Saturday, July 07, 2012

Tummy drumming in Taiwan



One of my favorite parts of business trips is treating myself to a massage at least once per trip. After flying endless hours and sleeping in a new bed each night, a massage is awesome at working out the business travel kinks.

The first time I travelled with a new colleague, we both booked massages at the same time, we didn't know each other that well and had only been working together a month. We were both excited for our Thai massages. Imagine our surprise when we ended up with a couples massage. Well, nothing quite breaks the ice getting to know each other than a couples massage. After a little karaoking in our private room afterward, we quickly became (& continue to be years later and several more couples massages) fast friends.

Well today, I had another couples massage experience. And this time, a whole lot more awkward. It was my first time meeting this vendor in Taiwan and the subject of massage came up. They asked me if I wanted to book one after our meeting and I happily agreed.

And then I realized we were having a couples massage. Now this lady and I had about an hour of interaction and here we were. Stripping down on our respective tables for our (not really) private two hours of bliss. With each other. Awkward.

If you've ever had a massage in an Asian country, you know there's no messing around. There's none of this light relaxing stuff. I've learned not to say I like a hard massage because that usually ends in me trying to fight off tears of pain. I should mention that this two hour massage not only ended up being the best massage of my life, but it was also the most interesting.

At one point she had me bent in this twisty position and then dug her elbows into the side of my butt. I almost went thru the roof. After using her elbows, she decided to use my ass as a drum. No joke. Try not bursting out in laughter when you have a small taiwanese lady with a face mask on (to protect from germs) mounting herself onto the massage table while using your ass as a drum. Oh ya, and you're sharing the moment with someone you just met.

After that she went on to massage my abdomen. The fact I didn't pee on her while she was pressing on my tummy is testament to the strength of my bladder muscles. I breathed a sigh of relief when she stopped kneading my tummy like pizza dough. Then she decided to drum on my tummy with her hands. Again, no joke. here I am sharing my first tummy drumming session with someone I just met! Awkward! But I should say at this point we were an hour and a half into the massage, I was relaxed and felt like rubber so I didn't much care!

To be fair, my hostess and lady I shared a massage with was great! And funny! And now that I've live in Europe a while, I'm getting slightly more comfortable with this whole nudity thing (I won't say comfortable- but after living in Germany, I no longer
Cringe.

Next time you need to break the ice with someone, I suggest a couples
Massage! There's nothing quite like it to break the ice!

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