After years of separation to my Dad, we chatted on Skype today. Because me and my boyfriend just broke up and I was suffering a severe depression. I had to talk to someone and I saw him online, we started a chat.

* My Dad is a really calm person.

Hana : Daddy
Hana : I broke up with my boyfriend, so sad
Dad : Boyfriend where?
Hana : in London
Dad : Okay that’s a short one, won’t impact your long-term life.

Hana : It’s been 8 months
Hana : not long but we lived together
Hana : Now I’m all alone lost in London, crying everyday

Dad : Just go again. You have no problem having boyfriend

Hana : but emotionally I can’t release myself
Hana : I’m afraid I’m hurt permanently
Hana : I feel desperate

Dad : Premarital dating is the education and training to learn how to deal with this
Dad : a break-up means a failure dating or you’re not good at recognizing good men, not a big deal
Dad : just put him on normal-friends list

Hana : hmm…

Dad : For women, looking for a boyfriend especially a serious one is like picking shoes, should find ones that fit your feet and don’t only care the look. The personality, does he has a big heart to contain your flaws, and tastes should be similar or can fit each other

Hana : I’m just sad because we can be happy together, and I’m lonely now. I haven’t been single for 10 years
Hana : Now I’m suffering depression

Dad : from my perspective it’s nothing, everyone should be independent.
Hana : so hard…

Dad : not necessary to undo the splashed water

Hana : (crying) I’m so weak
Dad : build your career, and make yourself strong. and find one who can match your condition

Hana : but I can’t work now, I can’t eat, and I have to cry until no tears and strength and then can sleep, but still wake up many times
Dad : Dating is a learning, a break-up is better than a divorce
Dad : break up when you should break up. change a place, come back to taiwan earlier
Dad : everything comes with a reason

Hana : okay…(crying)

===============

My father totally entertained me. Thanks.

Now I’m on a bus traveling to the new room in London, can’t even count how many times I had to migrate in the past two months. Have to carry my luggage – which is about 20KG, can’t judge me saying this is too much, cuz they are everything I need. This is after so many traveling, I eliminated things I need to the minimum, it’s not easy and I learnt from every time I wanted to give up bringing something but couldn’t, and turned out I didn’t even use them.

For example, the first time I decided to come to London for 2 months, I went to post office sending one box full of my stuff in advanced, and when I came here I brought 30KG of luggages with me. Turned out the 3 books (including one recipe book), 4 jackets, 2 jeans, many leggings and tights, plenty of clothes and shoes and trainers and skirts and dresses and swim suits and cosmetics and accessories I brought aren’t really used. I even wanted to bring a rice cooker!

So the next time I gave up many things, as the stuff I sent by mail I had to send them back again and it was expensive, I only brought 2 books, 2 jackets, 10 clothes, 2 jeans, 4 shoes including trainers, 1 dress, no skirt and swim suit. As for the accessories I only brought 1 pair of ear rings and 2 necklace. Also I brought my microphone and recording gears, wanted to use them to create some music.

But turned out I only used the gears once, only used the trainers once, only read the books on toilet.

Now this time is my third long stay in London, I finally learnt to eliminate my luggage to the least, this time when I arrived, my luggage was only 17KG. I brought 0 book, 1 jacket, 7 clothes, 3 shoes (boots, small shoes and heeled), no trainers, also I eliminate the toiletry and cosmetics as well.

For me, from having to brought 30KG of luggage to 17KG was quite a big achievement, as a girl who likes to dress up, I have to say it’s not easy. I make sure everything I brought, I use them. Maybe on my next trip, I will still improve myself to bring less stuff. Simplicity is the best!

Now I arrived the new room I’m staying for the rest of my days in London, getting ready to work! I’ll write about Paris soon!

Pic: when I was saying goodbye to my sister. I have the time record on these pictures, it was 5:53p.m.. They left right after that and I was still waiting in front of the screen.

Finally arrived in London. I lost my flight ticket for nothing yesterday, and I want to make the whole story published.

Yesterday I finish my Paris trip, my sister and her husband Sergei came with me to Luxembourg International Airport 2 hours before departure. My flight departed at 6:50p.m.. We arrived at around 4:40p.m.. and we checked the screen that shows the information about check-in desks and gates. But on my flight the check-in desk and gate was empty. It’s normal when you arrive too early and it usually shows up soon. So we went to a Cafe. Until 5:40p.m. I felt bad to keep them waiting with me as they are carrying a baby who was born 20 days ago. We checked the screen again, still not showing the check-in desk and gate. Didn’t want to keep them waiting with me so I said good bye to them.

