Day 5 & 6

How does one celebrate their birthday in China? Oh, so many options!  So many things to see and do and experience.  Experience, that's the key word. Bob asked me what I wanted to do on my birthday and I said I'd like to 'experience' acupuncture!  I have tendinitis in my elbow so I thought I'd get treatment and an 'experience' at the same time. So Bob, myself and Ashley (she's Chinese) went by taxi to the hospital. The hospital was so cute and beautifully decorated I might add, with nurses in pink uniforms with pink hats. I had a consultation with the doctor which lasted about 20 minutes and it cost me 5 yuan, about 79 cents.  Then I bought my needles, a box of 100 for 25 yuan - $3.90 which should last me many, many treatments (if I choose to continue) and then paid for my first treatment 60 yuan - $9.52.  We went in this cute little room with a bed and a pink pillow and pink blanket, I wonder if boys get a different color? I had only 4 needles stuck into me which was a little uncomfortable but not painful. Then came the real experience -- they placed these round things on the end of the needles and lit me on fire!  Bob said I was 'smoking hot' which I'll take as a compliment. I had to lay there for a half hour while they burned out. Will I do it again? Maybe -- if it helps

We did have a nice dinner, walked around a beautiful lake, really enjoyed some down time and then spent 2 hours trying to get a taxi to get home!  The taxi's were all full, the traffic crazy at 10pm.  We had no choice but to figure out the bus system and eventually got home.  Kinda of fun.

 Hospital Lobby

My 'smoking hot' girl

We have been extremely busy making decisions regarding decorating, rearranging offices and rooms and working on the massive, beautiful garden. Bob spent all of day 6 tearing up old sod and getting the yard ready to re-sod with the gardener Michael. He's got a lot of sore muscles today which might be due to the very challenging shape of the rake he was using. He said he had to learn how to rake the Chinese way. I spent the day measuring windows and then going to the most massive fabric market you could ever imagine. I've never seen anything like it. I could wander in there for days.......

My raking buddies Michael and Steve