Journey to Thailand: Maxin' and Relaxin'

What a holiday so far! It really has been just crazy wonderful. What do you think happened on the fourth day of being in Thailand?

WELL.

O went to the mall and brought over two ladies from the massage parlor there. She brought them to the big house and we all got ourselves some wonderful massages. I unfortunately do not have pictures of the glorious event because I was MUCH too busy getting massaged.

It was a full-body massage once more, but it was different from the Chinese massages. Chinese massages are often pretty deep tissue, and so are Thai massages (more so for Thai people, they eased up on us)…but Chinese massages from what I’ve experienced are mostly just massages. They’ll work the muscle, maybe do some pounding, and sometimes they wrap their arms under your armpits and pull you up to stretch your back but that’s the only other thing they do. This massage was not only just working the muscles, but it was also working your flexibility too. They pulled my legs this way and that and if I had not been a dancer with better than average flexibility, I definitely would have been squealing in pain a little. They tried to get my leg up to my head, they tried to push my knee out and to the floor (they succeeded here because I’ve been working on my turnout- that’s a dance term). They turned my leg in so that the knee was inwards (that was a little harder to do, because I had been working on my turnout). To those who aren’t flexible, they’ll go as far as you can handle and it will feel awesome. To those who have no wish to be any more flexible than you are…this wonderful experience will be wasted on you, so try to open your mind a bit (an open mind is vital to having a good experience in a foreign country). For those who are medium flexible and could improve more, you will love this as I did. To those who are contortionists, no form of stretching will have any effect on you…but I think you’ll enjoy the massage part of it all.

Anyway, they stretched my back, my arms, my legs, my neck, everything. And it was more than just kneading the muscles, they did a bunch of different things to work the muscle. I felt like I was floating on air. If I had a personal masseuse to do that for me every day, I probably would have my center split by now. Note to Self: When you get rich and famous, hire a personal masseuse who specializes in Thai massage.

Xixi had told me about the Thai massages and how they were said to be super super good, but I wasn’t certain that I would have a chance to get one done. And I wasn’t sure if it was going to be really expensive. I had hoped rather than expected it to happen. But here I was, only four days into my time in Thailand and chilling out getting a massage basically AT HOME. It was amazing. I felt great by the time it was all done.

Later on that day, we went to The Mall (that’s what it’s called…it’s a mall that’s called The Mall) to have dinner at a Japanese all-you-can-eat sushi/hotpot restaurant. It was delicious…but once again no pictures because I was too busy enjoying myself. There was shrimp tempura, all kinds of sushi and sashimi, fried dumplings, and meat and vegetables to boil in the hotpot and eat with different sauces and soup. We ate until we were full, and then we ate some more. And afterwards, there was different types of ice cream to choose from. What an evening to spend with friends!