Live and Active Cultures Part I

This post isn’t about review on the latest yogurt product, but rather about how the simple act of going to the gym can enrich your life in ways you never thought possible.

Today I went to Gold’s Gym Downtown for what turned out to be a killer pilates workout. Yes, I did say “Killer” and “Pilates” in the same sentence. Contrary to popular belief with endurance and weightlifting jocks around the world, Killer Pilates is not an oxymoron. But I’ll save that story for another post.
At this particular gym, you will find:

• Muscle Heads
• Young Urban Professionals
• Elderly Chinese women

Yes, it’s quite a mixture of people. That’s what I love about Los Angeles.
There’s a gorgeous pool- it looks like something that belongs in a high end swanky hotel on Sunset Boulevard, rather than a Gold’s Gym. And this is why the ladies join this gym- they swim like fish! Plus Chinatown is only a few minutes’ drive to the north.
I had a few extra minutes before my shower, and decided to indulge in a sauna. I walked inside to find it brimming with several of the elderly Chinese ladies . I found a vacant spot and sat down.
Just then another elderly Chinese woman entered the sauna and from what I could tell from my rusty Cantonese (or was in Mandarin?), everyone was very happy to see her. Like any good Sauna Enthusiast worth her weight in sweat, she arrived with all the requisite Sauna paraphernalia…here’s the checklist:

• Birthday Suit – Check
• Towel – Check
• Flip-Flops – Check
• Knife – hmm...
• Cucumbers – what?

She proceeded to carefully slice up the cucumbers lengthwise in paper thin sheets and pass them out to the other ladies, who overlapped them in layers on their faces until not a square inch was exposed.
So as I sat with 12 elderly Chinese women covered in cukes, I smiled and thought to myself how lucky I was to bear witness to how other cultures engage in healthy behaviors, such as this one. I must say...their skin was flawless.
Don't you just love when cool, random things like that happen?