We arrived in Beijing by plane from Guilin. Having just chilled in Yangshou for a week we were well rested and ready for some sight seeing in big town Beijing. Our friends from back home (John, Damien, and Polly) would be meeting us in Beijing. John was born in Beijing, so we were going to get the grand tour from a local.
The whole group was going to be staying at a Courtyard Marriott for the duration of our stay in Beijing. Chrissy and I got in the night before the crew arrived from the States. This was good because we had some serious travel logistics to take care of before we got busy with the sites in Beijing. Next stop after Beijing was the trans-Mongolian railway trip across Asia into Europe. This trip isn't easy to plan or orchestrate. The big hassle is getting a Russian visa. Russia is famous amongst travelers for how difficult it is to get the visa. Here is a list of the hoops they make you jump through to get a visa.
We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to handle the Russian visa situation. We ended up with only one option that had any hope of working out in a timely fashion. It was to use a travel agent to book our entire trans-Mongolian itinerary. These guys were willing to use a courier to ship our passports from Beijing to Hong Kong where the visas could be obtained. This is all pretty crazy because the largest embassy in the world is the Russian embassy in Beijing. For some reason this embassy of all embassies does not service non-Chinese citizens. Things turned out really well. The travel agent which was going to take care of all this for us turned out to be awesome. They can be found here. These guys took something that is a really complicated, hard to understand, and full of options, and made it understandable and easy. Chrissy and I went to their office in Beijing and they had us all set up in about half an hour. Was a little of a shock to find something so well organized.
So Chrissy and I spent our first day in Beijing taking care of our trans-Mongolian logistics. We even scored a pizza in the restaurant owned by the same dudes that own the travel agency. That night we meet up with John, Damien, and Polly, our buddies from Dallas. John was kind enough to bring two bags of Tostitos chips and some salsa for us. Chrissy had been dying for this stuff the whole trip. We chow down for a bit in the hotel and then head out to these infamous Chinese massage places John has been telling us about. It is like 11 PM at this point, but these places are open 24 hours a day. I know what you are thinking, any massage place that is open 24 hours a day is maybe the kind of place that offers services that are a bit too friendly. John assured us that this was not the case with the place where we were going.
John had never actually been to this specific location, but had gotten directions to the place from the hotel concierge. We jump into a couple of cabs and head over to this place. The joint isn't too far from the hotel and is on big street, which is pretty dark at this point in the night. We get out of the cabs and walk up to the massage place. They have a girl in full traditional Chinese dress open the door. Then you climb these steps that are adjacent to a waterfall and are greeted at the top of the steps by about ten massage people (both men and women) who all say hello (in Chinese, nobody speaks any English in this place). They sit us down on a nice leather couch and have us remove our shoes. John starts talking to a lady about what services we want. We settle on foot massages for everyone and they lead us into an long narrow room that has lazyboy type recliners along one wall. A total of six, so the night number for each of us to have one. On the way facing the recliners is a flat screen tv where you can have a movie showed, if you want. We pass on the movie but do order up some beers and snacks. Yes, beers at the massage place. Soon a line of massage people enter the room all at once, each carrying a wooden tub of very hot water. Each of us has our own massage person that sets down a tub in front of our chair. The hot water is actually some sort of tea. They have us put our feet in for a good soaking prior to the foot massage. Damn is this water hot. I can barely take it. But I sit back, take a sip of beer and relax. The ladies are all joking and laughing and John is the only one who knows what they are saying. He is translating some of it. Apparently the ladies are laughing about Damien's hairy legs. Chinese men aren't hairy like Mexicans. Ha. After the soaking, the massage folks towel off our feet. Each massage person has a little case of tools with them. I am getting nervous as my lady pulls out a straight razor. She precedes to spray the razor with alcohol and then light it on fire. Such are the disinfection methods in China. Anyway, so they each use these razors to scrape dried skin off the bottom of your feet. It kind of tickles. She didn't have to do much scraping on me, I am proud to say. Not bad for having spent almost a year on the road at this point. I can't speak for the rest of our group. After the knife treatment the foot rubbing finally starts. This feels good for the most part but my little lady is pretty rough. She is like digging her fingers into the bottoms of my feet. This type of massage is also called Reflexology. Here is an explanation from wikipedia:
Reflexology, also called Foot zone therapy, is traditionally practiced without lotion, as the pressure points on the feet are stimulated by thumb and finger walking, as well as static pressure. Painful spots reflect illnesses of other parts of the body. The theory behind foot massage maintains that the ailment of an internal organ will be associated with the nerve ending on the sole of the foot. As pressure is applied to the sole, theory holds that a healthy patient should not feel any strong pain. This theory is based on the energetic flow of "meridians" in the body, also known as Chi.
Before the massage, the patient's feet are soaked for about ten minutes in a foot bath, typically a solution of hot water and Chinese herbs. The practitioner rubs and massages the painful spots to break down rough spots and accumulated crystals which have not been scientifically researched. Based on this theory, some shoe liners are made with pressure points to stimulate the soles of the feet.
If you read this explanation you get that if you are a completely healthy guy you shouldn't have any pain during the foot massage. As I mentioned, this lady is digging her fingers into my feet and it hurts. She explains in Chinese to John that I must have some kind of stomach ailment. So I got that going for me.
After much foot rubbing, they break out these little wooden hammers and lightly tap your feet with them in a very rapid fashion. This feels pretty good. The whole deal ends with a nice back and shoulder rub. Total cost for an hour and a half? Like ten bucks, plus extra for the beers and such. No tipping. Crazy. We close out up front and decide we are coming back to this place every night we are in Beijing. We purchase the equivalent of a prepaid frequent customer card that will be used to pay for massages for the group. As a thank you gift we get a case of boxed milk and a small ceramic pig.
Chrissy, happy with a case of milk
We grab taxis back to the hotel and fall into blissful, relaxed slumber.
- Bill