Tuesday Adventures

Danny has been needing a haircut, but he hasn't dared to go ask for one. Not so hard when you just need to buzz, but we found a place today with a lot of young guys working there, and I made sound effects and sign language to show he just wanted it all off. We haven't seen anyone here with a shaved head, so it's not common, but they brought over a NBA magazine and pointed to Kevin Garnett's shaved head and I gave him the thumbs up! So Danny got a shampoo, hairbuzz, wash off, neck trim for about $1.50. The people were all so nice and after we took this picture, they wanted a picture with us on their camera. I think they must have thought Danny was a famous basketball player!
Also on our walk there was a nice beauty treatment salon. We got a flyer the other day and asked Stella to translate. So today I took it in and pointed to the place where it said "facial" and they took me back to a room. The girl started out with a 30 minute back massage, and I figured, oops, that's what the flyer said, oh well because it was an AWESOME massage, then she had me turn over and proceeded with a 90 MINUTE facial with all sorts of oils and creams and a lot more massage. After TWO HOURS (poor Danny didn't know what was taking so long) they told me the price- 80RMB which amounts to about $11.50. Not bad for a day on the town-and there is no tipping here, so we REALLY got a bargain!


We are getting a bit more daring with restaraunts here in Wujiang. We went to one last night that had some pictures on the menu, thinking we would just point. These darling teenage waitresses were trying to use their english to ask us more questions, but it wasn't working. Then all of a sudden, one of the girls comes running over with a lady and says "My english teacher". What a crazy coincindence! So this lovely chinese english teacher tried to translate for us, and did pretty well, and we ended up with a really decent meal--for about $6 total!

After that experience and armed with our dictionary this time, we went looking for some pork dumplings and rice for lunch. Remember the picture of the fermented rice balls? Well, we kind of ended up with that! A HUGE bowl of it. Of course we both had to try it, and it was just kind of blah. Nothing fermented tasting about it. We figured the little balls were dough balls and the fermented part of it had to do with a yeast rising process, because they were just little dough balls in some kind of creamy, starchy liquid. I will say I tasted it, but that was it. Danny felt bad leaving so much left on the table, but I told him he didn't need to force feed himself.

Here is a side note from last night. We were walking down the main street and saw these two little boys (who were there the night before doing the same thing) unsupervised with a lighter and some newspaper to burn. They thought they were pretty clever! We wondered where in the world were their parents, or child protective services. We have realized our society is a bit more paranoid about safety than the people here!


Lastly, there is always fresh fruit on our table when we get home every day. Today, there was something a bit unusual. We still aren't sure what it is, but we figured how to open it and cut it up.

Let me just say that you can't judge a beautiful looking fruit by its peel. The inside was the consistency of a kiwi-also the seeds were similar, but the taste was kind of earthy. We tried it, and then tossed the rest out.