Shenzhen

The 19th of October was a holiday here in Hong Kong, and a few of my coworkers were gracious enough to spend the day with AC and I as we ventured into Mainland China. Although it's physically quite close to Hong Kong (less than one hour by train), you can immediately recognize a difference -- namely all the English signage is gone. We were very lucky that we had Chinese speakers with us, although even they struggled with the Mandarin dialect versus the Cantonese they are more accustomed to.

Our first stop was a traditional dim sum lunch. I will say that dim sum is finally growing on me. We were slightly more adventurous this time and I actually tried squab (domestic pigeon). Tastes like chicken! *groan* After a huge lunch and a failed attempt to get a lane at a local bowling alley, we headed over to a spa for a massage. Let's just say this is where things started to get interesting.

First, we were separated from our guides (as they were both ladies, they used the ladies dressing room). As AC and I were quickly ushered into the men's room, we were also separated to different lockers that corresponded with magnetic wrist band keys we were pre-assigned. My little helper boy tried desperately to communicate with me but could only manage, "USA? NBA?" while making basketball dribbling motions in the air. I'm sure I did look like a basketball player as I stood at least two feet taller than anyone there. I looked around for some visual queues that would help me understand what the heck I was supposed to do. I only saw ... well ... a bunch of naked Chinese people running around. So ... I joined them.

I eventually was reunited with AC -- now only donning a towel and his glasses -- and we were escorted into the showers. Apparently bathing was mandatory, as a man dressed in all back paced up and down the line of open stalls ensuring all the nude bodies reached an acceptable level of cleanliness. What a fun job that must be! The last stop was a changing area where we dried off and got into loose-fitting shorts and a smock.

Still reeling from my bout of public nudity anxiety, I surveyed the room. The main room seemed familiar, yet like nothing we'd ever seen before. Imagine going to a casino that has a large Keno room -- lots of comfortable chairs all facing a large screen in front. Or maybe a big IMAX movie theater? Now picture everyone sitting there getting foot massages. I'm re-reading my description and it just doesn't do it justice as to how weird this place felt. In addition to this sea of foot massages, you could also order food, smoke cigarettes, run on a tread mill and just generally laze around -- with hardly any clothes on.

When reunited with the ladies, they decided that we should all get a private room for our full-body massages. Our leader decided that Cantonese style would be best (and was also the most affordable at $12 US dollars for two hours). While I was excited at getting a cheap deal, let's just say sometimes you get what you pay for.

Initially I started to panic that I was going to have to get naked, yet again, only this time in front of my coworkers. It quickly became clear that they intended to massage us through our clothes. While this alleviated my fear of more public nudity, I began to realize these clothes had a scratchy feel to them. In no time, it felt like we had sunburns as they rubbed the rough cloth all over our skin. I guess Cantonese style massage is a deep-tissue massage, because suddenly my masseur was digging her elbow into my shoulders, wrapping my arm behind my back all "cuff 'em and stuff 'em" style, and generally causing me large amounts of physical pain. Now I'm no massage expert, but the ones I'd have previously all felt good. This was not the case. After two hours of torture, we limped back to the cafeteria and ate (again) to gain our strength for some shopping.

AC quickly found himself in his element, shopping for bargain-basement priced CDs. I was mostly bored, but got enjoyment from hearing such exclamations from AC as "Oh my gosh, George Michael for only a dollar!" and "How do they have Harry Potter on DVD already?" from the various stacks of what must have been bootleg media.

Our final stop was a Mongolian BBQ restaurant for dinner. I wasn't even the slightest bit hungry, given we'd already eaten several times that afternoon, but they quickly ordered eight family-style dishes (because it's good luck to order eight!). The food was actually really really good. The most memorable dish was the leg of lamb. It was served 'caveman style' meaning leg of lamb was actually a leg. As the beer buzz took effect, we pretended to bash each other over the head like our ancient ancestors.

In the end, we spent less than $40 US per person for the entire day. Next time however, I think we'll skip the spa.

Here are the pictures!