"Disco" Spinning

This morning we (Katie, Laura, Heather and I) were going to go to the silk market but decided to save it for another day when we have more time. Instead we made a list of everything we wanted to do in Beijing while we are here. Our list got big fast. We managed to narrow it down and fit most of it in. So well see if we actually end up doing it all.

For lunch I ate noodles in my room and started to do my homework 作业. Tomorrow I only have listening class 听力课, but I figured I would try to get ahead and do my homework for hanyu 汉语 and kouyu 口语.

Laura, Katie and I decided to do a spinning class at Bally's at 6pm. We left for the gym at 4:45 so we could work out for a little beforehand. When we went to the locker room to put our backpacks in a locker, I decided to check out the locker room showers. We thought the showers would be a lot nicer than the ones here and maybe we would shower after we worked out. Well... the showers don't have curtains. So that idea got thrown away immediately. As we were locking our stuff up... the TALLEST chinese girl I have ever seen comes in from showering and is completely naked. Apparently it's normal to walk around naked in the ladies locker room in China. Needless to say, the three of us could not keep it together. We walked out quickly and lost it.

I ran on the treadmill before the spinning class and at 6 minutes 30 seconds my distance was 1.00. I could not believe it, I was so proud of myself for running a mile so fast. Well, stupid me... the distance is in kilometers. So it was more like .62 or something. I think i'll stick to thinking the distance is in miles.

So... this spinning class or shall I say, "disco spinning", was quiet the experience; especially for my first spinning class.   Our spinning instructor was a "buff" chinese man, in a super tight biking outfit. I knew I was dead-meat the second I saw his outfit. But the class only got better, he closed the curtains, turned on a few lights and then on went the disco and strobe lights. Laura, Katie and I all just look at each other... what have we gotten ourselves into. He then turns on american "pump up" music and turns it up extremely loud, hops on his bike and starts yelling all sorts of things in chinese. After 15 minutes I was dead.. and I had 35 minutes to go. I had no idea how I was going to make it to the end, but we all did- just barely. We cooled down to Jack Johnson... which I thought was really funny since I associate Jack Johnson with rainy day music.

After the gym I was dead and the last thing I wanted was Chinese food. But I sucked it up and got fried rice (again). I was way too tired to do anymore work so I decided to just shower then get into bed (which actually seemed very comfortable at the time).