Kunming Sports & Outdoors

At home I have a regular swim routine, and one of the first things I did when I arrived in Kunming was find a swimming pool. It was not to had to find, I big red building right off of Dong fen Lu next to the Yunnan Normal university. The pool was not so bad, slightly heated, had a small slightly cool hot tub. Only cost 10 RMB, plus another 10 RMB deposit for a lock for the locker. In Chinese style the staff were a little cool (unfriendly) at first. The life guards had on some fancy red track suits, and I think none of them had been in the water. The only swim suit that I had was my bright yellow, green and white Hawaii flower print shorts from home, and my super fly extra large goggles. SO after I changed and was walking to the pool, I notice that just about everyone has stopped to watch (or admire my fancy swim suit) me, I also noticed that the standard Chinese swim suit was a pair of tight black spandex shorts with a whit stripe down the side. So, me being a white person, bright shorts, big goggles and have more body hair than the average Chinese person, I kind of stood out. But once I jumped in the water and my eyes stopped burring from the chlorine and stared to swimming, but only after about 10 stokes I was out of breath. (swimming at 6000ft elv. is a little more difficult and tiring than swimming at sea level. Plus breathing in cigarette smoke while swimming at theses heights takes the wind out of you even faster.

Equipment: At home everyone swims in the same direction as the painted lines on the bottom of the pool, and at the pool where I normally swim at, it you even slightly swim out of the lanes, the life guards will let you know.
I did not think about this till I was broad sided about half way down the lane by some lady doing the panda stoke ( Panda stoke is kind of like slow breast stoke. Just fast enough to keep you from sinking, but not to fast to get you hair or face wet so your head will always stay above water so your cigarette will not get wet while you swim)
Then I realized that they swim in China the same way they drive, if there is an open space it should be used. So people just kind of swim where every there was an opening. At first I hit (swam into) a few people, but once I got into the flow of having to keep one eye open to watch out for incoming traffic, and having to swim around other swimmers, my swimming experience was not to bad.
I did not swim for about 2 weeks so after school I went to the pool to swim, and to my surprise the pool was no more, same building but the pool was filled in and it was a cel(edited)ar phone shop. And that was the end of my swimming in Kunming.
Most of the staff how worked at the pool nice people and became friendly after I start swimming on a regular basis. (they even stop making fun of my swim shorts to my face)