I truly can't believe we only have 3 days left. What is more shocking is that our time here, and everything our hosts have squeezed into it, has only been three days. While at times it may seem that we're a bit constricted by the schedule, our hosts have been amazingly generous and are trying to squeeze in as much as they possibly can into the time we have.
Yesterday, we got a solid two practices in. With 14 rowers here, we made sure that everyone had time in the boat. The setup at the course is almost fully complete. It looks like something between Henley and the Olympics. There are huge grandstands setup and the length of the course (though because of the haze one cannot see from one end to the other) is lined with huge banners in Chinese, mostly advertising the city. I asked our translator what she thought of an event of this size (and thus costing so much money) being put on in a city that seems like it needs direct revitalization. She explained that the hope is that this event, The 2009 Xinjin Water City International University Rowing Show and Dragon Boat Festival (for reference), will attract international companies and greater Chinese companies to come into Chengdu to develop. To give you an idea of the scale, they want it to have the same effect the Olympics had for Beijing.
In between the practices however... we were able to take part in one of the city's cultural signatures: MASSAGES!
Our guides took us to a local massage house. Quite grand in scale on the inside, they lead us upstairs and separated us into rooms. Most of us sat five to a room, some of us... well, I'll get to that in a minute.
Chengdu is known for it's massages. It's intertwined into their laid back culture. We were told that our experience with Chengdu's masseuses was just going be a foot massage. This idea became hour long foot massages. The end result however, was an hour and a half foot and full body massage. And all for 80 RMB (about 11 dollars US).
I can only speak to the 5 of us in my massage room, but the masseuses were amazing. The foot massage by itself was more than worth the 80. Some people being more ticklish than others squirmed all over the place. Others, who had a man as their masseuse, squirmed for other reasons. At points of the massage, the masseuses were whispering and talking about us. This at times had to do with the fact that we were laughing ourselves. Others because everyone here seems to be amazed at Matt being Chinese and not actually speaking Chinese. And others because of Sam's large feet (which may or may not have required a man with a steel box to come in and assist for a moment).
Brack and Peter's experience was slightly different. They shared a room and were first changed into comfortable "massage clothes," which according to Peter were like undersized tighty-whities. What followed was something in the air of Cirque-du-Soleil where Peter and Brack were bent into various pretzel like formations and then bent, prodded, and flung into the air.
In the end, some left in love, some left violated, but all of us left satisfied from the experience.
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