Cupping, yes that's a verb

I thought I was running out of new things to do in Chengdu, but fortunately I was wrong. China is a place that never ceases to surprise and amaze me. So tonight we went out to dinner with Andrea, Barb, Matt, his Mom (who is visiting for a few weeks), Deborah, Ben, Laura, Eddie, Eddie's fiance (who is originally from Chengdu but is studying at ASU getting her PhD), and myself at a good Sichuan place by Andrea's house. While we were eating Matt's mom mentioned how they had seen someone with all these weird circular bruises on their back and we explained to her that they were a type of Chinese massage that uses cups and heats up the air with fire inside and then puts them on your back to pull all the toxins out of your body. Laura started saying how she wanted to try it and Andrea mentioned how there was a good place just around the block that she goes to occasionally. So before I knew it Deborah, Laura, and I were heading over to get cupped. Andrea came with us, but she just got a massage. There were several beds squeezed into the small room off the street, but they lead us outside and into their house above the shop where they had another room with three beds in it. Andrea stayed downstairs though. We all laid down and it started with a very intense full-body massage, including forehead, feet, everything. Matt's mom, Matt, and Ben came in to watch as well after grabbing some stuff from Barb's apartment. Following the hour long massage, the cups came out. After preparing our back they took this little piece of wood or something that looked kind of like a pottery carving tool and rubbed it up and down our backs rather forcefully. It made red marks, vertically with the strokes on Deborah and Laura and patchily on me because it hit my ribs. After our backs all looked they had been ravaged by wild dogs, they took out the cups. Mine came first. They take a piece of cloth or something and light it on fire and put the fire in the cup to heat up the air and then quickly take the fire out and put the cup face down on your back, causing your skin to be suctioned up into the cup. They do about 10 or so cups until they are all over your back and, as Matt said, it looks like if you were electric, you would light up. They stay on for about 10 or 20 minutes and when they come off they leave big red circles on your back. It felt so weird, but at the same time exactly how I thought it would feel. Anyways, that was my Chinese adventure for today. It was very interesting. And now Laura and I feel like our China experience is finally complete and we can go home.
On the bike ride home from the cupping experience it also started to POUR and thunder and lightening and we got soaked, but it felt so nice after the hot couple of days we have had here, plus I love thunderstorms!! I took it as a good sign.