Self reflecting

Recently I have found it hard to communicate with people. I know that may be highly ironic for a man that lives in the heart of China when he was born in a small town of North Yorkshire, England.
Even amongst my laowai friends who like me, came to this land to teach English, I find it hard to communicate. I simply seem to have lost my ability to relate myself to what they are saying.
In thinking about this, I realised that most of the time I have trouble communicating with people. I can come across as aloof or cocky and then to other people I come across as closed off and shy. It is simply because I can never think of the right thing to say as whilst I have always been very good at predicting peoples behaviour, I can never think how they do and so whilst I find actions easy to predict, I struggle to think of what people will say. So I make a lot of mistakes.

I have never been all that successful, at least given my qualifications, professionally. And this has most often been because I can never relate myself to co-workers, because, basically, I am not a people person.

I did not think much of this as I have  always been able, until recently, say the things that people expect me to say and act the way I am expected to behave and also to agree with people the way I am expected to, even when they are extremely wrong. Todays society requires people to be yes men/women far too much and it does not suit someone like me who questions everything.

And then recently I watched a film that made me feel a little more secure about myself. I watched The Imitation Game, a film about the life of Alan Turing. I really wanted to watch this film because Turing has been a hero to me since I first heard his story. He was a man that saved millions of lives and yet, because he was born in the wrong place at the wrong time he was treated horribly and killed by the the people he saved. I was moved by the film, and I feel that the fascist nation I live in moved me more than it would have had I been in Britain. But the thing that I found amusing and really set on this feeling of mine and led me to write this was a scene in which a very young Alan Turing is eating his food and was separating all of the foods on his plate by colour. This is something that I did for years. I am not at all wanting to suggest that I am anything close to Turing in terms of accomplishments, or character. But it was refreshing to discover, or at least feel (I understand its probably poetic license in a film), that if someone who achieved such greatness could have an eccentricity as I do, then I am not someone who is defective, but merely someone who is different and unlike Turing who had his mathematics to plough himself in to, I need to just find my niche.

I have always felt that my interest was in the written word. I have always been able to absorb books at a pace that at times is annoying to me as I am always struggling to think what to read next. I came to realise tonight that the reason I enjoy reading so much is because when reading a book, I do not have to worry that I cannot understand what the characters are thinking because it tells me. But yet I can nearly always predict the actions that they will take. This of course is an added bonus to the fact that reading allows me to see and feel things, and to go to places that I can never go. The written word is mankind's greatest accomplishment. And whilst I do not always feel that humankind is a good thing, or that we deserve all that we have, I strongly believe that the beauty that I have seen in the pages of books; holding fiction, biographies, history, technical manuals and poetry. I have visited numerous art galleries in my years on this world, and I have never been moved by something a person has painted on a canvas. But I have been moved to tears by the words printed in a book, or shown on a Turing device.

I have always wished for fame and fortune, like billions before me. But for me, I never wanted fame too much, because to be famous, is to become noticed. But I have always wanted fortune. People will assume that with fortune, means I can have nice things. A good home, all the gadgets I could want, etc. But for me it brings true independence, the independence from worry about bills and mortgages and pensions and all those rational fears and traps that hold society in place. If I never had to worry about money, then I could do what I have always wanted and open a second hand bookshop, regardless of their dying out, and I could spend my days doing what I have always wanted to do. Expand my mind through the writings of others. Learning has been my greatest pursuit in my life and even in works of science fiction, I believe that a person can learn a great deal, even if it is about themselves.

I have been blessed to have a child in this world, and although she was an accident, and I am not ashamed of that as she is a true miracle to me and I am very happy to know that there is something of my being in this world who will live on and maybe one day she will have a child and then a fragment of my soul will live on in my descendants, even though she does not bear my name (plus with her being a lady it statistically would leave to its eventual loss anyway) and my brothers soon to be born (hopefully in the next few hours, also on my owns birthday) it is nice to know that I will in a way live forever. I also have been published, so that thanks to the new technology (new to me as it did not exist when I was born) means that my name will forever live on, long after I leave life. So whilst it is true that after 100 years, people do not get named I can at least hold out a tiny bit of hope that someone after that time will see my name in print and then even for one second I will be alive again.
I am a man that fears both death and life it seems upon reflection.