After they left, I was standing in front of the screen waiting for the announcement, until 6:10p.m. I finally saw on the screen it shows “go to gate” at my flight, but still didn’t see the check-in desk nor gate number. So I went to information desk to ask the lady. She said “oh we don’t show the check-in counter for Luxair, because it’s always at desk 18 to 22.” I was like “How would I know!” and ran to check in. It was around 6:10p.m..

On desk 18, the lady took my itinerary and passport, I was waiting there because there seemed to be problems, she took the phone to call someone (should be calling the gate) at least twice, and did some search on her machine, then she told me “Sorry madam it’s too late to check in, the flight is closed.” I was surprised and said “What do you mean it’s closed? I arrived really early and I was waiting in front of the screen to see where to check in, could you do something for me, please?” then she called on the phone again and said “Sorry there’s nothing I can do, the flight is overbooked and it’s closed. And I noticed that your ticket is not changeable, you’ll have to go to the ticketing to buy a new one.”

It’s really strange, it’s not my fault to not check-in on time, they didn’t show me where to check-in, and there were still 40 minutes. It’s unlikely they would refuse me.

So I went to the ticketing counter, the left one. I explained her the situation again. The lady checked my itinerary, and said no its too late to check in now. I asked “The lady at check-in desk said it’s overbooked, is it the reason?” She right away insisted “No it’s not overbooked!” And she started to be impatient and unfriendly.

At the moment I thought “okay so maybe the lady at check-in desk was wrong.” then I asked when the next flight is, she said only tomorrow morning, I asked what time and more details, she was really hasty and told me “7, or, 11, in the morning!” in a impolite way, it’s like it’s killing her to deal with me as a visitor who just lost her ticket without doing anything wrong.

And then she told me “and the ticket for tomorrow is €396.”

I was thinking screw it, it’s 5 times more expensive than the one I bought, so I says thank you and text my sister asking for help. It was already 6:50p.m., so impossible to get on the plane.

Sergei arrived at around 7:00p.m.. He lived here and he was with me waiting for the check-in desk number to be shown in the screen, he could totally understand. Moreover he speaks French, it’s better than me using English to argue with them. We went to queue at the ticketing desk again, there was a German man arguing with them too, we waited for about 10 minutes, and talked to them. But the lady who was being impatient to me now was totally fed up and asked us to go to the Luxair services. Okay, so we went.

The Luxair Services counter is in a small room, we went in and Sergei started to explain the situation again with the lady on the left, I couldn’t understand their French but I saw the lady sometimes look at me and did many headshake. They talked for about 10 minutes.

Later on Sergei translated what she said, basically she said I should arrive at least on hour and check in earlier, it’s my mistake to not know the check-in counter as they show a Luxair logo in front of the check-in desk. And she said I’m the only one who missed the flight because of this. It’s like I’m stupid to check the screen, and I’m not able to handle my own trip.

She said if we couldn’t get information from the screen it’s not their (Luxair) fault, we should go argue with the airport. And we can write complain letter as we like. Then she started to talk to other colleagues and ignored us.

So we went to the Information Desk, where I asked where to check-in in the beginning. The girl there was friendly, said sorry she knew this problem and this kind of thing happens all the time. “It happens all the time!” She gave us a spare complain letter and told us how to do.

On the way home I couldn’t stop thinking how could this happen, I figure out it must be the overbooking problem. If it’s not overbooked, they should let me check-in anyway as it’s not that late when I finally know went to check-in. So it could only be a lie when the ticketing lady said it’s not about overbooking.

In the end I bought another ticket. I’m sad not only for losing money also the insulting and humiliation they treat me with, it hurts so much. I totally lost the faith on Luxair and even Luxembourg International Airport. It’s an international airport, they have the responsibility to take care of the foreigns who are impossible to know their own little rule : Luxair has specific desks and you should know where it is.

Again, just to clear up the timeline.

(Flight depart at 6:50p.m.)

4:40p.m.
Me, my sister and her Belgium husband and their baby arrived in Luxembourg International Airport.

