Ikebana Massage Class

Don't you love how an experience can evolve and turn into something completely wonderfully different than expected? 

I appreciate how that seems to happen more often as an expat in a foreign country. My theory is that because we're living here as guests, we have less control over external circumstances and we are more likely to go with the flow. Do you agree?

Anyway, today I had just one of those fun day turnarounds. 

For my latest new "challenge", I enrolled in an Ikebana class. Ikebana is Japanese artistic flower arrangement, and ever since planning my wedding flowers a year and a half ago, I've been in love with flowers. I don't know how to express it really-- they just make me happy.

So, I attended the class and it was fun enough. I was surprised to see that another enrollee was a student of mine, Sophista from Thailand. We talked a lot and learned how to make small arrangements using washi paper and practiced our Japanese with two high school girls also taking the class. 

But then, the topic of conversation somehow got around to Thai Massage, and it just so conveniently turned out that Sophista trained at the most famous massage school in Thailand. To make a long story short, the Ikebana studio suddenly turned into a Thai massage salon. Sophista had us sitting on the ground with the buckets of flowers as she kneaded all the knots out of our sore shoulders and backs. Then she gave us a tutorial on all the reflexology points in our feet. We ended up all staying for a long time afterwards talking about this or that and even made a lunch date together for next week.

 Have you ever spontaneously bonded with a group of "strangers"? Share your story here!