Physical Fitness Gym*** in Shanghai is running a promotion where you get a 2-month membership for just 59RMB.  When I heard about it, I thought:

•    Either the gym is going to be horrendously filthy and crowded or
•    There are going to be about 100 hoops I have to jump through to get that deal.

Wrong on both counts.

The deal… How to get it

Like most things in China, there’s the way you are told things are and the way things actually are.

•    The advertised end date for this promotion is April 15.  But if you call in to the gym, you are told April 30.  So, sign up sooner rather than later because no one can really say when this gravy train will come to a shuddering halt.
•    Initially I was told I had to have special vouchers to register.  Then I heard that I had to have a QQ account/number (I still have no idea what QQ is).  Then I heard that I had to be able to tuck both feet behind my ears and hum the Marseillaise backwards while whittling out a banjo with my front teeth.  None of these is true.  What you definitely need is your passport and a little bit of your inner actress (for when they ask you why you don’t have all the other stuff).  Be prepared to burst into tears, or at least display a quivering lower lip if it looks like things are not going your way.

Here’s the deal:

• Two months unlimited use of the gym facilities except between 17:30 and 20:00 on weekdays.
• You have to bring your ID (passport) along with you each time you come to work out.

How I went about it:
I had called ahead and been told by one of the trainers that it was basically a free-for-all.  He said as long as I was a new member and brought along my passport, I could sign up.  But when I got there the girl at reception asked me for my QQ ID or voucher, which, of course, I didn’t have.

When I got to the gym, the two guys who were signing up ahead of me also had neither of these.   One was a local who said he’d bring his tomorrow and was allowed to sign up right away.  One was a laowai who got so frustrated with the language barrier that he jacked it in and left.  Not me.  Not for under 1RMB a day.  I stuck it out.

The easiest thing would be to just get your Chinese friend to sign you up for a QQ account if you can’t do it yourself.  Or, if you are feeling particularly rebellious, you can just make up an 8-digit number, which is what I hear a QQ account ID is.  I know someone who went down this route and it worked for her. But they could check the validity of the QQ number while you are standing there and that would be pretty embarrassing for you to be caught in a big fat lie.  Like some sort of big fat liar.  So avoid the deception.  Go instead for the emotional manipulation and be prepared to weep like a little girl if 59RMB over two months seems like too good a deal to pass up.

I admit to going to Physical with some trepidation.  The gym got a solid kicking from City Weekend’s reviewers.   But having said that, how seriously can you take someone who writes in all caps?  Not very, I say.

The Good:

• It was pretty clean.  There were cleaners in the bathrooms and in the workout hall while I was there and I have definitely seen much, much worse.  The toilets were also ok.  The treadmill and the elliptical trainer both felt sticky on the grips (ew!), but, overall, I was pleasantly surprised
• The gym is huuuuuuuge.  There are dozens of every type of equipment.  I was just interested in cardio and stopped counting when  I passed 20 elliptical trainers.
• It was only a third full when I got there – around lunchtime.  So that is a sweet time to go.
• Everything inside is in Chinese and English.

The Bad

• The address that they advertise via Guanxi and local websites is, at best: misleading and at worst, downright wrong.  When you call to ask how to get there, the girl who answers the phone tells you to ask someone on the street. What?!
• It is very, very hard to find a) because they have done a lousy job of signposting it and b) there is loads of construction going on there at the moment.
• It is really warm in the workout area.  And we’re only in Spring.  They’ll have to amp up the aircon once the temperatures soar in summer
• I didn’t see any exercise balls or floor mats so the warm-down, ab-crunch-fakeout was a bit disappointing.
• Not only is getting to the gym kind of confusing, the gym layout itself could do with better signage.  For example there are two receptions (one where you get your key and one where you do the admin stuff) .  Both receptions have people on the phone and receptionists fiddling around with thick reams of paper.   If you don’t know you are in the wrong line, you will wait for what seems like ages before someone tells you where you should be.

How to get there.

Get out of Exit 2 of Huangpi Nan Lu Station and walk down HuaiHai Zhong Lu in the direction of all the construction.

