From the title you might imagine that by now, after almost a year continuously in China, I am getting pretty smelly. Not so. It isn't washing that I miss it is very specifically lying in a bathtub of hot soapy water up to my neck. Chinese apartments don't generally have baths. I've been in lots of apartments and the bathing arangements are always the same - tiled wet room showers. You don't even get a western style shower with a shower tray and a curtain. It's a room - usually the one with the sink, the toilet and the washing machine - with tiled walls and floor and a grill over a hole for the water to run away.
Now I had, as I've mentioned before, a particularly inefficient shower with cold water and low pressure. I replaced it and now have a shower with nice hot water and high pressure. It's efficient and I'm nice and clean but I want a bath.
I want to fill a tub of water climb in and soak - something I managed while I was in England last summer but haven't managed since.
I mentioned this difference to a colleague who pointed out that there is a public bathing house but public means public. You all soak in the same water at the same time in a large bath and that's something I just don't care to do. I'd rather just take the shower. hell I'd rather be dirty if that was the only option.
In all my time here I have only once seen an apartment with an actual bath and believe me I was tempted to ask if I might use it but as I was just there waiting for a friend of a friend to direct us to a nearby restaurant it seemed rather too forward.
If I knew a hotel with baths in the rooms I'd book in for a night every now and then just to relax in the hot water but the hotels are all the same - showers only.
Oh well, sooner or later I'll be going home and taking a bath will be top of my list of things to do.