4:50p.m.
We checked the screen that shows all the flights’ information, but my flight had not show anything. So we went to a Cafe and wait.

5:45p.m.
We checked again but the screen still didn’t show anything refer to my flight

5:55p.m.
We have been in front of the screen for 10 mins and they have to go home, we kissed goodbye.

6:00p.m.
I was still watching the screen, then I finally saw on the screen it shows “go to gate” at my flight, didnt see the check-in desk nor gate number. So I went to the Information desk. She told me Luxair is always at the same desks and don’t show on screen.

6:10p.m.
I ran to check in, she used phone to call somewhere and said its nothing she can help as it’s overbooked.

6:25p.m.
Went to the ticketing, queuing there

6:35p.m.
Ticketing counter said it’s too late to check in and I can buy a ticket for tomorrow for €396. And she denied it’s overbooked.

7:00p.m.
My sister and Sergei came back and Sergei talked to them again. At Luxair services counter she said its not their responsibility to make us know where to check in, I’m the only case that couldn’t find it.

7:20p.m.
We went to airport information desk, the lady agreed that it’s the airport’s bad and this happens all the time.

A real and truly frustrating story, isn’t it? I stop here, I’m in London now, finally.

1:57p.m.

Now I’m on the train to Luxembourg, last time on this train 4 days ago I was writing a post via “WordPress iPhone app”, but it’s gone when I tried to upload a picture without Internet access, stupid.

I’ve made the decision to learn to write on iPhone, using bits and pieces of time instead of having to find a 2~3 hours to sit down and write. Now if I have time I’ll just turn on my iPhone and write.

So I have to practice typing on iPhone, right now even if I have my MacBook in front of me, I’m still using my iPhone. Downloaded WordPress app and Tiny Desk, I’ll try both through and tell you which one is better. So far I think WordPress is better, cuz Tiny Desk doesn’t work off-line. Oh!

2:05p.m.

At the moment I have more motivation to write about Paris, but I should recover the post I wrote but didn’t save 4 days ago (God knows how frustrating it was to make me mention so many times).

So I went to Sergei’s (my brother in law) brother Ivann’s big house, he is a good engineer, knows about cars thoroughly, he can disasemble a car and rebuild it from scratch, sound’s really cool. He’s got a lot of classic cars in his garage, for others they may be just garbage but by his hands they can become totally valuable again.

He has a really cute dog called Iakov. I said “cute” because he (the dog) is good and genuinely welcome even strangers. But he is actually huge. You can think he’s smart as when u throw things he can run and catch it, and when you ask him (in French) to close the door he will do it, and you can ask him to jump on the chair and sit down, also even if you put sausage in front of him he won’t eat it without your permission. But you can also think he’s still a child because when he catchs the ball you throw he doesn’t take it back to you, and when you’re away he will still eat the sausage, but all the movements he does were just so adorable. He goes to dog-training school, I think he is a good student.

So Ivann has a really good dog. This time I also found that he is a professional beer taster. He has the best beers in the world. He opened two of them to let us try, really generous! My sister Koyun liked it as well.

Before we tasted it, we have Chimay and Westmalle (both are Belgium beers) to prepare our stomach for the best beer “Westvleteren”, don’t know if it a strategy to finally be tipsy by the best beer. The beer is strong but you don’t feel hard to drink, it’s actually quite smooth and easy to drink, a little bitter and a little sweet. Even Yien (my nephew) loves it. (it’s a joke)

And at Ivann’s yard, we played the sweep machine as a racing cart, haha, it was so exciting because the ground is not flat.

After that we went to Ivann and Sergei’s father Leon’s house, a big house as well. We did barbecue, really delicious. Their dad is a really funny guy in the sense of he is quite on he’s own in every ways. For example, he’s obsessed about coupons, he is an expert of collecting, analyzing and hacking all kinds of coupons, he always finds cheaper solutions to everything. Sometimes he even finds the bug in some of the sales deals, like mix and match, sometimes there’s bug and you can find a way to make it even cheaper. Not that he’s poor, he just does this for fun.

