Woah, doesn’t time fly! I’ve been in China a week now, and have meant to blog sooner. I’ve been super busy with traveling, sightseeing, and getting to grips with the food! Here are a couple of pictures taken in Guangzhou…. Smog is also an issue – and my lungs are starting to feel it!

Not sure about this one!!

Until I get the time to update properly, here’s an article from the Times, that sums up a lot of what I’ve seen since I’ve been out here. There is certainly a revolution occurring in China’s fitness: the expanding middle class is evident and the paradox of prosperity is alive! The younger generation of Chinese want to be fit and it’s not hard to see how the advertising geared at this ambition is affecting their wants and desires!

China’s Next Revolution Is in Fitness

By TOM SIMS
Published: October 12, 2011

Dalian's Olympic Square features a statue of Liu Changchun, a sprinter who competed in the Olympics in 1932.

DALIAN, CHINA — China’s recent emergence on the world stage as an athletic powerhouse may be traced back to a single runner from this northeastern city. Liu Changchun, whose giant bronze likeness is frozen in an exaggerated midsprint in the middle of Dalian’s Olympic Square, was the first Chinese to compete in a global sporting event — the 1932 Summer Games in Los Angeles — where he was his nation’s sole representative.
 
Mr. Liu did not live to see China win a gold medal, but a lot has changed since his death in 1983. China, now the world’s second-largest economy, increasingly is a major force at the elite level of sports, fitting for the most populous nation on the planet. China won the most gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and it is churning out tennis champions like Li Na and basketball stars like Yao Ming. The government preaches that only a nation of strong bodies is truly strong.
 
But as the country grows richer, the expanding middle class appears to be only slowly growing fitter. The athletic fields at Olympic Square one recent afternoon are all but empty, though the nearby McDonald’s is doing good business…. Read more here.