Is that a garlic clove in your ear?

Why yes, yes it is.  I hate medicine.  Luckily I have a supreme immune system and rarely, if ever, get sick.  When I feel anything coming on, I drink loads of herbal tea and hot water, eat fruit, and stay away from dairy.  Yesterday at work I started feeling icky and I was out of tea.  When I got home my ear started hurting like a full sinus infection with ear ache was brewing.  I was not about to have that.  After a quick google search for homeopathic way to keep an earache from developing I discovered the healing power of garlic.  Seriously, I just peeled a clove, cut off the two sharp ends and stuck it in my ailing ear.  Within minutes I felt relief.  I left it in there for at least 30 minutes and massaged my lymphatic drainage massage for a few minutes.  Voila!  I wake up this morning still feeling a little stuffy, but no earache.  Check out this link here for more information.

My most unusual souvenir from Beijing

Yes, that is my back.  No, the Chinese government did not give me lashings as I went through customs.  Though it looks like something from The Passion, this is something that I paid to have done to me.  It's referred to as "gua sha" or skin scraping and it is a Chinese Medicinal practice that is supposed to remove disease and sickness from your body.  The red you see is not bruising, it's sub-cutaneous blemishing caused by the extravasation of blood from the peripheral capillaries.  

First she oiled my back and gave me a mini massage.  Then she proceeded to run her rock down the sides of my spine enough times to not really hurt, but to the point where I would tell myself, "If she does it one more time I'm saying 'ow!'"  Then she moved on to my other meridians, at least I guess that what she was doing since it's pretty symmetrical.

Danny and I just didn't do this with no knowledge of it, my friend has had it done multiple times before, and for the equivalent of $5 USD each, we had to give it a try.  I really felt light and mobile and awake after having it done.  Though I must say that it was uncomfortable during the process and it was sore like a bruise the next day on the flight home.

Would I do it again?  Only in China.

cake pops at Starbucks

Cupcakes are old news, the new things are cake pops.  The babies are popping up at local cupcakeries and online shops all over LA.  I have made some myself with left over frosting the "muffin" top of the cake, then you coat it in chocolate.  Anyways....  I am really proud of Starbucks being on top of the bakery trends by offering three flavors of cake pops.  I think today must have been the first day of it because I got one of the three flavors that were on display.  For you lucky people reading my blog, I will let you know that tomorrow through Saturday from 2-5 pm you get a free cake pop with any drink purchase.  You know me, I couldn't wait a day so I paid for mine and just finished it right now.  It was really good actually.  Super moist and really flavorful.  Bravo Starbucks.  There are three flavors: birthday cake (yum.), rocky road, and tiramisu.

Anyway, get yourself to your local participating Starbucks over the next few days from 2-5 for a free cake pop and find out how awesome they are!!