Happy Birthday to Me

posted by Daisy
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Yay another post and it's still before 2011. :þ <---- that's for Alan for making fun of me. I thought I'd be better at posting if I told people I'd post. Wrong again! No shame. haha

Happy belated to me. Birthdays keep happening faster and sometimes I forget how old I am - yes I'm serious. But I don't think my friends here know just how old I am either. For my last birthday I remembering sauna-hopping at Spa Castle in NY. I enjoyed a memorable nap on the heated flooring.

For the 7th anniversary of my 23rd birthday, Alan surprised me with with a 2-day (1-night) trip to the hot springs! We took a 4.5-hour bus ride south to a small town called Wuyi. It's not as far as that sounds -- especially if you're really good at sleeping in moving vehicles like I am! We arrived earlier than our room was ready so we got the chance to explore Wuyi. It's super small compared to Shanghai. I guess you can gage whether a town is large, medium or small by seeing if they have a (1) KFC & McD's, (2) KFC, or (3) none of the above. Wuyi falls between mid- and small-sized: there's a KFC a 10-minute cab ride away. [We only know that because for my birthday dinner we contemplated eating McD's haha No, we didn't have KFC either!]

Tang Feng Hot Springs Resort in WuYi, Zhejiang Province


After grabbing some noodles for lunch, we headed back to our Japanese-style room. The bed was on the floor and so were the chairs - I mean way low on the floor. I'm not used to being so close to the floor in China but it was clean and comfy : ) We settled in and broke our food-coma-like trance to get ready for the hot springs!
Outside, the Japanese-inspired layout continued. Under shingled roofs, pool after pool was filled with steaming hot bath water. We hopped from coffee to milk to who knows what. We even climbed into a pool with mini fish [okay this is gross but cool] -- the fish eat the dead skin from your body. Imagine this: a large circular pool with shallow water and people immersed from the shoulders down as if they're trying to lay down on their backs with their heads resting on the edge of the pool. The locals looked calm and really STILL so as to not to scare the fish away.
We get in and try to mimic the locals. Then Alan starts CRACKING UP. If I didn't know Alan, I would have tried harder not to laugh at him but I couldn't help it - his laugh is contagious. I saw the lady next to him wanted to laugh too because it was just THAT funny watching Alan crack up by himself. hahaha I laugh just thinking about it... ahh so funny.

Sorry, no pictures allowed IN the hot springs. Our Japanese-style room, Tang Feng driveway at night


The closer to dinnertime (5pm) it got, the less people there were. In the evening we got massages on the outdoor heated floor! Note to self, if I ever have heated flooring, I’ll seriously consider getting rid of our bed. So after the massage we fell asleep on the floor for an hour… dipped in another pool…and headed out to dinner. We enjoyed the hot springs for 5+ hours! What a super nice birthday : )

The next morning we woke up and joined the rest of our bus for a side-trip to a local village. It was nice to sit on a bridge and watch the locals do their thing. There has to be 40+ dogs just in this one village – everywhere we looked there was a dog. Same breed, same face, same color... it was the village of the dogs. Wonder if they serve dog to keep the population down???



Speaking of food, we stayed at this village for lunch. While we examined the menu at a local Chinese restaurant, the chef/owner came out to tell us his recommendations. So I asked him what kind of meat he recommended. He started listing them off and then all of a sudden he got really excited as he remembered the RABBIT. It was the "catch-of-the-day" from the way he was describing it. He practically ran into the kitchen so he could show us. It was dim in there but we saw him lift up something that resembled the shape of a large squirrel minus the fur. I looked at Alan and gave him a "what do you think" shrug… He's game for almost anything so we got the rabbit. Of course we took a picture for you, don’t worry – Alan was on it. The chef was more than happy to let Alan into the kitchen to take a picture of the ugly thing. Haha Despite the way it looked before we ate it, it was pretty good : )
After lunch we made it back on the bus for the 4.5 hour ride home. It was like we were gone for an entire week… What a nice birthday…

Rabbit, the before and after


Some other highlights:
- I got a HUGE Ding Dong lolly pop
- Ricky and I turned 23
- I look... act? ...seem? AM young but I got a few stunned looks when 2 girl-friends asked me "how old are you now?" :þ Their eyes got real big, and as if there was sudden breeze coming by, their heads went back slightly in surprise : ) hee hee hee