Sunday, September 9, 2007

Sophie's new hairdo - and Sue's too!

Today, Sunday, we met our new friends Lee Jun Ming and her husband, Chen who both work at Zhejiang University, a university close by to us here in Hangzhou.  Lee Jun Ming is an English teacher and her husband is an administrator there.  They have a boy whose English name is Tony.  We hopped on our bikes and they rode us across the city to a hike up a mountain with a vista at the top.  Much of it is through a bamboo forest - very pretty.  Here we are at the start.

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Energetic Sophie making her way up the hill.

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Jack and Peter hamming for the camera.

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In the peaceful, misty cloud forest!

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Jack found a perfect spot on a tree limb.

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Lee Jun Ming and Sue, with Peter who's being 11.

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We reached the top!  Tony and Jack with Sophie.  Not much of a view today since it's so foggy.  It rained earlier this morning...

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We happened to see one of Jack's classmates at the top!  She was is extremely shy and took a lot of coaxing to get a picture taken.

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I took Sue and Sophie back to the salon for haircuts.  Here is Sue ready to start her salon experience!

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First comes the shampoo.  Oooh that feels good!

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Sophie had a shampoo too, now she's getting it rinsed.

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Finally, Sophie is in the chair, getting her hair coiffed!

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Sue is still getting a massage - yes her haircut, shampoo, massage, total cost will be about $6.00 US!

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Aah, the final product.  Beautiful!

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... and here are the newly coiffed gals, on our stop to Pizza Hut (what, you can't read that?).  The boys were extremely happy to have pizza tonight.  Extremely.

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While Sue and Sophie were asleep, I took to the bike and ventured further west than we had previously.  I found a foot massage place where I had an hour foot massage (which basically includes the back, neck, head, and legs, with extra attention on the feet) for about $5 US!  I like getting foot massages because it is the perfect place to practice Chinese.  You're in a quiet room, one on one, no stress.  The girl can rub my feet while I look up words in the dictionary.  I generally ask how old she is (22), how many people are in her family (5), how long has she been in Hangzhou (3 years), how many foot massages does she do in a day (4).  These answers are for my father-in-law who is the king of interrogators! 

Inevitably she then starts to ask me questions, and this is much more difficult as she can ask using a lot more vocabulary than I know!  I could answer about 40% of her questions - the rest I had NO idea!  Back to smiling and nodding knowingly! 

Sue and I have the whole next week off before we start teaching so we hope to have a few more adventures before one or the other of us is working.  Thanks for reading!

2 comments:

AZsunshinegirl said...

Wow! Sue your hair looks gorgeous and it looks quite blond too. The photos of the kids are great. I'm starting to get VERY lonesome for you guys. Love mom

Bob & Amy said...

Hello there - great hair cuts! Tim, I'm so impressed with your blog. Great details. I show everyone! And I'm trying to work out how to get you all bike helmets. I was so scared when I heard you & Sophie fell!! Good job cushioning her fall! We love Lucy, I'll send you an email with more details. Love, The Mahers