Hot Steamy Fun

Last night Sara and I decided to sleep in a Chinese sauna. Every Chinese city is scattered with these places, where you can steam yourself silly, eat dinner, get scrubbed down with salt and even spend the night in a comfy bed (useful when travelling as cheaper than a hotel).
At this sauna, I confronted and overcame a personal boundary (mentioned in an early post) about being naked in front of people. I'm not shy because I have body issues, on the contrary I'm reasonably confident about my body. I just find the idea of being publicly naked uncomfortable in China, because people here don't need ANOTHER excuse to stare! When I went to saunas in the past, I always made a big deal about remaining fully clothed at all times. This time I was determined to try the full body salt scrub, which is rumoured to be amazingly good for your skin. Unfortunately it requires being fully naked and allowing a Chinese lady to rub you all over. Feeling brave, I took the plunge. She looked at me in astonishment when I said I wanted to have the salt scrub, but commanded me to get naked. Which I did, and then stood there waiting while she prepared the scrubbing equipment (all the time thinking 'why didn't you do this BEFORE I took the clothes off, lady!') Once things got started, it was fine and I quickly got used to the sensation of being roughly scraped and scrubbed with salt. The lady also massaged me, which hurt quite a lot! Twenty minutes later it was over and I was sent off to take a shower. The experience wasn't nearly as bad as I'd always expected it to be - and I'm quite pleased with myself for having the confidence to go for it.

Streamline Your Life

Buy a netbook instead of a standard size notebook. Netbooks are ultra-portable, with lots of hard drive space and all the functions of their heftier cousins. I use an s10 by Lenovo.

Get a multi-purpose PDA style phone. One iPhone can replace your plain old phone, camera, mp3 player and all your books! I didn't go for the iPhone, but bought a Nokia e71, which looks beautifully business-like (think Blackberry) and has all the useful features including a camera, ebook reader etc.

Throw out your library and replace it all with ebooks. These can be downloaded, many for free, from the internet and stored on your computer or phone. As mentioned above, the best devices for reading ebooks are Nokia e-series, iPhone or Blackberry.

Never, ever, own any CDs. Are you mad? That's what mp3s are for. CDs are heavy, annoying wastes of space. Wait until you own a house to start building up a large physical music collection. Chances are anyway, by that time we will all be using a brand new format to store our music, and CDs will be totally obsolete.

Downsize your clothes frequently - at least every season, go through your wardrobe and be brutal. If you haven't worn it for the last year, it's never going to be worn. Get rid!

Buy a good sturdy washbag with lots of compartments for different things. Keep an eye on your bathroom and cosmetic products and don't allow them to amass out of control. Travel sizes might be a good idea for saving space, but they're not very economical.

Avoid carrying round large amounts of paperwork. Store important documents online. Make scans/digital photos of them and email them to your Gmail account, or use an online vault like www.humyo.com to keep them all safe. Alternatively, storing them on your laptop is ok too, just don't forget to keep backups.

Don't buy souvenirs, just take photos, write blogs and make friends.

Early Riser

After reading Steve Pavlina's blog posts on the benefits of early rising, I've been trying to incorporate this idea into my life. Needless to say, I haven't been totally successful. Steve suggests that 5am is a good time to aim for.
But it's haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrd! I'm not really a fan of staying in bed late, but 5am was just a step too far. Today, though, I was awake at 5 without even trying. Deciding to make the most of this, I got up, put on some running gear and headed for Labour Park with my camera. The day was already warm, and quite a lot of people were out on the streets. In the park, groups of elderly people were strolling around, dancing in formation, doing tai chi, stretching out their limbs and exercising their lungs by yelling loudly. A few joggers were doing laps of the park, and I followed in their wake. Running meant I missed the chance to observe my surroundings more closely, so I soon gave up and relaxed into a walk, taking in all the activity buzzing in the park. Just inside the entrance to the park was a large display to commemorate this year, 2009, as the 50th birthday of the People's Republic of China.
October 1st will be the real time for celebrations, as on this day in 1949 Mao Zedong stood in Tian'anmen Square and declared the country a communist People's Republic. This isn't the only event in Chinese history for which 2009 marks a significant anniversary; 20 years ago, Tian'anmen Square became infamous as a scene of chaos, terror and bloodshed. In the Western world, most of us know what happened, so I don't need to discuss further here (Big Brother may be lurking... ;)
There may also be an important Tibet-related anniversary, but I'm not certain. So far this year, Tibet has been closed to foreign travellers because of ‘security issues’ (read: fear of protests and chaos making China look bad). I heard it will reopen soon, or has already done so.
I digress...

Back to Labour Park, I hiked up to the viewing station and looked out over downtown Dalian. The view includes the giant football that signifies Dalian's past as a national football champ. There is a whole fairground incorporated into the park, with random rides scattered around the place and a cable car that goes up the hill to a place I have never been. An important feature is the rollercoaster that seems to be dormant at the moment, but will come to life in the summer months, when crazy people ride on it. Not forgetting the Ferris wheel, just like the one I once saw across the Yalu River on the North Korean shore - but much better used...
At one point I tried to take a short cut to get out of the park, but found myself stuck behind a spiky iron fence. China certainly likes to keep its citizens under control, not too much free roaming for us. Jackie Chan recently got in trouble for saying that 'Chinese people need to be controlled', but it seems the remark was taken out of context and he was actually referring solely to the entertainment industry. With the iron fisted government approach, I don't think we presently need to worry TOO much about lack of control.