The advertised address is:

1/F, South Tower, Hongkong Plaza, 283 Huaihai Zhong Lu (nr the cnr of Huangpi Nan Lu).

This is not right,  They are on the 3rd floor and the entrance is actually on Songshan Lu (i.e. turn left at the first set of traffic lights after the intersetion of Huai Hai and Huangpi).  When I went today there were loads of building trucks and workers unloading large chunks of cardboard.  They were also blocking the entrance that is just a large doorway (like a garage doorway) with a sign that says “To Cargo Loading Area”.  That is where you need to go in while construction is underway but you won’t see this sign until you are standing pretty much right under it.  So instead, look out for the stop for Bus 109.  Once you are at that stop (on Songshan Lu), you are right next to the entrance.  It is on you right if you are facing HuaiHai Lu.

***This information is based on my visit to the Hong Kong Plaza branch of Physical Fitness.  All references to directions etc. are accurate at the time of writing due to the construction that is currently underway.

Hanging out with a mate this weekend we were talking about compartmentalizing.  Or I was talking about it, and she was listening and looking increasingly concerned at how maniacally OCD I am about not letting parts of my life overlap.  For example, I go to a lot of networking things.  A lot.  And there’s always at least a free glass of wine or two on offer.  I never drink in front of colleagues or prospective clients.  Never.  Wine = play.  Work = work.  Some people do mix them.  But you’ll notice that none of them are called “Iris”.

And when I asked her how many email aliases she had, she answered “one”, as though we were still in 1995.  One?!  You can’t let all your comms touch each other.  That is completely unsanitary.

I have seven.

• The first address is my work one.  Used by clients and prospective clients.
• The second is just for my family.
• The third one is for my friends. The people who genuinely know me.  Mainly it’s people who were around before the chronic cynicism and myriad of neuroses kicked in.  Good times.
• The fourth is for people I’m still getting to know.  Or for people I pretend to like (sorry).  Or those who I have only ever met in a dark and dingy club i.e. people with whom I have never had a conversation beyond: “Oh my giddy odd – I love this tuuuuuuuuuuunnnneeee!”
• The fifth is for when I want to comment on blogs and other forums anonymously.
• The sixth is for when I’m up to no good signing up for things and I know there’s a good chance the website is going to swallow my address and never let me unsubscribe from a spammerrific torrent of junk mail.
• And the seventh is a backup Gmail address for my work one.  I bcc everything to it.

So, 7.   That makes sense, right?

No, it’s not weird.  So shut up.
No, you.

Had a good night tonight.  We went for what I thought was going to be the christening of a yacht at the Hyatt.  In my mind I’d built up images of something fairly closely resembling the Titanic hulking in the ballroom.

In the end, it turned out that it was a cocktail dinner to mark the delivery of a cargo ship.  Not nearly as awe-inspiring – and no actual boat bits in the hotel – but still.  It was fun to get dressed up and not end up at Velvet.

I like this game.

That’s the world we live in sometimes, isn’t it?

Oh my hat.
Sunday, random internet surfing night in the I-J household.  Tonight I’m looking around for free iPhone apps.  You know, to add value to my existence, and I come across this link for the 10 best iPhone apps for women.

1. iPeriod Ultimate – (fertility)
2. Womans Calendar – (baby here)
3. Contraction Master – (baby there)
4. Intuition -  (baby baby everywhere)
5. Pocket First Aid – (eh?)
6. Babybump – (mamma mia!)
7. Total Baby – (even more baby)
8. Baby Tracker – (baby-rama drama)
9. Baby Names – (it’s raining babies)
10. The Pill – (no baby – yet still, somehow, baby)

You cannot be serious.  I mean, who wrote this list?  Baron Misogyny van Chauvinism?  Apart from the first aid one, these are all about what happens pre-, peri- or post-conception.

Is that what app developers think defines women?  How fecund our uteruses are?

God forbid you’re a little bit older and past baby-having age, or that you’re focusing on your career right now and have yet to succumb to babyphilia, or that you just haven’t managed to download the right donor off the internet after giving up on that true love lark, or that (whisper it) you just don’t want a kidlet.

