It was noticeably cooler for the morning walk to the hospital serenaded by the frantic beeping of cars and motorbikes. The eerie thing about the motorbikes and mopeds is that they are electric and therefore acoustically undetectable until you are practically under their wheels. Crossing the road is quite an art; even though the pedestrian light may be in your favour, two wheeled and four wheeled vehicles of all descriptions do not give way to people on foot. Use of the footbrake seems to be a last resort for most drivers. Beep not brake must be a maxim of learning to drive here. Interestingly foreigners are not allowed to rent cars here, only in specific cities, and no alien is allowed to drive outside these cities. Why anyone would wish to join the wild charioteering that counts as city driving is beyond me, in any event public transport is pretty good and inexpensive.
The hospital sessions were spent with Dr Sun in the morning and Dr Hu in the afternoon. It was fascinating to observe the degree of deference accorded to various consultants. Dr Sun was trailed assiduously by his students who handed him everything and disposed of the wrappings and swabs. Dr Hu was accompanied by the same students but the atmosphere was different, as often as not she fetched her own needles and swabs from the stand and didn’t seem to expect people to wait on her hand and foot. Perhaps an element of the male consultant being looked after more? Or is it that women just get on with things and don’t hang around waiting for the acupuncture fairy to tend to them?
Yifeng is acupoint SJ17!
Lunch was at Costa Coffee (again; the coffee drinkers get loyalty cards, free coffee after the sixth purchase which is more generous than in Ireland I think). Dinner was in one of the multitude of restaurants in the Golden Wheel. This one displayed its food on an open counter, so ordering was simple enough. Food was cooked immediately for each customer and served with a bowl of clear soup and a bowl of rice. We ordered different things and it was all excellent.
The evening session in Tui Na was good, with more emphasis on practical technique and how to treat different areas. We got the opportunity to practice on each other which was a nice way to end the day.