I am going to go on a tangent now. I am an educator. I teach about a thousand Chinese students a year at a prestigious Chinese university. I lecture in history and in languages. I was giving a lecture on family and relationships a few months ago and I was going through vocabulary and I came to the word partner. I start by using it to describe how some couples refer to each other as partners rather than using girlfriend and boyfriend, etc. And I mentioned that gay couples also use this descriptor and was met by scoffs by the students. In another class, when asked to talk about who they consider to be their best friend was and a student referred to his best friend as a she. This is an easy mistake for a Chinese person to make as there is no distinction between he and she in their language. I myself did not think twice about the statement as two of those I count closest to me are ladies and I would never once think twice about calling them my best friends when asked. It made me realise that as these students mocked these things that I was living in a land that is not yet enlightened and evolved. I myself have been attacked because of the colour of my skin and that did not bother me anywhere near as much as the way my students acted. I wanted to fail them all on the spot but I was too cowardly to do so.

Maybe in the years to come I will find my niche and I will understand my place in the world more than I currently do. But for now, I will keep groping through the darkness, with my cat by my side, and I hope that my time in this fascist and often horrible country will improve it and make it and make some of its people, if even for just one moment, pick their minds out of the dirt of oppression and realise that they can be better.

ESL Activity - Surviving the Armageddon Game

A few weeks ago I watched a film called After the Dark.

The premise of the film follows a philosophy class in Jakarta. It is their last class before the students leave to go off to university etc. The professor gives them one last assignment to do in class. He presents them with a scenario in which each student is given a job, picked at random from a box, and the students in the class must state who should go into a nuclear fallout bunker and who should not. There is only enough room for half of the class. The scenario is then played out in the film as if it was real, with the characters breaking down the fourth wall of the scenario to explain their motives and decisions and also act out other possible scenarios. I found the film interesting because I teach in a similar setting and so I found the exercise to be interesting. The film however is not that good, with the acting being rather terrible (a shame with some familiar faces), a love story that practically ruins much of the film and the students reactions to certain parts of the scenario that I found hard for anyone to come to such conclusions. 

The thing for me was that I thought this to be a good activity for me to use in one of my classes. One of the classes that I teach is business English to adults. Most of the class speaks English to a very high standard and so I wrote a scenario for them to do. Each week I come up with a new activity for them to do besides their book work in order to get them using their spoken English. 

So I took the roles from the movie, wrote them down and tried it. In the film, they run through the scenario twice, with the second time each individual gets more interesting info about their persona that will either boost their chances of being selected or hinder it. In this scenario some of the people have "what if's". In the film it seemed all ok for them to simply run through the "what if's" but I decided to get all of these together and assign dice rolls to them. I realise that can seem a bit geeky, but I wanted there to be not only an element of chance, but also a definite end to each scenario that I ran. There was a few holes in the logic of the teacher and students in the film so I plugged those as well and tried to think of every eventuality of the game. 

Since creating the game, I only have the one class with a high enough English level to run through it. So after I improved on my flaws I gave it to another teacher to run through. He has run it twice and told me that it works really well. 

Here is a link to my word file of the game: The Apocalypse Game

In the file you will find step by step rules on what you will need to play the game (the file itself, two identical envelopes and a dice). You will get the cards that the players can pick at random for their roles. You get a sheet that contains additional info about each character to be used for the second play through, or a surprise reveal in the first. There is also an end game sheet with different ends depending on certain conditions, and a surprise sheet for the teacher to use about certain choices the students can make.

Download the file and have a go with your students or anyone else that might want to give such a game a go.

Good luck surviving.

End of line.

Cycling China - Long Way Up

A friend turned to me last week and said "John, why are you going to Weishan by bike in what is meant to be rubbish weather?"

"Because it is there"

Well the Year of the Horse came around and so that meant it was time to go on the bike ride.

I finally managed to get a bike. I paid just over 1000 rmb for it, which is the equivalent of £100 pounds and I took one look at my bike and decided to call it Tron.

I was very happy that I got decent suspension later in the trip.

