Beijing, China

I was tired as hell. Spending 14 hours in a suffocating aircraft, choking down slimy eggplant will do that.

The hotel bed urged me to sink into its clean white sheets, so I gladly did after a moment’s triumph. “I’ve finally arrived,” I thought, and remarkably so after that verbal struggle with the taxi driver, who didn’t seem to know his way around the city. Head on the pillow, nodding off with the Chinese news screaming H1N1 in the background, I glanced to my left and saw it.

The entire shower was clearly visible through the glass pane next to my bed. My first thought was that I would have to lather up in full view of my roommate, someone whom I met only hours before. But on the outside of the glass, not far out of reach from my position on the bed, was a thick privacy curtain.