I am sleeping late recently. So I am feeling tired all the day. I am somewhat worried about health. I didn’t excise much in the last few month – actually the excises has been stopped quite a while. Regarding the sport facility in Shanghai, I have to say, it is bad, very bad.
Bad Sport Facility
For the football, there is very few football court that is publicly available. I know I can go to the Jiao Tong University and join the students. It is free but too far from my home. For most public facilities, it charges for the venue. Especially for sports like football and basketball, you always need a team to rent the venue – the court is useless if I go there by myself. :-)
Ping Pong seems to be popular here. I can find a lot of Ping Pong tables at fee of 10 RMB per hour. Vanke Waltz Garden even have one, which is almost open for reservation.
Swimming is good but the expense is also a problem. For the nearest swinging pool at the opposite site of my house – the Ever Bridge Sport Center in Ever Bright Hotel, it charges 90 RMB to use. Well, it is still far from free sport facilities.
Schools are Locked Up
There are many schools nearby. Their exercise fields look good. The bad news is, all of them close their gates tightly at all time – only students and teachers are allowed to get in or go out. This situation is worth after SARS.
Parks <> Sports Facility
Standing before my window and looking outside, there are all buildings in Shanghai. Buildings after buildings but there is not many places for exercise. In the last four years, I am very happy to see many old factories and buildings in Shanghai and green land and parks were built, but parks are still not sports fields.
Running on the Road? Are you Joking?
Exercise on the road? It is a very good idea for small cities. Going out for a walk or slowly run along the road is a pleasant experience in many cities, but no in Shanghai. The pollution air is full of smell of the gas from cars and dust. Also, there are so many cars that I need to stop at each red light to avoid being hit. There is no way for me to run along the road.
Bicycle
The city of Shanghai is not friendly for bicycles. Actually, it is a city planning to restrict bicycles. I support the idea expressed in the Shanghai Transportation White Paper: “The city will discourage long-distance bicycle transportation. The riders are encouraged to take public transportation facilities like Metro and Bus”. True. It does not make sense for people to ride the long way in Shanghai.
However, regarding cycling as sport, it is still good. The problem is, I have to first ride the bicycle out of the downtown area – it is definitely a hell in Shanghai to ride safely and happily. This may takes 1 hour. :-)
Wonder if the newer residential property developments include sports facilities, or at least a gym, as part of their community services?
Good question William. This is where I see the problem here in Shanghai. The new residential property development do include some kind of “club” – the venue providing basic facilities, but it is for the community only and are typically small – I didn’t see any community built football court by themselves. It is not cost effective for the developers – they tend to build some very small area (but many) and distribute them in the area. Popular options are Tennis court, small swimming pool – they occupy less land than other large-scale sport. :-)
OK, OK, I have been convinced that visiting here and posting same comment repeatedily (e.g. 13 times within one minute) can be as effective as doing exercise, at least for those finger joints :-)
Haha. JH. It is really a good excercise. Did you every receive a joke with lots of pop-ups – about 100 or so? I was caught by that kind of page once. Really interesting but boring. It did take me a lot of time to excercise the finger musale.
I see Da’an Garden is a good place. it has some good sport Facilities, and some of them are free of charge! special that for kids!
Da’an Garden? What facility do they offer?
Da’an Garden? What facility do they offer?
greetings from holland,i miss a fun section ,or dont y guys have fun
Vanke Holiday have a football court though it is far from the downtown.
Really? It is good news.
I feel the other way! When I was in SH, used to organize sports activities everyweek. Everytime, I just invited every potential team-member by email to co-workers & friends. Each time, as different activities (like badminton, basketball, riding horse, hiking, dinning, travel, swimming, dancing, boating, ……) suit for different group of people, under different period, only 2-3 person will join me at one time. (Sometime, 10+ person) However, everytime, we enjoyed a lot by many feelings & new findings.
Also mention to “club”, I used to attend a club in order to join all kinds of activities. I didn’t research for too much inf, paid the register fee. Finally I only joined one outing, then transfered my membership to one of my best friend. The reason is that, “club”, for me, is not in order to join all kinds of actitivities any more, finally I find myself only enjoy meeting & making friends. It seems “club” = people.
Actually I’ve found one true friend after 20+ Meng’s activities. Before that, we’ve been co-workers more than 3 years. I also like the way people get to know each other thr the net!
It’s been a long time since I so enjoyed reading posts in the net. Two thumbs up! International, Green, Astonishing nothing comparative to Beautiful: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/narnia/ , Girl will Pair unconditionally Lose Cards is very good Circle , Chips will Table unconditionally White Circle is always Collective Plane