As I put in my previous post about cycling, I had not been on a bike in about six months let alone on a big trip. I was also a little worried about Chinese roads. As much as I despise the roads in the UK and car drivers with how they treat cyclists, the general chaos of Chinese roads was a concern. So I had the bike and I needed a helmet and I had been riding at night since I got the bike and so I wanted a light.

So, this was to be the plan:

Two days and several hundred miles of Chinese roads

So the plan was for myself and three friends to cycle up to a large Chinese town called Weishan north of my home of Xuzhou. So Luke was the most experienced of us in my opinion as he did a month of cycling South China last year and he speaks fluent Chinese and is also in bloody good shape. I would be the second most experienced and also in relative shape. Then there was Nigel, who is in good shape, but has bad knees and also only has a one speed bicycle meant for quick trips round town. Then there is Zara who whilst is not not in shape, is a bit of an unknown about how she would take it and also she didn't have a bike. 

So the rest of the group had their own plans on how they would be spending the time up until the trip, but I wanted to get a feel for my bike and get a helmet. So I had plans to do a trip with the girl I am seeing Becky, but she is busy with family things over the festival and also revising for an important exam. So day one, she asked me if I wanted to meet her for a day at a theme park that is on the outskirts of town. So I thought why not. I looked up where it was on the map and headed to see her. It was a good ride of a few miles and it let me get a handle of what taking the bike through areas of heavy traffic would be like. Plus I got to do one of my favourite things.....roller-coasters.

After we did went to the park, we visited a local monument to a group of Communist martyrs in their war against the Nationalists. It was a really beautiful park and the monument was incredible. We then decided to climb the mountain behind the monument and it was really beautiful. It was so different to the landscapes back in the UK so I really enjoyed it. The thing that I really loved about it was that at the top, there were loads of wooden beams going across the trees and the thing that I really enjoyed the idea that every day loads of people of all ages walk to the top of the mountain to exercise. Its the same way that at night in China you will see hundreds of people just dancing in unison. It really brings to home the community spirit and the way that in many ways their way of life can be superior to that enjoyed by people in the west. 

Well after a few miles of cycling and walking I got home quite late at night and promptly went to bed ready for the next day of prep. Becky was a complete star as well and sent me the address of a big cycle shop where I could get the gear that I needed. So I looked it up on a map and headed out in the small hours of the morning. The problem soon became that I got very lost ended up miles out of Xuzhou. So I started to cycle back after it became clear that I had gone off the edge of my map. It was super foggy but I got to see a really nice lake and so I stopped to enjoy the view. Because I had no idea where I was and had no GPS signal, my only option was to pick up my bike and climb the mountain that was next to me until I got signal. I eventually managed to get some which pointed me back in the right direction and so I hit the road again.

I hit the outskirts of the city again and so decided to just cycle round in the hopes that I could find a cycle shop. I had gone down the street that Becky had told me to go to and everything had been closed because of the festival. I just went up and down any street that interested me. I had a few people stop and stare and I was met by many calls of "laowai" (foreigner). There were even quite a few photos taken of me which I will never get used to. Eventually I went down one street and there was a cycle shop open. I walked in and there found a helmet that was just the kind that I was after so I promptly bought that along with a light of my bike. 

One of the nicest things about getting that helmet was that the people in the shop were so very friendly. They asked me what I was doing and I told them in my best broken Chinese that I would be on a long cycle trip. They were so nice that the manager, just as I was leaving, grabbed me and handed me a few, what I thought were face masks. I thanked him and went on my way. 

I went to bed nice and early and got ready to be up at 6:30 the next morning. I got news that night that things had fallen through with Zara and she would not be able to come. I was gutted because she is one of my best friends here, but at the same time, a trip with just the guys is always going to be a great laugh and probably a little crude. I went to bed, laid my clothes out and made sure that I had all of the essentials ready for the trip.

I slept like a log that night and then my phone went off quite early. I was a bit annoyed at first until I saw the time. The message had come through at 6:28 and it was from Becky saying to have a great trip and be safe. So not only was that super nice (I hadn't told her what time I would be up) but it helped me set the day up in a really great mood. So it was shower, thermals on, climacool top and then my high necked hoodie. I was to meet the guys outside mine at 8. I packed my bag and double checked that I had my insulin and two packets of skittles in case of a hypo and my blood testing kit. I had stuff to add to water to help replace all the electrolytes I would lose with the sweating. So I packed it all (including my book) and headed downstairs. 

