something that is beating

spa days are my favorite days. i had a 2 hour, full body massage at the spa between latini's and the coffee shop, and it was fantastic. i woke up with a cold so my head was pounding and my body felt achey all morning, but the massage was perfect.
my masseuse (thank you, spellcheck), jessica, spoke a little bit of english which was nice. we had one hilarious problem because my nose was all runny from laying on my stomach for an hour, so when i had to turn over i asked for a tissue and she thought i was crying! i tried to explain that i had a cold.. but she just heard the word 'cold' and then turned the AC off and put some extra blankets on me.
the top picture is one i took a while ago and all of the others are from their website. the picture above is the room where you soak your feet in scented water of your choice.. i like rose but today i had chamomile. after your treatment you hang out, read magazines, have your nails painted on the couch, drink tea and eat tiny little cake with a tiny little spoon.so that was a nice day. i went in at 345 and left at 8. i have some awesome asian nail art, but it isn't photographing well with the glare from the light so i'll post that tomorrow.

then as i was paying, beth was at the front desk of the spa talking to nicky so i went to latini's with her and jerry was meeting her. who knows how she talked him out of his lair. anyway the 3 of us ended up spending the night chatting. it's 4am and i just got home. i really like beth. she reminds me a lot of my friends from home.
and i got to chat with faj on skype for an hour. so jealous that they're testing out the new jet ski without me. 3 months.

violin interlude

isn't it nice when you can say 'let's go to the hot springs tomorrow' and a group of people says 'that sounds like fun, i'm in.' this morning jon, dawn, chris, danielle and i set off for wulai. today was gray and a little chillier than it has been lately, and it was a perfect day to sit in boiling hot water for a few hours.
jon had never been and he agreed that the mushrooms wrapped in bacon and grilled are by far the best food in taiwan. man those things are so tasty.

there were a lot more people this time than last because yesterday was a big holiday. there were probably 100 people or more crowded along a 50 yard strip of river. we were the only foreigners there, which drew enough attention, but when dawn, danielle and i peeled off our clothes and were tiptoe-ing along the rocks in our teeny bikinis, it created a noticeable scene. especially because all of the taiwanese people were in jeans and black t shirts.
i bought some handmade indian shoes that i had been pining after ever since i saw them when we went to wulai the first time. right now they're really stiff and sharp around the edges, but assuming i can stand the breaking-in process, i think they could be really nice. they take 'pointy toed' to a whole new level.
danielle and i went to a big reflexology spa in taoyuan when we got home from taipei. she had gone a few times before and i was grateful to have someone who knew what was going on. she requested her usual guy (#5) and i had #13. first they soak your feet in a little spa thing with jets while they work the knots out of your shoulders and back. i usually ask for light pressure, but since i couldn't communicate with the guy, i just let him do his thing. i don't think i have any knots anymore.

after that, you sit in a comfy chair and they massage your feet and legs for 45min. it was lovely. painful at times and tickley, but really good. i could do that once a month. it costs as much as an hour of work.

when we got home, danielle made me a cup of tea with her fancy tea leaves. you can keep reusing them and they just sink to the bottom when it's ready. yum.

something to think about:
You have won a prize. Either you can spend a year in Europe with a monthly stipend of $2,000 or spend ten minutes on the moon, but not both. Which option do you select?

not pretending

the biggest news today was the bone chilling cold air that came in overnight. yesterday was cold, but today is that crisp winter air that goes up your sleeves and stays in your hair long after you've gone inside.
..not like being inside helps here. it was THIRTEEN DEGREES IN MY ROOM TODAY. actually, it's in C so it's not as bad as it sounds.. it's 55 F. that's pretty cold for a bedroom though. right now i'm at a balmy 17.
this is where it felt like the water in the sink was coming from when i washed my face this evening:
i subbed 2 classes tonight and it was a school i had never been to called wu ling. they just built it so it's all tiled and mosaic-ed and pretty, but there are only a few classes so it feels reaaally cold and kind of bordering on creepily empty.
they have these awesome glass whiteboards. that was the highlight of the 4 hours i spent there. it's like writing on a freshly cleaned ice skating rink. it screwed up my depth of field though. more than once, i thought i would touch the board sooner than i did and found myself grasping for it.

i went to get my scooter keys out of my purse after class and they weren't there. panic set in as i realized i must have left them in my scooter. so i went out to look and was horrified to discover that it really wasn't where i left it. luckily, as i turned to go back in to the school and freak out, i saw it had just been moved a little closer to the school and they had put my keys in the little pocket in the front so they weren't as obvious. lesson learned though.

i left my heater on for 20 minutes or so tonight and it was so toasty. it warmed up my room a whole 2 degrees in that time and when i got out from under my blankets, it actually felt a little bit warm in here.
if you closed your eyes, you'd think you were sitting in front of a fire place.
p.s. went to drop off the napkins i bought for the coffee shop at crate and barrel tonight. they put a pretty paper napkin between the cup and saucer, so i thought these red and green ones with holiday-themed english words would be cute. fanny (from the coffee shop) wasn't there, so i went to say hi to nikki at the spa and dan and linda from latini's andd fanny were all there just chatting. i had the necklace i bought for linda in my bag just incase that happened. i think she liked it. she's not very fussy, but it was a pretty simple double-stranded "black pearl" necklace that my friend erin made. so yay for dropping off presents and giving back to people who have given me so much.

it's drivin' me out of my mind

another early morning, but it was worth it today. i woke up to listen to UT crush mizzou at 8 this morning and then i went to this swimming center with bobo, her husband jack and jaime and joyce. it was a lap pool on one side and then an asian-tastic water massage extravaganza on the other side. there were probably 10 different little centers where you could push a button and bubbles would come up from the bottom or the side of the pool and massage your feet or back. there was one that was shaped like a chair and you could lie back and bubbles came up under you. one was a big metal arch and water poured out in jets and massaged your shoulders and arms. it was pretty cool.
bobo is pretty big on exposing her foreigners to taiwanese cultural things. she took me in the steam room and we sweat together for a while :P i've never been in a steam room. it must have been a million % humidity in there. man.

after swimming, i went to a japanese restaurant with them, where i had really yummy pork and vegetable soup with noodles, and then we went to get green tea to cut the oil from lunch. the tea place was right down the street from the dorm, but i've never been because i don't know any tea vocabulary. but now i can say lemon green tea with honey, so i'm all set.

then i headed to latini for chinese but it was really busy. for a while i got to sit in the secret place under the stairs:

it's like a little corner behind the fridge and behind the shelf with the silverware on it, so people would go to get an extra napkin or something and see me in the secret hiding place. i really like sitting in there.


i brought over some toast to eat while i was in the secret corner.

linda and i went over numbers today. it makes a lot more sense the second time around. i was really confused earlier this week, but i think i'm good now.
the best part about chinese today was that linda brought her wedding album. people in taiwan take these really fantastic wedding photos with rented costumes and weird poses and things, and i've been bugging dan to bring it for a while. i didn't realize how big it would be though. the thing was easily a foot and a half by 2 feet. it came with it's own carrying case and looked like it weighed 20 lbs.
they both look so young!
this is on my way home tonight, through olympic park

so it was a busy but productive, fun day. i love playing with jaime and joyce. it's interesting to have such a big influence on them. jaime saw me swimming backwards in the pool today and she started trying it out too. then when i was drying my hair and scrunching it up, she tried that out.
and joyce is just so adorable in every way. she knows how to manipulate you like a pro, but she smiles so sweetly that you have no choice but to let her order you around :P

this is the front of the spa next to latinis.