Donnie Beats The Heat
Summer is in full swing and the beautiful Shanghai spring, which usually lasts around 72 hours, is but a distant memory. Time to kick back, relax, and wallow in a pool of your own sweat. Now while many locals seem to either not have sweat glands or are magically able to cool themselves down by lifting their shirts and exposing their bellies, it sometimes isn’t as easy for everyone else in the city to beat the heat. Don’t worry, I have a method for staying cool that isn’t just locking yourself in your room with the AC blasting, which if you think about it, will just make Shanghai hotter by contributing to global warming. Its called HIPPO MODE.
HIPPO MODE is when you chill in a pool, pond, lake, or the Ocean with the water up to at least your chin for the entire day, only leaving to get drinks and the occasional snack. Once the sun goes down you leave the water to feast and party on land until the sun rises, at which point the cycle repeats itself. If you’ve watched any nature shows you’ll know this is pretty much the life of your average hippo. In Shanghai my two favorite places to go into Hippo mode are:
- Bund Beach: I know the Bund Beach is manmade and right next to an extremely polluted river instead of an Ocean, but I swear after about 12 beers that place starts feeling like Club Med. Its pool is small and only about 3 ft. deep but that still gives you just enough room to get your HIPPO on. Granted, during the weekend the pool sometimes fills up with Chinese infants whose parents might be a bit concerned to see their children surrounded by semi-submerged slightly intoxicated strangers but that’s not your problem. A hippo always stands his ground.
- Mandarin City Pool. This pool is big, deep, and beautiful. Kinda like me. It also has a swim-up bar that serves food, which means you can go full hippo and not leave the pool for the entire day (if your bladder allows it).
As for a place you want to avoid going Hippo Mode at all costs:
Hongkou Outdoor Swimming Pool: First off this “outdoor pool” has a giant ROOF over the entire thing so no sunshine can get in. Secondly, to use this pool you are forced to purchase and wear a swimming cap the whole time to supposedly prevent “hair germs” from spreading. Really guys? When your entire shallow end is packed with 4 year olds who are inevitably peeing themselves, hair germs are the least of my worries. Add to the fact that this place is usually so crowded it feels like an aquatic metro station and this shouldn’t be your ideal destination for fun in the sun.
In my opinion, Hippo mode is the only trick needed to avoid sweating balls all summer but I forget sometimes that many people in this city aren’t unemployed and can’t just get drunk at a pool everyday like myself. For these people I suggest only leaving your apartment in boxers and flip-flops. If the men in my neighborhood are any indication, this is totally acceptable and nothing to feel awkward about in China. However, if you have a job that requires a suit, you’re pretty much screwed. Learn to either embrace the fact that your sweat can be used as a substitute for hair gel or just move to Russia. Not much else I can tell ya. Donnie OUT.
I'm Donald Mahoney. At some point in early 2012, I woke up in Shanghai, China after blacking out at the Legal Sea Foods in terminal B of Logan Airport, Boston Massachusetts. Now I make short weekly videos that document my adventures and mishaps in the MIDDLE KINGDOM. Check them out at www.youtube.com/user/DonnieDoesIt or i.youku.com/DonnieDoesChina
