A Blerp on Running, the Utilities, and the Oddity of Customs in China

Running has even more perks in China than it does in the states.
I loved running Paris because after getting lost enough, you start to figure out your way around. Here, being a much newer city (well, at least the side of the city I live on), everything is on a basic grid. It clears my head, yet fills it with a sense of familiarty of my surroundings.
It is also helping with my energy bill. Our hot water heater is a little box on the wall that makes a horrible sound whenever I am using hot water. If I have the shower on hot, my water pressure is significantly reduced. If I've just come back from a run, I need a cold shower, which means more water pressure, less electricity heating water, and a shorter shower since I can get shampoo and conditioner out of my hair in a decent amount of time. Not that Grace and I are stressing our energy bill, we got the bill last week (which she had to carry to work and ask someone to read it to her, again she can't read Chinese even though she speaks it fluently) and we didn't even use half of our allocated amount. This is awesome news not only because I don't have to pay, but also because the temperature and humidity have risen so much in the last few weeks I can't handle sleeping without the air conditioner anymore. So keep your fingers crossed that I don't have to pay next month.
Not having a phone has really made me question my motivation in running. Sure, I've used many a running sessions to listen to a CD for the first time without interruption or distraction, but sometimes, I've wondered if I would even run without music. If I could even focus on one solitary thing.
Just run.
Embrace all that is around you and don't block anything out.
It's nice to hear things.
And when it rains, I don't stress about getting a phone wet, I breathe in and enjoy it (and probably all the pollutants it brings, too!).
Although, I will say, whlie I miss my music, and being able to Google at the palm of my hand at work, and text people, but the thing I'm most agitated about is the clock.
Not really the clock (I have a watch), but the alarm and the timer.
Grace let me borrow her alarm clock, which is an analog clock that you have to turn to set (I'm always paranoid that it isn't actually set right) and you can't adjust the minute timer. As in, if I wanted to wake up at 5:00, but it is 9:30 pm, I can set the alarm hour to 5 and it will go off at 5:30 because the minute hand is currently on the 6. It's tedious.
It also removes taking naps. Normally, I set the timer for 30 minutes and lounge away.
Alas, my timer is sitting in customs in Shanghai despite paying expedited delivery which should have put it here a week or two ago. And they're saying that I may have to pay a tax on it, but they won't decide for another two weeks.
WTF?
Well, I'm definitely weaning off my phone addiction.
Hello 90's life.