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.