Leon is a generally lazy man, he washes the dishes only once a week, and he only has a few dishes to wash. So but how does he use the limited amount of dishes? Yes he put them in the fridge, he has a dish for icecream, one for meat, one for sauce, one for dessert, every time he finish using them, he put the dishes in the fridge, so in his fridge(quite empty) you can see plenty of empty but dirty dishes. He normally eats foods from the can, in this way he doesn’t even need a dish. He has a happy and free life, always makes everybody laugh.

So I finished the trip in Belgium, next stop Paris. Actually now I’m leaving Paris, I’ll write another post about Paris soon, it was like a dream, loving it.This is my first post produced on iPhone, I can say I have sore muscles on my right arm. I need a massage!

]]> http://miss-hana.com/the-best-beer-big-houses-and-barbecue-in-belgium/feed/ 0 http://miss-hana.com/mixture-of-happy-and-confusing-from-being-an-aunt-for-the-first-time/ http://miss-hana.com/mixture-of-happy-and-confusing-from-being-an-aunt-for-the-first-time/#comments Sat, 28 Apr 2012 23:20:18 +0000 Hana http://miss-hana.com/?p=669

When I was young, when my sisters and girl friends were dreaming about a fancy wedding in white dresses, kind husband with handsome face (funny bit is that it’s after the wedding), cute babies…, I was never a fan of that. To have all these things used to be/now it may sill be the most scary thing for me. I always need to be free mentally and physically, I was like doing it my own way in my whole life, be a freelancer, free singer, built my own startup but still travel as I want.

I didn’t really know myself before, felt bad that I’m so capricious in many ways. In school, I skipped classes that I think I won’t learn, almost failed all the subjects and was kicked out of the school (luckily there was a professor saved me by changing the score, oh it’s a secret shush shush). I even went to Australia for 9 months before graduation just because I wanted to go.

After I finally finished the school, I didn’t find a job like others, I was still doing freelance works that I’ve been doing since the second year in university. And then I started to do my “project” with my partner as a startup, entered a good incubator in Taipei, started my entrepreneur life.

I was never locked. So that never think about settling down and put limit on myself. Every time I attended other people’s wedding, I always thought “My God I would never want to do this”. So phony and normally it fades soon.

Last year, my sister’s wedding changed me a little bit. They had such a lovely, small but warm wedding, nothing too big nothing fancy but everybody was just weeping happily because of being too touched by their love.

For all that, after the wedding I still went back to the normal thoughts that it’s not for me. Maybe I just didn’t believe I’ll meet the one who will want to make me do this. Especially when I know that my sister had to quit her job in Australia and moved to Belgium becoming a housewife, I was thinking it’s not for me.

Oh but do you know how magical it is? When you look at other people’s life, seeing how happy they are, somehow you’ll want to be them for a bit. Yesterday there was a moment, when their baby was born, I see my brother-in-law looking after my sister and the baby, taking care of everything, and my sister was trying so hard to feed the baby on her breast, I so want to have all this, just for 3 days (cuz it’s enough). The picture was too beautiful.

After I went home with my mum (my sister and her husband stayed in the hospital), I told my mum,
“They are so happy! I’m so jealous! He loves her so much, they have everything.”

My mum laughed,
“HA! Did you know your sister just told me that she’s jealous of you, because you’re free, you have an open future. So many men like you, and you can go everywhere you want.”

Hmm that’s true, I love my life and although I’m not satisfied about my love life, but I basically don’t seem to lack anything. There’s no need to whine, oh hang on, I just did.

Anyway, I was just confused a little, happy a little, sad a little, being pathetic a little, loving myself a little, hating myself a little, being self-denial a little, mixture of complicated feelings, good and bad. Feeling full of power but suddenly don’t know where should I go from here; would like to give it a try but have no idea if it’s a right decision. Confused.

(Maybe I should change to title to “Moaning about becoming an aunt”, God, how could I have so many emotion just for being an aunt?)

Anyway, this post somehow went to a way that I didn’t expect. Wanted to write about funny things happened in the hospital, maybe tomorrow. I, Hana, here I announce that my big sister just had a boy with blond hair, black eyes, cute lips, weight 3.4KG, height 49CM. Nothing like an Asian baby. But I’m sure he’ll become a women killer!

