Great Minds...

A couple of posts back I mentioned that we were going to be doing a little bit of an apartment swap.  What we didn't realize was that the move would be pushed until two days before our company arrived.

That was exciting. Here's the new set up.

 

 

I guess the saying is true that great minds think alike, because the same week of June my sister-in-law and niece, Sarah and Reed, Bill and Jessica (cousins) and Jon and Mary Catherine (friends!) all decided to come to Shanghai. We had the honor and delight of hosting Sarah, Reed, Bill and Jess here at our apartment. I can't begin to tell you how much fun it was being surrounded by family.

We tried our best to give Sarah a good smattering of the sites of Shanghai. Out we would venture, day after rainy day into the city, umbrellas in hand and little Roo nestled happily in her carrier on Sarah's back. We went to all the markets, our favorite restaurants. Sarah even went with me to buy vegetables from my regular vendors to witness my mediocre Mandarin skills first hand.

Now I must tell you about my favorite new China-life discovery.  Think with me for a moment...how many times have you gone to get your hair cut and while sitting at the shampooing sink thought to yourself, "This really would be so delightful if..." If the water weren't so cold/hot. If your neck didn't have to rest right on the rim of that blasted basin. If the person washing your hair weren't quite so harsh with the washing. Well, here in China, I was very pleased to realize that hair washing is a salon offering all of its own, and they have it down to quite the art. Obviously I had to go try it once I heard of its existence.

After carefully rehearsing and memorizing the phrases necessary to request my hair washing, I strode confidently into the salon and said my peace to the obliging salon hostesses who stand in matching Jetsons-esqe outfits at the door to take your hair order, so to speak.  I was quite pleased with myself, until I saw that they were sitting me down at a chair in the middle of the salon far away from the sinks at the other end. Drat! Foiled. I hailed a nearby worker and attempted to correct the mistake, but was told no mistake had been made. Before I had time to protest another space-suited employee appeared at my side with gobs of shampoo in one hand and a tiny bottle of water in the other.

Mystified, I watched as she began to slowly lather a small bit of my hair, then more, then more, until I thought my hair could not possibly get any bigger or sudsier-and yet she kept going. More water, more shampoo, until I had the Mt. Everest of suds atop my head, and still no sink in sight! Then, she did the most fantastic thing. She proceeded to make some deft motion and extricated the vast majority of the sudsy mountain into her hands then walked away with it, leaving me alone and still very sudsy in the middle of the salon. Soon after she returned with, you guessed it, more water and more shampoo. Rinse and Repeat. So, yet again I was lathered into a foamy helmet. Eventually it did become necessary to rise all the suds. Once again my spacegirl scooped up handfuls of my suds and I was instructed to follow her (and my suds) back to another room that had the sinks. I was surprised to find even during the rinse I was perfectly comfortable. It sounds very odd I'm sure, but they hold your head with one hand and rinse with the little spout with the other so you don't have to strain to hold your neck up. A few times I instinctively lifted my head so she could rinse the back of my head and I was chastised. "You must relax! " I was told. Ok, if you say so.

After all the suds were gone, and my hair was thoroughly scrubbed to a cleanliness I could never before have fathomed possible, I was led back to my original seat for a five to ten minute neck, shoulder and arm massage.  Then, just when I was feeling so relaxed I could have fallen asleep in my chair, I was met with the horrible intrusion of another person spinning a q-tip into my ear. I didn't know what to do with that, so I just sat as still as possible and hoped I wouldn't have any permanent hearing or brain damage. I have since learned how to politely decline this portion of the service, even though I forgot to warn Sarah before we went. Unluckily, she was q-tip attacked while I was still in the rinse portion at the back of the salon, but so far she seems to have survived any permanent damage.

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