The B'day celebration

What do you expect from us today? Well, getting worked on by the Personal Trainer to start. Very stiffed and sored. Then Audrey took me to Laris (aka Three on the Bund). It was quite an interesting restaurant. Great view looking over the HuangPo river at the Bund. Every table had a view. And good thing the pillar just large enough blocking that ugly looking futuristic tower that so "famous" for Shanghai. This restaurant has a chocolate factory. We saw staff making chocolate live over a wide window. Ate lots of the chocolate! It was great! But make sure you WALK there and WALK back to wherever. Food was good! Or rather the chocolate. The veal was a bit tougher than I anticipated. Wonder where I could get a nice piece of juicy tender beef in Shanghai. Considering Laris is one of the top restaurants, I expected a bit more in terms of the quality of the meat. Menu was very imaginative. Egg Florentine with Truffle Hollandaise sauce. Risotto with nice creamy Mascarpone cheese and fresh vegetables. Fresh oysters from France. Price was quite expensive though. This little venture costed RMB$870; no service charge; so tipping was required. It came close to RMB$1,000. And that was 24 meals from the nice Taiwanese vegetarian restaurant we often visit (Funny though, since we arrived back from Maui, we haven't visited it once yet.).

O yeah, after this lunch she scheduled me in to a Chinese herbal steam, massage and cupping. WE WALKED THERE! 45 minutes of it! Since we had load of chocolate - free samples (5 pieces) from the restaurant as well as the chocolate mud cake & ice cream. Talk about chocolate loading. Anyway, I digressed. So this Chinese herbal steam and massage and cupping thingy. The steaming was suppose to loosen your joints and make your body absorbed the medicinal purpose of the herb thru your skill into your body; me, I believed I had sweat out the not so nice Japanese imitation cheese cake, a bottle of French wine, a glass of Chinese made sparkling / ice wine, and copious amount of butter in the dishes all from last night's meal; Audrey's friend made supper. The steaming was good; after 20 minutes of that, I believe I sweat everything out! Then, the massage. All my sore spots were hit; then the cupping; it was suppose to use the cups, based on the vacuum principle, put on your back to draw out "bad" blood to the surface. Well, with my soreness from working out; there were lots. All I heard was semi-gasping from the lady working on me. I felt great right now. Contrary to previous times that I was too tired to do anything. Must be the chocolate high.

As for tonight, we are eating in; am making a pot of simple chinese soup. Got to check on it now.