Putting the Rest into Rest Day

I have a newfound respect for the amazing chill-outedness of Koh Samui. Today was amazingly relaxing and...awesome. After a breakfast at a café on the road outside my building, I ran an errand, checked my email, and decided to go to the pool with a bag of ice for my legs. I saw some familiar faces from the kickboxing camp, so talked to a few guys for a while. Then a couple French girls showed up, and we all chatted for a bit. The girls are not training here, but are teaching French at a local school and had met some of the guys in our camp at the night market, where everyone goes for dinner. After chatting and chilling in the sun for a while, we decided to go down to the beach and check out the scene. The girls had apparently met the owner of a beach bar/restaurant there, who happened to be French and had lots of good cheese that the girls wanted to try. So, we had smoothies and a plate of really good French cheese (not quite as good as the cheese in the Sofitel, but still very nice—and with a much better view). We relaxed there for about an hour while the girls spoke French to the owner and I stared off into the ocean, not understanding them at all. We then walked back up to the café on the strip and had another tasty smoothie (smoothies are the thing here, which isn’t a huge surprise given the heat I guess). To top it all off, we then went and had Thai massages. After making sure my masseuse knew about my shins, I was able to relax and enjoy the massage (which cost about 6 dollars for an hour—yessssss). So now I’ve returned to my room for a shower and more relaxing, before heading to the night market for dinner.

All in all, I’d say I’m better at living up to the relaxing days than the others. But, Monday morning I’m back at it so hopefully my shins will be up to the task (the bruises have predictably gotten bigger, but I’ve rubbed them with boxing liniment several times, iced them a couple more times, and started taking a calcium/vitamin D supplement that is supposed to help as well).