Today was not Sunday-productive at all. No naps were taken, no lazying about in PJs, my restfulness-o-meter pinged below a 5. I did manage to sneak in another 90-min massage from "John" though (why does it seem so wrong that these Chinese masseurs/masseuses are randomly assigned foreign names?). Anyway, John has to wear a face mask when massaging me, and his English is limited to: "pease turn over" (when the frontside gets a turn), "wait a meenit pease" (when he has to leave the room to wash the oil off his hands in order to begin the face/head portion), and "gween tea?" (for post-coital). Just kidding, sheesh!
John is such a sweetheart that I can't bear to ask for a new masseur, even though I want to sample them all. This spa caters exclusively to expats, and the staff is so goddamn servile that I sometimes can't take it, so guilty I feel for spending fistfuls of kwai that would support their families for months. The spa will also deliver any treatment you want to your home without additional charges. Because pollution is the white elephant in the treatment room (or any room in China), there's even a massage devoted to getting rid of it, the so-called lymphatic drainage. Being a fan of good plumbing in any capacity, I'm thinking I'll go for that next week, though I'm dubious it'll detoxify. I'll just consider it my placebo.
So this evening I took a cab to Auchan, and as usual it's a comedy of errors getting there. For one thing, I can never find Auchan's Chinese name written anywhere to show the cab drivers. For second, every Chinese person pronounces the name differently so getting a driver who understands what I'm saying is a game of chance. But as luck would have it, an English-speaking Chinese man walking his dog managed to bail me out. I was so grateful to him that I kept grinning like an idiot when he was giving the driver directions.
Auchan is like a Carrefour or Walmart. The first floor has a tea stand that makes the most killer oolong milk tea with red bean and mango pudding. And if you don't think that sounds divine, you suck. There's also a dumpling house nearby that is dirt cheap. The second floor has your typical household stuff, the clothes being low quality walmart style. The third floor, however, is a caucophany of strange sights and sounds, with a huge bakery and a deli carrying everything imaginable. I saw trays of fresh-baked mooncakes but was too intimidated by the throngs of pushy old ladies that I just drooled from afar.
When I left Auchan, it was totally pouring giving me a chance to whip out my just-purchased Engrish umbrella. I managed to find what they called a "black taxi," or a remise in Argentina, or a regular car operating as a cab. The young driver was pleased when he figured out I couldn't speak Mandarin and began to show off his 3 words of English. At a well-lit intersection, I noticed that his lapels had patches of lady outlines--you know, the kind that truckers carry in the States--except this Romeo had two lady silhouettes facing each other, forming a symmetric W, coincidentally my first initial and our ex-Prez's middle. After being stuck in traffic for what seemed like hours, the driver jammed his cell phone into the charger, showing off yet another single lady silhouette that began to softly shimmer in the dark cabin, displaying the time. It was 8:02. Then with a heavy sigh, the kind that accompanies slow, arduous commutes in heavy downpour, my young friend pulled out a cig and cocked his head around to offer me one. I was tempted, but thought about how plugged up my lymph system would be next week with pollutants and nicotine. I couldn't do that to John. No, xie xie.
More soon. Food delivery is here. Tonight is Indian.
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