There are some photos of them and me, let it be the end of this post. I’ve done the emotion call. Should hit the bed now. If you find it interesting to see my posts and photos, follow me on Twitter (@hanamizuki) /Facebook or subscribe my RSS feed (✿◠‿◠)

I heard that if you put your band name or your name in your song, you’ll be hot. And it’s quite true, there are many popular singers keep repeating their name in their song. I guess this is the way to show how proud of yourself you are. And why do I mention this? They did not sing their name, didn’t they? Yes they did, well, at least half here.

I went to Dandy Warhols concert last Saturday. I wasn’t a big fan of their songs, a little old-style for me. But they were active since 1994, so senior, and I know this would be the only chance for me to see them, so I bought the ticket 3 days before the concert. Amazingly, there still are some tickets left!

Concert was at hmv forum at Kentish Town, it opened at 7, but when we arrived at 8, there weren’t many people. So we grab a kebab and came back, it was 8:40pm, the perfect time to get in.

Everybody was just so excited to see Dandy Warhols.

I’m always exciting to go to concerts, especially from those who has music videos and albums, I can preview their music first. I don’t like to give my virgin-ear (totally new songs from totally new artists) to a live concert unless it’s an artist I know really well. Anyway, these are Dandy Warhols’s best hits.

This is probably the most famous song. I think the hook of this song is “WHOA HO WOW”!

“Everyday Should Be A Holiday”, it was when the band took a break, the keyboard player Zia McCabe went to ladys, Courtney Taylor-Taylor hold his guitar and sang this song, really cool. When entering chorus, he played the wrong chord and shout “Fuuuck~~~”. Turned out he was playing wrong key on the Verses and only found out on the Chorus. He said “let’s do it again” then perfectly finished this song. It’s the most precious part of this concert!

And here is my best during the concert. Really like this kind of story-telling style of verses, and the explosion of the chorus, especially when the lyrics is sarcastic in any sense.

And during the concert, they announced that the new album will be released in 3 days, which is tomorrow! They performed some of the new songs, they were really good actually, totally not old-style for me anymore.

Really enjoyed the 2 hours concert, it wasn’t feeling any long, proved that they are really good.

At the end of the concert, because everybody just didn’t want to leave, or maybe people thought it’s not over yet, so everybody just stayed there. So Zia McCabe came back to the stage, sang a good night song to everybody, the funny thing is, even if she sang with her off-key tune (maybe because there’s no instrument to tell her the right key), but everybody was just so happy to see her singing, and after she finished, finally people would leave.

If you’re interested in their new album, you could search google. And if you find it interesting to see my posts and photos, and would like to see more of my updates, here’s are some options:
1. follow me on Twitter (@hanamizuki),
2. subscribe my RSS feed,
3. Join my Facebook Page.
(✿◠‿◠)

I know if I don’t write this down, I’ll probably never do it. But when there are too many thoughts, feelings, excitement and emotions full of your blood, you just don’t know how to start and put it properly. This was my weekend, combination with surprising, confusing, stress and relief, just like the collision between hot and cold. And this is exactly how a Startup is like.

On Friday night, when Aron and I stepped into the venue, I was shy to talk to anybody. There were already a lot of people talking to each other. I guess I hadn’t networked with people for too long time, kind of forgot how to start a conversation.

After wandering around, had a drink, the organizer of Launch48 Ian showed up and invited everybody to the conference room, he explained the rules of the game.

And introduced the mentors, big cast!

And then it was the pitching time. Aron shared his “Flat Hunting Map” idea, which I think it’s really good. In fact, I was surprised that there was no good solution for flat hunting problem – it was always a pain in the butt.

My idea came up the day before Launch48. I was trying so hard to come up a fun idea that I think it could be made on a weekend and bring people joy. I thought about 3 ideas, but after I did some research, I didn’t think they were good anymore. I was almost giving up, and then I thought of this “Stalker App”. I was happy that people seemed to like it.

This is the rules of how to pitch and how to form a team.

The rule was slightly different from Startup Weekend, there were two rounds of pitching, to make people more clear about the ideas.

Join a team

On Saturday, the mentors came and introduced themselves. And the 8 teams describe their ideas again, because there were many people didn’t know which one to join yet.

I joined “We help you complain” team. The leader Keiran is a smart and aspiring man, came up with this complant letter tool idea. I didn’t really understand the value in the beginning, but after I worked on this project for a while, I started to think it’s a good idea. And I learnt many thing from the mentors and team members. Really thank you guys. Although I couldn’t distribute more, but this is indeed a good experience.

