hanging out with amanda

while we were in china, we were blessed by being able to see our great friend, amanda. seriously. she is wonderful. we met at camp barnabas and have kept up over the years, so it was so fun to actually see her and not just read emails.

she lives in the same apartment complex as marty, so we got to hang out a few times. we walked around the city a little, ate some wonderful ice cream, got blind massages, and at the famous "13 flavors".

i didn't get any pictures at the ice cream place, but it is called "happy heart ice cream". which i thought was a totally fitting name. i was happy to eat real chinese food, but i was also happy to eat real american ice cream.

blind massages are apparently a popular thing among the foreigners. they are massages given by blind chinese people. it gives these people real, meaningful jobs as a way to support their families and be a part of society. and it gives me a good way to relax. i really wish i had taken pictures. i didn't want to be tacky, so i didn't. it was about as different from a massage here as you can get. first, there were four beds downstairs and a few more upstairs, all in a row. you don't take your clothes off, you don't get a nice fuzzy blanket, you don't get hot oil and soothing music. you just lay down and get a full body massage, mostly on pressure points. who knew that i had so many pressure points in my skull? as different as it was, it was relaxing and i had a huge kink in my neck that was completely gone afterwards.

and then on to 13 Flavors. that is the name of a restaurant that we heard a lot about. and i would say it was worth the hype. pretty dang good.

plus, we got to hang out with amanda and catch up on life while we ate there, so that made it pretty dang great.