From Asia #3
Got to indulge today in one of those wonderful treats of being in China.
I got my hair cut.
Now, I'm not talking about a "First Choice" type haircutting experience. No, that's why I say it's an indulgence. When you get a haircut in Shanghai, it starts with a professional wash. You sit in the chair, and a woman with fingers stronger than you ever thought possible kneeds in shampoo and gets it all the way down to your scalp. While she's there she also give you a cranial massage, gently pushing pressure points and massaging your scaplp. Then it's off to have her wash all the soap out of your hair and give you a quick towel off.
Then comes the acutal haircut. Again, not a quick ten minutes and you're done sort of thing. No, the sylist took about 30 minutes with my hair, and I've not got a lot of long locks to begin with.
So far this has cost us all of about 7RMB or so, which works out to just over a dollar Canadian (6.5 to a dollar). That's cheap enough that almost every Chinese can afford it too, even at a 6RMB an hour wage. But then comes the true indulgence part of the visit. The massage.
Yup, a full upper body massage for 25 minutes or so. That same girl with the iron fingers who washed your hair then kneeds your back, arms, hands, neck and scalp again, for almost half an hour. The additional cost for this is, I think, worth it. It costs an extra 4RMB for the massage, or 60 cents Canadian.
I'll go for another haircut before I leave, but probably only to get the massage!
Labels: Shanghai
From Asia #2
I'd said before I left that I'd not run into anything like that before, so of course I was doomed to find it this time! So yes, for lunch yesterday we had a course of "pine nuts with ants". It actually wasn't bad. And I was assured they were medicinal ants, much better than your garden variety kind.
Lunch today was McDonalds. THere were no ants, at least that I knew of, in the Big Mac...
Labels: Shanghai
From Asia #1
I've seen a lot of stuff here, both last visit and this one already, but there's one image that I can't get out of my mind, and it's made me physically ill to see and think about.
The traffic here is something horrendous. I mean terrifying. There are from 1 to 4 lanes all going at the same time, merging, weaving, shifting constantly. It goes from three lanes to a single lane, while someone else is making a three point turn in the middle of a major street, and someone from the opposite direction is passing in the oncoming traffic lane just because they can. I'm honestly not sure what gets you a traffic ticket here, but I'm thinking nothing less than vehicluar manslaughter would approach it. And that I suspect is $15 and two points off your license. There are left turn lanes from the far right side, there are right turn lanes from the far left. There are dedicated lanes (sometimes) for scooters, motorcycles, motorbikes, mopeds and bicycles.
I could never drive here. If I did,
I'd be the road hazard!
But all that isn't the horrifying image I have. No. There are two that I'll relate. One was a couple on a scooter. He was driving, she was sitting behind him on the seat. Clutched to her bosom was a baby, no more that 6 months old, tops, crushed between her breasts while they maneuvered this traffic monster. And she was hanging on to the baby, not to the man, so she was ready to fall off at any second.
The second is the one that really sticks with me.
It was a woman, on her scooter. She was well dressed, with patent leather high heels and the frilly see through socks they wear with them here. She was turning into traffic but decided that no, she didn't want to go the way the flow was going on her side. So she turned into the oncoming traffic and started driving the wrong way, making her way to a pedestrian crossing to cross the street. There, standing on the floor of the scooter, was a child, no older than my youngest. She was clutching mom's knees and staring up at her in terror and mom was totally oblivious to it. One misstep and the child was into the traffic and doomed for death. And here that's taken as "normal".
Terrifying.
Labels: Shanghai