I could be any, or all, of these women, so I’m taking this kinda personally.  Ladies, heaven forefend that there be more to you than maniacally tracking and logging every menstrual cycle. You are screwed.  Hand your woman card in at the door.  Go find a bunch of hairy dudes to hang around and morph into because, according to iPhone Developer X…there’s nothing for you here!

Why not apps for:

1.    Top companies for women to work for
2.    Top shoe designs that will make you feel like a goddess
3.    Top ways to stay connected with your girlfriends when geography or changing priorities pull you apart
4.    Top 10 apps for tracking fitness / weight loss
5.    Top 10 health checks you should perform on yourself
6.    Top 10 impulsive decisions you won’t regret
7.    Top 10 ways to strike a perfect work/life balance
8.    Top 10 pieces of DIY furniture you can assemble yourself
9.    Top 10 retail therapies that work
10.  Top 10 apps for a healthy spiritual existence

To me this seems like a much more representative list than the one above which mights as well read:

• Vagina
• Vagina
• Vagina
• Vagina
• First Aid
• Vagina
• Vagina
• Vagina
• Vagina
• Vagina

And while we’re on the subject, I resent how the baby-havers get all the cool parking spaces and the nice seats on the bus.  There.  I said it.  But fine, let them get the swish parking and the bus comfort but I draw the line at them hogging the cool iPhone apps.  I won’t stand for it.  It really is a bridge too far.  Seriously.  We, the kidfree, are taking technology.  And we are not giving it back.

Who’s with me?

Mad cow disease, E. coli, dysentery, dengue fever, typhoid, projectile vomiting, bilharzia, the Ebola virus, salmonella, pink eye, leprosy, cholera, Legionnaires Disease, athlete’s foot, lupus, acne,nervous dispepsia, glaucoma, snaggletooth, arthritis, …

Now I’m no doctor or anything so: How many of these can I get from ingesting raw cow?

Well done to Bulldog Pub who  saw fit to deliver me an uncooked beef burger tonight.   Not an underdone burger.  A raw burger.  How raw, you say?  Well, the mince was ice cold and blood red.

I don’t think I’ve ever been to Bulldog Pub. Unless it’s the place that used to do Music Matters a couple of summers ago on Wulumuqi Lu , in which case I did go once or twice.  But safe to say I am highly unlikely to ever set foot in there again.

After tonight, you couldn’t pay me enough to dress up in a Hazmat suit and walk past there**.   Because when a restaurant takes well over an hour to make your burger and then delivers it to you raw (after you have insisted that you want it well done*) then you know that you and that establishment are destined for the briefest of relationships.

Did I complain?

No.

Why not?

Because it was free.

When we placed the order, the food delivery service we called told us that the burgers  would take 45 minutes – 1hr to arrive.  We ordered around 8 and the food got there after 10.  In between, we chased up the order and were told that it had taken an hour to make and that because of the delay, we would get the meal comped.  It’s hard to complain when you haven’t spent a single penny.  You get what you pay for, right?  Except that I don’t remember shelling out for gastro-intestinal contamination.

I try never to write a review that is only negative because when I read a review that is a 100% downer I just assume that the writer has some sort of personal axe to grind. And I can honestly say that before tonight, I had no pro- or anti-Bulldog leanings.

What bugs me is not that the order was late, or even that they think up promotions and then don’t take the necessary steps to cope with the extra business (we were told the order was late because the kitchen was super busy*).  It’s the blatant negligence.  The I-don’t-care-how-sick-this-might-make-you-or-how-far-my-shoddy-efforts-are-from-what-you-must-surely-be-expecting aspect of it.  You will never convince me that the dude that put that burger patty onto the bun and into the delivery box and into the courier’s hands was thinking anything other than: I really don’t give a damn.   It’s hard to think of any other explanation that makes sense. And for that reason, I am struggling to find something for the plus column for this eatery.  Except, perhaps, that the burgers were big.  But considering I got a mangled clump of uncooked mince meat between the buns, it’s hard to even think of that as a good thing.

