My colleage Daryl arrived in Shenzhen on Wednesday. That same day, I woke up with a Chinese flu! What began about 18 hours before as a scratchy cough, that I attributed to bad air quality, had rapidly transformed into dizziness, a splitting headache (that required me to hold my head tightly together when I coughed), and muscle soreness. There was no way I was coming into work. By Friday, surprisingly, I’d made a quick recovery. It wasn’t complete; I only worked a short day due to fatigue, but at least it was fast. On Saturday I felt good enough to brave Shenzhen, so we headed out around town together for food, talk, exploration, mobile phone purchases, and massages. At the Mao Jia restaurant, we mistook shreds of bull stomach for calamari. Trying to be noble, I did pick a few small bites, but the chewiness just wasn’t enjoyable enough.

Later in Hua Qiang Bei, I helped Daryl buy a mobile phone. Despite colleagues suggesting we go there, others raised an eyebrow when I mentioned where we got it. “Yeah, but it’s new. See the box and instructions that it came with?”, I said, naively defending the purchase. Sure enough, the charger didn’t work when Daryl got back to the hotel. The following day, he went back solo for the exchange. I have to admire Daryl for his ability to get things done in China knowing only the words for “hello” and “thank you”. He was successful in getting his money back, but got the shopkeeper mad at him, a funny story itself. Anyway, since he’ll be coming back to China every couple of months for a cupla weeks, we just picked out an el cheapo – $32. After that, we went in search of a convenience store or a newspaper stand to supply the SIM card which bestows the number and minutes (you pay extra for lucky numbers). There are no idiotic two-year plans here. It’s a great system.

(above) We didn’t purchase one of the phones that these bored-looking girls and Chinese rabbits were peddling. After getting his money back from the original salesman the next day, Daryl went to a different counter and bought a more slightly pricier one. Still working, Daryl?

By the way, it’s been freezing in Shenzhen for five or six days now. Around Thursday, a drizzle moved in and added to the discomfort. Most people here don’t have heat. And that goes for a lot of China, even places quite far north which are certainly colder than here. When I realized that was indeed the truth (after asking several folks), I stopped complaining so much about my lack of heat and just put on some more layers.

Back to the main story, the weekend before was absolutely stunning, but this one was just the opposite. We both wanted to buy a little more insulation (I was already wearing my cold weather climbing liners) so we headed over to Dong Men for clothing and exploration. Daryl couldn’t find a fleece, but I found a handmade knitted cap that was perfect. We also discovered a small area that brought some of the Da Fen Cun artwork to Shenzhen proper to sell. I was a little disappointed in the variety though, but the prices were great. Down in the basement was an awesome furniture featuring beautiful and expensive handmade furniture.

After a lot of wandering, we decided to try our hand at a bike ride over to Di Wang. This wasn’t us renting bikes, but rather hitching a ride with some of the folks for hire who’ve installed small seats on the backs of their bikes. Before we could start any serious negotiations, all of them (about 5-7) suddenly sprung away into the traffic like scared rabbits. Daryl and I turned around to see a group of policemen moving on to the scene. Oh right…the whole “You don’t have a license” thing. Reminded me of the times I’ve seen the street food salesmen have their portable charcoal grills kicked over by the cops, only to quietly recover their strewn-about equipment and rebuild the mini restaurant after The Man had left. Well, there will be no bike ride this time.

After that excitement, we headed over to Xiang Mi Hu for a great foot massage place and some food. After the great foot massage, the girls asked if we’d like a regular massage. We declined because we were pretty hungry at this point. I was surprised when one of them suggested that we just order out some spicy noodles and eat here. “OK, great idea!”

(l-r) Peace through massage (actually, she means “Victory!”), “Gimme two niu rou la mian!” (beef spicy noodle!)

Our noodles ended up coming very late so we decided to start the massage. My massage girl said that she had a technique that could help my flu recovery. It was these heated cups that are placed on your back… I’d tried these before with Tiffany before accupuncture to help with some tightness in my shoulderblade after a climb. She’d only used three which were localized along the base of my left shoulderblade. Tiffany’s weren’t the heated glass cups either, but small glass suction cups. These were bonafide heated glass cups. She used a small torch (really – a stick with some sort of cotton fiber material to fuel the flame) placed inside the cup to burn off the air and create suction and then slapped them on my back. Daryl was thinking of having them too. But, when the first one went on and he exclaimed something like, “Oh my GOD, no, I don’t want that! No!”   I thought he was just teasing – trying to make me nervous. He then whipped out his camera and started taking pictures from his nearby massage table. When he said, “Oh man, you should see how your skin is bubbling up!”, I started to get worried too. It was indeed uncomfortable, I can’t say it was legitimately painful, and when I protested a bit like a little sissy, the massage girl just replied, “Oh it’s not!” (in Chinese). Basically, she wouldnt’ take them off no matter how much I protested. Eighteen cups and a few minutes later, they finally came off. I now have eighteen purple circles on my back that should last a week or so. My flu is way better, but is this just a case of this rock also “keeping away tigers”? I don’t know. It also wasn’t painful at all when she rubbed down the welts, so no big deal…but those pictures are a little creepy. Have a look:

(above) Freak! Bubbles!

As always, the massage ended too soon. But, the hot noodles then came and we were content to slurp away. They were awesome; the perfect food for a cold and dank day.