ZenZhou

Yesterday we just strolled around the city. The city is kind of a dump. We found a big park in the center, but the whole thing was dilapidated and very dirty. There was this part of the park that was exactly like Venus beach. It had weight lifting machines, and was open to the public to work out. The only thing was it was all rusted out and looked like tetanus waiting to happen. The rest of the park centered around this like that was one of the dirtiest bodies of water I've ever seen. The whole thing looked kind of disgusting. However, the coolest part of this park was a section that old ladies come to practice Tie-Chi. IT was really cool to see a bunch of them in unison doing these hand and body movements.

While around we went to go pick up our airline tickets to Beijing, and there was an issue. They had written Jake's name wrong, and needed to make him a new one, and for whatever reason they insisted he switched to a different flight. The moral of the story was no one should book flight tickets through a Chinese based website 3 months in advance and expect for it to go off with out a hitch. Everything is going to work out, and we'll get there, but it was frustrating.

We also stumbled upon a Chinese bakery, and naturally I wanted to go in and try something. Well, I tried what looked like and was explained to me as Chinese cheesecake, only this was really not cheesecake, and was actually quite bad. It tasted like a sponge with a little hint of milk.

Of course what day wouldn't be complete without small children following us around and giggling at the silly looking white people while saying simple English phrases like "nice to meet you" and "how are you".

After a day of getting to know the poor streets of ZenZhou we went to a message parlor. First we were given an ancient Chinese foot message using traditional techniques, and after they did the rest of our bodies in more of a western style. The whole experience was very cool, and a lot of fun. I'm hoping that before I leave I can get another foot message.