be a right of passage for those traveling to China.

I think we all slept pretty well, but Mike and I were up early for another "is it morning already?" flight. Now, we're in Xiamen... middle of nowhere... and no foot massage to be found.