Chinese New Year ~ Year of the Rabbit

Sorry I am really slacking with my blog, things have just been crazy with work, and it is really hard to find 5 minutes to sit down and write and not feel guilty because I know I should be doing school work!!Anyway I am going to get up dated now!!

Thursday 3rd February 2011, Chinese New Year and we have the day off, got to love that!!I had already made the decision it was not going to be an early morning, as needed a lie in and to catch up on my sleep.Once up I had arranged a spa day with Kate and Sharon up in the mountains, I was looking forward to it as hadn't really left Cirebon since arriving and was looking forward to doing something fun!! We caught the bus to the local bus station, then another bus up the mountain, it was nice just to watch the view pass by the window and take in the surroundings.We arrived at our destination and took the walk down the hill to a restaurant that Kate had been to before, it was so nice, had loads of lovely food and tried so new bits!! As we were eating the heavens opened and didn't stop, we left the restaurant and went down the road, getting very wet in the process, to the hotel where we decided on a Javanese Massage, which is an oil-based massage that originated as an ancient system of healing with a history of over 300 years in Indonesia. In Javanese massage, pushing and stroking techniques predominate, working to ease muscle and joint pain. It relies upon deep thumb pressures pushing, pressing and circling along and around the body's energy meridians to break down tensely knotted muscles and to stimulate the body's lymphatic system into releasing its self regenerative power. The deep thumb pressure is accompanied with simultaneous stroking palm movements, squeezing and pushing against the skin and veins to improve blood circulation.

I was taken to a little room and told to get undressed and lay on the table, I was looking forward to feeling relaxed, as she got started, it felt good, but as it carried on relaxing is not a word I would use to describe it, painful would be more appropriate, I have not had many massages at home and I am not convinced I will have many more here because as she finished I could feel as though my back had been bruised with the pressure she was using!!As she left, she handed me a towel and told me I could use the shower in the corner of the room to wash the oil off, as I turned it on and it got hot, I was so excited, I hadn't had a hot shower since leaving England in January.I joined the other girls in the hot spring bath, where we drank ginger tea, relaxed and chatted, listening to the thunder and rain!!

As we walked back up the hill to the bus it was still raining, so we got even more wet, but we were going home so it didn't matter! We stopped for dinner on the way home as none of us were wanted to cook, we had Nasi Kuning (yellow rice) when home I had a cold water bucket shower, which was NO way near as nice as the hot one I had had earlier, but I was ready to face the fun of Chinese New Year at school the next day!!

School the next day was fun, all the children came dressed in traditional Chinese clothes or red and I had planned lots of fun activities relating to Chinese New Year, we made Chinese lanterns, the children also brought in Chinese related snacks to share with the rest of the class, then later we had a special assembly where some of the children shared their talents with the rest of the Primary school!

I defiantly enjoyed my first experience of Chinese New Year and look forward to it next year!!

xx