This past weekend a bunch of us headed up to the local Hot Springs resort. It was a nice way to get away, but not really get away all at the same time. By the time we turned around countless times trying to get to our destination it took about 3 hours to drive where we needed to be.
This was one of the last weekends that we could have done this as the weather is getting a lot hotter and sitting in a warm pool of water would not be as enticing. This Friday when we were in the car the temperature read 18 C outside, which is pretty warm. Much different from home J Anyways we got to the resort early in the afternoon. We had a ‘friend’ with us who organized the bus driver. He’s a guy that some of the teachers know from Vanke. He took us to lunch when we got there. He ordered all the food without really consulting with what we wanted to order. As a Chinese person always does, he ordered way too much food for everyone. Also, the first few dishes that came out weren’t so appetizing for a lot of us. Pigs feet, stomach and chicken soup…with all the parts of the chicken. Hehe. After that there were a lot veggie and tofu dishes which perked everyone’s spirits up a little. Louise (the friend who took us) thinks we are so simple and feel that we aren’t really experiencing the food, which I guess is true to some extent. I think my background has really helped me with the squeamish factor that so many of the foreigners have towards the food. I have been to enough Chinese banquets and dinners to be pretty neutral to anything that is put in front of me.
Anywho, back to the spa. It was really nice, this place was huge. Not only did they have countless of pools around the property but at the back they had an outdoor wave pool and a few waterslides. We went on two of them which was really fun. One was a four person tube one like one we went on in Hawaii and the other was just a straight down shoot which gave me a huge wedgie, hehe. It was a nice relaxing afternoon. We sat in the pools, got some massages and had some pedicures done by the fishes again :S It was my second time trying this treatment (like the one I tried earlier in the year in Sanya) and I think I was a little better at it. It still feels so weird having fish eat at you…more ticklish than anything else. We ended the day in a bunch of pools that had different things in it like lemon, green tea, wine vinegar, coconut milk and roses. Some of them were extremely hot though. I don’t know how people could have actually put their whole body into some of them. Overall it was a great experience and it was nice for everyone to get away and relax before a long week of marking for midterms.
That night we went out for street bbq/outdoor restaurant food. It’s funny how no matter where you seem to go, no matter how much food you eat, how much beer you drink your meal will always be around 20-30 kwai…which is like $4-5. We also met a little friend while we were eating dinner which was so entertaining. It was a little 5 year old girl and she was the cutest thing ever. I also enticed her by giving her a candy, which in turn made her crazy and hilarious. It was our entertainment for a good half an hour watching her dance around with me. Tara took a picture of me with her, so once I get it I’ll add it to this post.
The next day I woke up way too early on a Sunday, but had a nice breakfast at the hotel, all like dim-sum kind of stuff, steamed buns and what not. And read in my room, which I haven’t done in awhile, which was nice to do. It still took us around 3hrs to come back. I was able to Skype with the fam for a bit then went on a nice long run. It was pretty warm and I got into that salty sweat which I haven’t been able to do in awhile. It’s soooooo boring though! Bah, 30 times around the outside of the track is really not that entertaining. I keep complaining about it but I think that’s one of the things I miss the most from home. You know what they say, you don’t miss something until it’s gone, well I miss my runs at home so much! Heck, I used to think going down to Como Lake was boring, I would take that in a second at this point. I know that when I get home the first place I’m going to run is Rocky Point…that was also the last place I ran at home and I miss it so much. I think I may even take some drives to go on runs like the Sea wall and stuff like that.
So, midterms this week, which may mean I have more chance to blog. I’m ahead of the game at this point. I’ve entered all of my comments and behavior marks into the system so that all I have to do is enter a grade. The last time we had to deal with this system it kept crashing because everyone was trying to get on it at the same time. Now that I’ve done all of this work before hand I can hopefully avoid the head ache of trying to get on the system while everyone is trying to do the same. I also don’t really have to wait for marking since I have two blocks of PE and Drama, I just have to put in some of their final marks of the last unit we did and that’s that.
Take Care J
-Taryn
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