I got down there at 7:58 and then dead on 8 Nigel comes round the corner, followed closely by Luke. This was one reason I was happy that Zara had not come in the end because she has no concept of time keeping and we had a long ride ahead.

It was a super foggy day but as it was still in the festival the roads were relatively clear as we had to get used to cycling in a group. We headed out of Xuzhou heading north towards Weishan. We passed through all these little tiny villages and they most were pretty closed down which was understandable because of the Spring Festival and all that passed through our heads was 'why would these little towns build up? What kind of industry is here or are they all travelling into the city?' You could see from some parts of them that they were built to travel in to the cities for work but it was strange to see groups of people numbering between 5-20 every twenty to thirty meters just waiting for these random little buses to take them to wherever it is that they work.

After about an hour on the bikes I needed to stop quickly to grab a drink as I'm not that confident, and never have been at doing anything with my hands other than hold the handle bars on a bike. Luke stopped as well whilst Nigel went on to tackle the big hill in front. Whilst I was stopped I also put on the (what I discovered) neckerchief that the cycle shop had given me. That was a lifesaver as not only could I raise it high on my head to keep my ears and face warm, but it kept the dust off my face and mostly out of my eyes.

I call them Bob and Dave

Whilst this was going on though, Nigel had stopped a bit up front at the top of the hill and as Luke and I were heading to catch him up a van pulled up next to him and three guys got out. My first thought was along the lines of 'well, there goes Nigel's bike'. We sped up and as we got closer, it turns out that the guys had simply seen this white guy by the side of the road and as they hadn't seen anything like it before had decided to stop and take photos. They hadn't even noticed Luke and I until we stopped because of our face masks and helmets. The guys were really friendly and it was instant gratification for me for why I had wanted to do this trip. I always wanted to see real China and not just be a tourist and I have always felt that if you bike across anything then you are connected to the elements and people in a way that you cant in any other way. A lot of the foreign people I know here in China have been here for a long time and some have never even truly left the city or they assume that they know what China and its people are like because they have lived in one city for a while, visited Shanghai and Beijing and have Chinese partners. Don't get me wrong, some of them do, but then some of the others I cant help but just see that they might as well have stayed in their own countries with how much they have experienced in their time here. But one of the best things about being on a bike, and I experienced this a lot when I was on my own is that people take a great interest in what you are doing if you a foreigner going round looking at stuff on a bike and the reason I came here was to connect with a people and culture that was so different from what I know.

So again the guys left and we cracked on. I felt rather renewed with a bit more energy at that point so I decided to catch up the van and overtake it and it was nice that the guys in the van rolled the window down and we waved goodbye to each other. Continuing on we came across a long wall that had some big towers and I caught up with Luke and asked "what is this?" as there were cars pulling up and people going in. Luke told me that it was a grave yard. I couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of the place and how grand it was compared to anything like it I had seen before.

Not long after that it hit 11:30 and we made a group call to stop for a bite to eat as Luke's wonderfully kind wife Apple had not only made us barbecue chicken sandwiches and my personal favourite of bread sticks. We just found a spot by the side of the road by some thing that looked a little bit like a farm but I still have no idea what its purpose was. It was a good refuel stop, even if my bum didn't like getting back on the bike.

I even made sure to do a blood test and it was spot on at 7.2. Very happy.

Fill one tank, empty another

The road here is good. Past the fog, it was not.

Dam good ;-)

 Back on the road and we crossed the river that comes off of the lake in the bottom right corner but what we did not expect was it to be a dam and it was very cool to cycle over that. We couldn't even see the other side because of the fog. We did eventually see what it would be like without the fog and it was very nice to see. I was starting to flag a little by this point as it was coming up to one o'clock and I was hungry and tired. You could tell that things were starting to get to the group a tiny bit in my opinion as we were still enjoying ourselves but we were barely talking to each other and we had settled into using each others slipstreams on the road to make it easier on each other and every few minutes one of us would go to the front and the other two would follow directly behind. After the dam we entered into a small town and passed into Shandong province having left Jiangsu. The first thing that I began to notice was the lack of decent tarmac compared to what we had left and going through the small sleepy town was basically just off road. I didn't sit on the seat for more than one minute. Every few seconds these massive dump trucks full of coal would zoom past and they had just destroyed the road going through the town.