At Friday 5pm, we had a board meeting, teams reported the latest news.

It was so good to see people focusing on their works!

In the end of that day, there were 9 teams. Check this out, they are all good!

Sometimes when life is not as good as you expected, and you have a bad day, but the world suddenly just shut you up by starting snowing, it’s like everyone should just calm down, it’s like telling you nothing can’t wait until tomorrow. And yes it snowed for me at this circumstance!

It started snowing on Saturday night, The canal was frozen, there was nobody on the street, totally silent.

The next day when I woke up and checked the window, I can see kids playing around the snow, and they made a snow man.

And I can touch the snow from my room, wow! so fresh!

When I walked out, I found that nobody leaves no foot print on the snow, you can’t hide the crime with so many snow.

There are beautiful snow men, and ugly ones.

The other part of canal wasn’t frozen.

Tower of London after snow, so beautiful.

For me, this was the first time to see snow falling down at where I live, and can even touch it on the next day. They are so light and white. In the beginning I didn’t know it was snowing, I thought it was raining, in a strange way, but later I realized, no it was not raining!

Forgive me the girl from subtropics, even write a blog about this. And although I broke my shoes by jumping and stepping on the snow, and my toes were all red after walking on the snow, but it’s worth. ƪ(•̃͡ε•̃͡)∫ƪ(•̃͡ε•̃͡)∫ƪ(•̃͡ε•̃͡)∫

Google changed its LOGO for us yesterday, reminded everyone to vote! Yes this picture is how we vote.

I was going to write this post yesterday, but I was busy in watching TV news about the election. Yesterday is the big voting day for our Taiwanese presidential election, as well as legislative election and political party election. Unsurprisingly, wikipedia has organized all the information about yesterday, simple and clear.

This is the second time in my life to vote. I was never into political issues before, I always thought it’s not my business and I only cared about my own life. I even thought those people who talk about political issues all the time are kind of freaks.

Ever since 3 years ago, I met some people, traveled to some different countries, heard a lot of stories, I finally found that Taiwan is a place that needs their people to care about their nation. Taiwan is so small, and although we have our own government but still not a real country. And we have only been democratic for a short period of time, we should all cherish this because it is not easy to come by.

Gossip 1, Vote counts came before the voting day!

There were some funny stories happened yesterday. One of them was there were two media websites builded “Election Result” web pages and wanted to win huge traffic after the election. And maybe they were just testing the system so they put some numbers on it.

And accidentally/carelessly they put the result websites online, and clever Taiwanese geeks found it. (no idea how they found it, the media didn’t announce the URL.)

And the geeks started to market this page, it looked like the election has done. It happened in the early morning of the voting day. The media removed the URL right away but people has already print-screened it and continued to forward that image everywhere.

So next time be careful when you’re testing your new website especially when it comes to political issues (people can be crazy about this issue).

Gossip 2, Don’t Vote

Is it important to vote? Some people will have to treval back to their hometown to vote, so normally people would rather stay at where they work. But this time the opposition party was so close to beat the biggest party, and most of the young people support the opposition party (DDP, Democratic Progressive Party), so they put many things on the internet to encourage people to vote, no matter what.

This is a video to tell people to vote. When Steven Spielberg asked Tom Cruise, Justin Timberlake, Leonardo Dicaprio and bunch of famous actors/actresses to say a line “Don’t Vote”, even if the director said it’s just being sarcastic, they still hesitated. They are professional performers but couldn’t say things not from their heart. In the end Steven let them just say what they want, and the video ended good.

Gossip 3, My vote

On the way back home after voting, I was kind of emotive, I looked back my life and I noticed that I’m changing. I became more aware of everything in my life, started to know what I want, and getting more ideas about what’s meaningful in my life. I think it’s since I traveled to Australia.

I started to have favorite brands, specific life style. I have faith, love my job, crazy about my interests. I have candidates that I support, I can do something for my country, isn’t is the best thing that can ever happen?

So regardless of the result, it was a successful election yesterday that ended peacefully. There were always violence or unfair things happened before, but this time, although I’m worried about Taiwan’s future, but it was a good election after all.

Hope it will be better and better, as our president said.

I’ve been buying products from Groupon or Groupon-cloned websites since 2 months ago, I only focus on Treatments/Spa/Massages and Yoga/Dance classes, wanted to release my stress. And I don’t want to buy a long-term package so the single deal with cheaper price was a good deal for me.

