Swimming in China

After working as a lifeguard for 7 years and swimming consistently for at least the last 5 I had to find a pool to swim at in China. My good friend Sui Ki also loves swimming so we were on a mission together to find a good place to swim.

Our first pool we found was in downtown Dalian - at least an hour and a half away once we finally made our way to the light rail train, rode it for 55 minutes and then walked or took a taxi to the pool. As a result we tried to be efficient with our time by combining our swimming trips with going to church on Sunday. It's a 50 meter pool at a chinese hotel (the kind where men lounge topless on their beds while smoking and then leave the door open as you walk past) where people slowly swim both directions at the same time because there are no lane ropes. The change room is tiny and the shower room is spacious but completely open so I was forced to get a little more comfortable with nakedness. Overall we were about 65% successful at following through with our swimming intentions.

Since Christmas we also checked out 2 other pools - both only 25 meters long. The first was at a hot spring quite close to where we live, but it's too warm and too expensive. The second is at a bath house in between the other 2 but is so ridiculously salty - I swear more than the ocean - that I could barely swim there for more than 20 minutes.

I think I'd pretty much accepted the fact that it wasn't going to be as easy to swim in China. But then we heard about another pool in Kai Fa Qu (the place 1/2 way between us and the city, only a 20 min train ride) and this place just blew my mind - for China that is! It's actually a real pool! It's 50 meters, well-lit with natural lighting, has lane ropes and real lifeguards who appear to be watching the pool. It even has safety equipment - at least 18 ring buoys around the pool (I counted), a few reaching poles and some other floatation devices! I actually want to go swimming now!

One thing though that I've noticed no matter where I swim is that people like to stare - and mostly men, though this is because most of the people swimming, or standing around, are men. I mostly like to pretend it's because they are incredibly impressed with my fantastic swimming skills, though if this is even the slightest bit true it would only be because there's not that many great swimmers here - at least not the places I've been swimming. I just swim along, smile from time to time or try to make an extra splash when I flip turn to get them wet!