It wasn't long before we needed to stop again for a pit stop and we just pulled over by the side of the road and thats when Luke appeared with the boy toys a.k.a fireworks.

Boom stick!

Mischief is afoot 

That sign reads as "fix your stutter, call this number".
I question why it is written on a toilet and who could read that who hasn't stopped randomly like we did?
Tusken Raider Luke

Steam boy

We carried on a little bit further and I started to break and I desperately needed to have some lunch as it had been quite a few miles and two hours since our last food stop. I knew I was ok with my diabetes, it was simply pure hunger that was over powering me. That and the pain in my bum which I think I was feeling more than the other guys. At this point, we had about 20km left to go until we reached Weishan and that would be a distance that would become important to the rest of the trip. One thing that I couldn't help but observe was that the dump trucks I have mentioned obviously throw off a lot of tiny pieces of coal. I had been dodging these little stones for hours and on the bike they are a nuisance and I just dodge them for both my own comfort and also to preserve my tires. But the thing that I noticed was that a lot of local people, mostly elderly people going along the road and picking up the bigger pieces. It struck home just how harsh life for some people cannot be and just how much I take both my UK and my China life for granted and the comforts that I have. Just the fact that I don't have to use coal to keep warm is paramount to the level of comfort I take for granted and here I am cycling through this area which is the poorest I have seen in China so far with bad roads and I am cycling through on a bike too expensive for most in the area taking snaps on an iPhone. Well, after I said that I needed to stop, Luke tells us that he can see a place we can eat if it is open and so we pull in and the owner greets us and seems very happy to have us. They were not really open as such but they were happy to serve us. The owner asked us what we wanted to drink and Luke told him Coke and tried to get me a Coke Zero, but we quickly realised that they had no idea what Coke Zero was (the only diet drink most places have in Chinese cities) so I settled on a Coke and the man went off to get us some. He came back and took the bottles in to the kitchen which seemed a little odd and then a few minutes later he came back and had put them in bowls because he had heated them. He told us that it would be better for us with the ride ahead and I thought it was rather pleasant. I stripped off my hoodie as it was soaked through and all of a sudden Luke and Nigel burst out laughing. I had no idea why and then they told me it was because there was steam coming off of my back.


                          

 We ate lunch, or I should say that Luke and I ate lunch as Nigel neither likes Chinese food nor does it agree with his digestion when he is forced to eat it. The restaurant owner asked us what we were doing and so we told him that we were cycling across China and that our goal was Weishan. Even though the goal had never been an important part of the trip and it was about the journey, each of us had something we wanted to find in Weishan. For Luke it was a massage (by this point I wanted one as well), for Nigel it was a KFC (I wouldn't complain about a KFC either), and for me it was a pair of padded cycle shorts. The man told us that we should go to Weishan island to the west of us as there was loads to do and in the town there was nothing to do. So we mulled it over and thought that in the spirit of the trip we should do it. So we paid up and finished our food and headed for the ferry. It didnt take us long to get to the ferry. We reached where the ferry should pick us up and there was a woman who told us that there were no ferries. It was a bit strange as lots of people were waiting around so we headed to what looked like the ticket office, and indeed was and we got some tickets. Looking back I think the woman was trying to warn us away from going on the island. Instantly the second we got on the boat everyone took great interest in the cycling foreigners and I loved it. They took loads of photos of us and so I returned the favour and took a load of photos of them. It was nice and I loved the curiosity that the locals were all taking in us, even if I felt like we were in the first scenes of a horror film.

