Pandamonium

I joined a gym on Friday, so thankfully I’ve started exercising again. I want to eat Chinese dumplings not become one.

I chose the gym called “Fitness First” located in the fancy mall with the Prada, Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton stores. Everyone I spoke to – expats, tongzhi and Chinese – assured me: “Fitness First is terrific! It’s the best gym in Shanghai!”

I’m nothing if not a slave to hyperbole.

Tonight it started to rain just as I was leaving my office to go exercise. The rain in Shanghai is not like the rain in New York. The rain in New York falls from the sky. The rain in Shanghai travels in multiple dimensions – up and down, side to side, and back and forth through time. This ensures that whatever rain protection you have, you’re surely to arrive at your destination looking as if you’ve travelled there by log flume.

A guy was selling umbrellas at the door to my office building. He wanted 40 RMB, about five dollars. This was a total rip-off. However, standing there in the torrential downpour my negotiating position was somewhat compromised. He took my money and went to do other business.

I opened the umbrella. First, it was tiny, or better, dainty. And it had a panda face on the front. And ears that sprouted from the top when you opened it.

I walked down Nanjing Road – a mutant half man/half panda with a giant encephalitic head. When I was about 100 feet from the gym, a gust caught my panda head umbrella causing it to spontaneously disintegrate into a penny’s worth of plastic, aluminum and crappy engineering. I was totally drenched.

The gym is okay. It’s small, but the equipment is new. It supposedly has “really great classes!” I never take classes. I feel like a complete twat dancing and shaking in a glassed-in room where everyone can see you.

After I finished exercising I went to shower and change.

The water temperature in the shower at the gym has four settings: off, arctic tundra, molten hot magma from the center of the earth, and simply, “sun.” Conveniently these settings are only one micron apart and constantly change position in relation to each other. This ensures a brisk shower to get you going with your day!

I made it home damp and exhausted. Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain, but I’ll take an umbrella from the hotel. It doesn’t have a panda on it.