So this isn’t my Don’t ever order from Bulldog blog entry.  One narrow escape from food poisoning (fingers crossed!) does not a summer make, after all.  But in a Shanghai that has Blue Frog and Munchies and Gourmet Café and Kabb and about 1000 other places who do the same thing faster and better, why chance it?

*Worth pointing out that at no point did I actually talk to anyone at Bulldog – we dealt only with the food delivery company.

** Just kidding, you could totally pay me enough.  Go on, name an obscenely high number. Just for fun.

Once in a very long while, the stars just align and there is a sign, an unmissable, unignorable sign that let’s you know that everything is going to be alright.  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Sign.

Look out for me teetering like a tall uncomfortable tree in these all summer long.  Yeah baby.

a.k.a Things I love about the office

Office Running

I have thought about it.  I have thought about it a lot.  I really have.  And I cannot, try as I might, come up with a single reason why it is ever necessary to break into a run inside an office.  Where is this girl rushing to?  What devastating catastrophe will befall her if she gets there three measly seconds later? Does she have to pick up a ringing phone?  Even then… she’d be better off just walking faster in this tiny confined space, wouldn’t she? Or maybe she needs to sell that last little bit of killer stock before trading closes?  That’d make total sense – if we worked on a trading floor. Or is she trying to escape the putrid stench of burning ink cartridges as the entire building is engulfed by ravenous flames?  Ok.  Then we’ll all run.  But as a rule, office running is “Grrrr”.  As is office overtaking. You know, when there is that tiny, 3m-long, narrow walkway between you and the door and someone just has to overtake to get there nanoseconds ahead of you.  What’s the point of that? Just stop with all running / skipping / jogging.  Anything that requires a sports bra, basically,  is unneccessary.

Office Belching

Oddly enough, I am one of that tiny minority that doesn’t mind tea eggs (eggs that are boiled for days on end in some grimy brown goo masquerading as “tea”). If you think about the preparation process, it is beyond gross.  But I don’t think about it and I’ve had a tea egg or two in my day.  I usually close my eyes and clench every muscle in my body as my incisors pierce the egg “white” – and you know what?  Four years in and a tea egg hasn’t done for me.  Yet.  Tea eggs are alright.  But you know what is not alright?  The T.E.B. (tea-egg belch).  Performed anywhere, it is pretty nasty, but if you are the person sitting directly opposite me, the tea-egg belch – right into my face – is your way of saying “Screw you, Iris.  Right in the heart.  Bee-yotch.” Seriously, that is what you are saying.  Every time.

Office Toileting

The things I’ve seen, y’all.  The.  Things.  I. Have.  Seen.

Office Ringtoning

Thank you for ruining Empire State of Mind for me.  No, really, thanks.  It’s been on my list of things to do every single day of the week since the song came out.  See?  Right here – here it is – Number 4: Find someone who can achieve the impossible by making me hate Jay-Z. Congratulations.  Mission so very accomplished. You forcing us to endure the first 4 bars of the chorus, played in that high-pitched wheedling whine, on a loop, a bajillion times a day, has done it for me.  I no longer love the Z.  And that, coupled with your office running to answer your phone after Alicia wails New York!!! New York!!! New York!!! for the 120th time is fabulous.  Whatever you do, don’t take your phone with you when you leave your desk, or switch it to silent/vibrate when you come into the office.  No.  Don’t do it.  You are special.  Everybody loves you.  Nobody else on this planet has caught on to this ring tone thing, you trendsetter, you. Don’t ever change.  Ever.

And…breathe.

Oh. Em. Gee.

They’ve just given Timothy Olyphant his own show.
I watched the pilot episode last night.  No idea if it was good or not.  I was too blinded by the pretty.
Timothy Olyphant.  Loads of screen time.  Every single week.
This is just the kind of evidence Christians should point to when championing the existence of an all-powerful, benevolent God.

He really does meet our every need.

Amen.

Ok, I figured it out.  New direction rather than total abandonment.  Let’s stay in love, Arty.  You and me.