  

The island

Well we reached the island and quickly fended off a woman trying her best to get us to stay at her hotel. Within five minutes it became obvious that most of the island was closed. As we got on the ferry, Nigel constantly complained about needing the loo. After 15 mins of waiting to leave he got off the boat to go. Of course as soon as he is gone the boat starts to leave. It was so funny watching a black and grey dot in the distance running to jump back on board. We went up the street and the locals were waving and coming out of the few shops that were open to see the strange white men as they cycle around. We went up a road and the guys stopped to look at a massive dog and I just go "holy shit!" and they thought I was talking about the dog and what I had seen was a massive tower that just dominated the island. It was an amazing site to see this huge temple that just dominates this otherwise insignificant island. One of the weird things was as we cycled round, we basically saw that everyone was travelling in threes. There were a group of three girls who were ahead of us on the road and they were walking and we were taking our time and we passed them and then we stopped and they passed us. This went on a couple of times and then we just pushed on. About five mins later we passed through a little settlement on the island and somehow the girls, who were on foot, had beaten us there. We saw them about 6 times on the island and all it made it me think was 'horror film'. I said that our first priority was to find somewhere to stay and then we needed to get some fuel in us. This would be a big problem for Nigel as there was obviously no KFC on the island. Hell, there wasnt even a Starbucks ;-)

We found a hotel, well the woman found us by waving from the window. We went in and for the first few seconds it sounded good and then it quickly changed as she said there was no hot water. We could not have gotten out of there fast enough. Then we went to the next one and the scary old woman who owned the place said she had hot water and there was a triple room for 100 rmb, so near enough £3.33 each for the room for the night. We took it, but the downside was that she had lied about the hot water, or more precisely she said that the hot water would only work when the sun went down. So a big help then. By this point I was to say the least super tired.

After we dumped the bikes and our bags it was time to go and hunt down some food and hopefully a massage. We quickly discovered that there was no where to get a massage on the island, of any kind. We went to a few shops and got some bottles of water and were shocked when  a young woman (about our age) served us and spoke really good English. Considering what we had seen and experienced on this trip that was a big shocker. We asked about where we could eat and it seemed like there was only one place we could go to. It was a really strange restaurant. As we headed towards it based on the directions we had been given there were some Chinese girls pointing at us from inside and they seemed rather excited. We were quite looking forward to having a meal in a big communal environment with a bit of atmosphere. It turns out that in this restaurant, everyone gets their own room to eat in. After a long ride and we were cold and tired it was a bit of a let down. Plus, the food was a bit rubbish in my opinion, but it was maybe just because I had my heart set on either noodles, or a burger of some description. Then all of a sudden the door opened a little bit and a nice looking girl (not that there aren't loads of those in China) and she was with a load of friends and they asked if they could use the room after us. We believed this was one of those moments we were meant to say "just come in now and join us". But being tired we didn't. Eventually they did join us anyway and it made the room have a bit more atmosphere. Nigel of course would not eat the food and so he had a packet of super noodles and broke them up and put them in a few bowls (as they were small) and ate those. The service in this place was rather crap and we ordered three beers and they didnt arrive so Luke nicked them from near the bar (we still paid for them) and then we, I should say Luke, had the task of opening them using a spoon and then a key as we had no bottle opener.

 We paid and got out of there as it was now dark out, not yet 8 pm and there were so few lights out in the town/village/town of ghostly despair. We were heading back to the hotel with our bag of snacks, with enough nutrition to sustain a human being for 7 seconds and a pack of cards when we thought the only thing to do was to go back to our good old fireworks:

We then headed back to the room and we had the full intention of playing cards and chatting but even though it was about 8 pm we were overtaken with tiredness. Then the old man owner came to the door and told us he was locking the outer gate. All we could think was 'what if we went out on the lash?' And then we gave in to our tiredness and settled in to sleep amongst calls from Nigel of "If I go to sleep now, i'll wake up at 3 and be up all night". Ten hours later at 7 am the alarm went off and we woke up.

With our lack of hot water and long ride the next day, we opted for being smelly and just sleeping as we were. We were so tired anyway that it felt like our only option. It was also at this point amongst the complaints from Nigel about the state of his knees and the complaints from me about the state of my arse that we decided that we should just head home and forsake the original plan for another time.
In the morning the alarm went off and I turned over whilst saying "snooze button" and then after a few more minutes I got up and got dressed and got the guys to do the same whilst saying "the sooner we are ready, the sooner we can get off of the island". We quickly headed down to the dock and our timing was perfect. We didnt even look to see about a ticket and just got on the ferry.

