My question: How do I use my already existing OpenVPN setup to enable secure, remote web surfing and email checking from open wireless hotspots?

Some long winded details:

I am running Ubuntu and have OpenVPN up and working fine as a server. My client machine connects fine as well. However, that just gets me a secure connection to my home network.

What I want is to be able to access my VPN server and surf the web or check email securely from anywhere with an open wireless connection. I am frequently in China and having secure, unblocked access would be a boon (especially since I like to work from tea houses and coffee shops and I've already had a password sniffed and hacked once).

I already know how to tunnel over SSH via a SOCKS proxy using something like:

ssh -ND 8887 -p 22 [email protected]  

but since I have OpenVPN I figure why not try it? So... what are the steps involved in making it so I can connect to my VPN and the surf and check mail to my hearts content (slowly to be sure but at least it wold be secure). Thx!