Today I used a coupon from a Groupon-cloned website “lashou.com(caution: in Chinese)”. It’s a Spa treatment center called “5 Senses Spa”, just want to write down my experience about it here. Please note that it might be just me, special case, doesn’t mean this Spa center is certainly bad.

Okay so this is how it went.

Felt okay to wait even if I had an appointment, I’m getting good at “waiting” these days. When I finally entered the room, that there was no place to put my coat and bag. I asked the masseuse where I can put it, she pointed a really small stool. I tried really hard to fold my big coat and made sure it can be put on the stool steadily.

Then the masseuse asked me “So what’s your treatment today? back or belly?”

I didn’t check the coupon clearly, so I said “hmm I don’t really remember what it says on the coupon, I use a coupon from Lashou.”

And then she went out and come back said “The coupon is only for the back, please take off your shirt.”

Then she stayed there staring at me. Fine she’s a girl, so although I was shy I still stripped myself in front of her. And tried harder to put my shirt and bra on the already unsteady pile of folded coat.

Finally I lay on my stomach and she started to massage me. Lately I’ve been doing many yoga training, I got sore muscles all over my body. So I was afraid that she would massage me too hard and hurt me. But I was wrong, I was scared the totally wrong thing – She didn’t do it even a little bit hard.

What she did was just between touching and wiping me. She massaged the right place but, with that weak strength it was like she’s teasing my body, I had got to ask her to do it harder.

So I said “hey excuse me, could you do it a little harder please?”
She said “Okay!”

Then she turned the originally 1 point strength to maybe… 2 (full power is 10), what I expected was like 6~7. I didn’t want to make her feel bad but I didn’t want to waste my time and money either, so I asked again “excuse me, could you do it even harder?”

She said “Okay.”

Then she turn the power to maybe 2.5 but just for few seconds it went back to 1.5. She asked “Is it good now?”

“(No it is not good at all, you’re just wiping me.)” Of course I didn’t say it as I’m a decent useless no-guts no-confidence wuss, I just “hmmm…”ed her. She seemed to know what I mean, and said,

“Sorry I have no strength.”

I felt bad to make her feel bad so I said “Oh no it’s okay” immediately.

After maybe 25 minutes, of all the no-feeling massage, she said “It’s finished” and put a hot towel on my waist. “Is it too hot?” She asked right after she put the towel. And you know when you touch the heat you need a response time to know if it’s too hot, especially when it’s not that hot just a little hot, you only get hurt when you suffer the heat for a long time, it’s called “Low temperature burn“. So I said “I think it’s okay”. But after few minutes, I started to think no it is too hot and it can’t be like this, so I wiggled my butt and told her “hey now it’s too hot, I feel burn.”

But she was slowly peacefully saying “Okay I’ll take another dry towel to put it between your body and the hot towel.” Then she went to take the dry towel!!!

My god I was burning there! I could only keep wiggling my butt to ease the burn. (Don’t ask me why I didn’t take off the hot towel myself – I’m pretty good at suffering…)

Finally she saved me by an extra dry towel. And then said “That’s it thank you for today. I’ll be back later.”

At that time it has reached my limitation of patience. So I sneaked off. I said “sneak off” but actually I just peacefully walked out of the door, no one stopped me.

And I stopped at the entrance and took pictures, one of the reception walked out seeing me she asked “hey what are you taking pictures for?”

I said “I’m writing blog.”

She said “Oh saying good thing or bad thing?”

I said “Real things.”

She said “Hooo~ must say good thing! Hahaha~”

After I came home I checked the copy of the coupon, the massage should be in total 40 minutes, obviously the masseuse was too tired to massage me harder and do it in full time.

So I’m really writing the real thing about that Spa center here.

I posted my experience on Facebook, someone said “Groupon-like deals are all crap.” Actually I want to make it clearer. They are not all crap. There are maybe 50% of crap (no one likes it so they have to use this to sell) and other 50% are new open stores. In the 50% of new opened stores, there are maybe 50% of good products. Like I went to some yoga classes, they are new opened and they care about every customers, it’s a good case.

Anyway, to sum up there are maybe 75% crap in Groupon-like deals. So buy it at your own risk.