I need some exercise.

I'm not a big fitness freak. I haven't been to a gym since college (no joke). I prefer to do fun things that are exercise in disguise, like hiking, biking and Bikram yoga (those are things I did on the regular in Phoenix).

Here in China pretty much all I do is walk a few miles a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. I do play badminton with the other foreigners as well, but that's maybe once a week, we play doubles and about eight or so people show up to rotate in on one court for two hours. It's more of a social activity than exercise.

I can't hike on a regular basis because there is nowhere to hike in or near Songyuan that I've been able to find. All the Chinese I know are aware that I love hiking, so I feel like someone would have told me if there was somewhere close for that.

I haven't been able to bike so far because I don't have a bike and it's been too cold. A friend of mine has an extra one he is going to give me, and it is warming up, so this one will hopefully change really soon.

As far as yoga goes, I was really excited to pick up Bikram here, but that has been a big fail. Bikram yoga is the hot yoga, but it's also humid, and it is a set series of 26 poses. There are other kinds of hot yoga, but Bikram is very specific. The class never changes, so anywhere in the world you take a class it will be the same. This sounds so cool to me, but it is not popular here at all; it's really hard to find.

Tianjin and Songyuan don't seem to have yoga studios, you have to get a membership at a gym and then take a class there. I checked out the gym in Tianjin to do this, but membership was 600 yuan a month and I didn't know how long I was staying so I didn't do it. Here, many of the foreigners go to the gym. The one across the street from my school is 300 yuan for three months and class are a nominal additional fee. Gyms here are much, Much, MUCH smaller with less to offer, but still, it's something.

I asked a Chinese TA to take me with her to a yoga class last week. I had never done yoga other than Bikram, so it was a new experience. Definitely much slower and I didn't really leave with that good "I've just done something healthy for myself" feeling. Also, not understanding Chinese, I had to look around all the time to make sure I was catching what's going on and not copying someone that was doing something wrong.

After class we asked the instructor about a Bikram class in town and she had never even heard of it. She seemed more interested in touching my anchors than trying to talk to me, lol.

As much as I kind of hate it and say it's for suckers, it might be time to take up running. Ugh....