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It's inexpensive to treat yourself right in China.  Last Sunday we took a trip to the hair salon and foot massage parlor, which absorbed pretty much our whole afternoon.  At the hair salon you begin with a frothy in-chair shampoo and head massage which lasts about 15 minutes but seems much longer.  The bubbly shampoo froth continues to pile higher and higher and just when the mountain of suds are about to topple over, they walk you over to the sink for a hose down.  Then comes the 20 minute head, shoulder, arm, and lower back massage, which sounds nice, but is actually very painful. 

Like tag team wrestling pros, the massage and shampoo duo trade places with a hair cutting duo.  The hair cutting duo consists of a stylist and their personal sergeon assitant who hands the stylist various hair cutting implements such as serated and straight scissors, blow dryers, and electric shavers. 

Some of you know that Liz has been working on growing her hair out for almost a year now.  She took a major setback last Sunday, when despite repeating the words 'just a little' 'Yi dian dian',  the hair dresser clipped off most of her locks then used a hair dryer to poof up what remained into a style fit for the 60's. 

After the hair salon, we made our way over to the foot massage parlor.  Unlike tranquil upscale joints in the US, foot massages here are a blue collar affair. An old TV played period piece dramas on CCTV while the masseurs worked on our feet and gossiped away. (We won't talk about how bad CCTV is.  Use your imagination.)

We think the masseurs were shocked and saddend by the sorry state of our American feet.  Foot maintence is a huge priorty here. We have four foot massage parlors on our block alone and every joe shmoe here ducks in for their weekly foot massage fix. 

Our masseurs decided that soaking and massaging were not enough for our feet. So they brought in the big guns and took a straight edge razor to our toes and heels.   We closed our eyes and tried not to move as they deftly scraped away excess toe nails, dry skin, and bits of old lint.  We walked out without a scratch, our feet as soft as a baby's belly.

Tomorrow we head off to Huang Shan.  Legend has it, once you climb this peak you'll never want to climb another mountain in your life.  Expect some great pictures of our journey.