Back on the road home, the fog was gone and it felt like we were making great time as the things that felt like a trudge were just flying past. Maybe it was because we could now see fifty meters whereas before we could only see ten meters. Things zoomed past, at least that's how it felt and we went through the terrible roads of Shandong and then got back onto the good tarmac of Jiangsu. The downside was that on the way to the island, it felt like the whole thing was up hill, even if it was only a small incline. On the way back, bugger me those hills were murder. Nigel soured on on Luke's bike, even after he had threatened for hours about getting a taxi back (that we would have paid for as he forgot his wallet) and I really struggled on the two or three big hills that we encountered. They were several kilometres long and I had been at the front of the group for some time and had just pushed myself a bit too much and it cost me.

On the way back we realised that we had taken an elongated way up and so we turned round and went the way we should have done in the first place. It was really interesting as now we could see further we could see so much more of the industry in the countryside which is responsible for the pollution that China is famous for. I was really happy to see one of the factories where we changed our route because on the way up we had seen a shift change and all these red hard hat clad people leaving but we could not see the extent of the complex and it was huge. I was both shocked and impressed.

Luke took us through a sleepy little village after that and it was brilliant because it was such pure China and people were staring and asking us questions as we went past exactly what I was loving about the trip. It was such a stereotype kind of place for what I thought all of China would look like and it was just perfect for what I wanted from the trip.

It was at this point that the question of "how far is it Luke?" as he had the best GPS of us, he became the navigator. He told us it was about 20 km to get home. The thing is that every time we then seemed to cycle for thirty to forty minutes we would ask again and some new scrap of info would mean it was about 20 km again. We went through a really nice little town and just as we reached the end of it, we realised that we were joining the road where we had turned a different way before. My stomach was grumbling after my shot glass of porridge in the morning and Luke was feeling the same that we decided we had to go back in to the town. I had a noodle craving and Nigel, even though he just wanted to get home, he wasn't bothered about where we went to eat and the first place we found was a burger joint. It was just a hole in the wall kind of place and it seemed like food that we could not trust but the pretty ladies inside seemed friendly and I was starved and knew that another place to eat would be a long way off. The burger that we had was amazing and we had a milk tea that had jelly bits in the bottom and it was an amazing burger and the tea was cracking. It really lifted my spirits.

 

After that amazing fuel stop we were dedicated to getting home regardless of the aches and pains. A few hours later we hit the outskirts of Xuzhou, and we were hitting the city from a different direction so we were a bit unsure of which way to go. We had already had a moment earlier as we were coming in to the outskirts of the city and I was in the front and just went over a roundabout as I recognised it from the way up. There was a van that kept just overtaking me, pulling over and then winding down his window and sticking his head out and saying "laowai" at me. It was very surreal and I just kept saying "yes" or "English" in Chinese. I got a phone call about half a kilometre later and it was Luke telling me I had gone the wrong way. I knew I had gone the right way, but assumed he meant that he knew a better way back. So I cycled back up in to the wind which was harsh as hell and met up with them only to find we were meant to go that way so I had to turn around again. As we got in to the city more we crossed over a bridge that we remembered and our map told us to go straight on over the next roundabout. The downside of that was that our map had not been updated and the roundabout was gone as they were building a new bypass. There were signs all over showing we could not go straight over. At which point we went "sod it" and just ploughed through the construction site for a few km. It was rough as hell, worse than Shandong but it was nice when a few cars failed to get over bumps and whatnot that our bikes flew over even if it hurt a little. It showed that I got a bike with good suspension anyway and it made the trip back home a little bit more interesting.

It was past three when we started to reach streets that we recognised and then we came to a junction that Luke proclaimed as the point we had to break up the fellowship as his home is in a different part of the city to Nigel and I. So I quickly said "grab that girl to take a photo"

Many hours and many miles, but no regrets. It was a great journey and it was the most fun I think I've ever had with a couple of mates. I got to see real China and meat so many people who were just as curious about us as we were of them. China is a wonderful and unusual place and I don't think I could ever truly understand it or my place in it but a bicycle is surely my favourite way of seeing it and connecting with the land in a way that no train, car, plane or bus ever could.

And yes, I am already thinking of where to go next.

End of line.