Cycling China

Today was the first of a new set of adventures to be had in China.

A very close friend of mine said to me the other day "would you like to go on a big bike ride?"

I wasnt sure as Chinese roads are a bit tricky to say the least, and on top of that, I have not been on a big bike ride in six months.

But, the really good thing about my friend Luke is that unlike most other people that I work with here in China, he neither rejects China, nor does he believe that he knows China without going out there and meeting the people. Luke not only speaks Chinese past degree level, he is married to a Chinese lady, but he also has a way of reading people that is uncanny.

So when Luke asks me to go anywhere I always jump at it because he has never once let me down. Once we went to an amazing tomb. Another he introduced me to a really interesting fish and flower market that felt brilliantly like real China and had nothing touristy about it.

So when he said "would you like to go on a big bike ride?" I would be stupid to say no. I had no idea where we would be going and so just guessed at what to wear. For those of you who are unfamiliar with China's climate, it is way colder here than in my homeland of the UK at this time of year, although, no rain.

So I met him near the fish and flower market as his wifes parents live there and they had a bike for me to use. So we started to head north.

Firstly, we headed through town and it was good going. The only thing that we didnt know was that the road we were travelling on ended in a construction site. So we did the only thing we could. We went through the site. The workers did not seem to care that two white guys were going through their bridge construction site on two bikes.

Then we just kept heading north. We found a nice lake area. A massive statue of the transformer Bumblebee. We then just kept cycling around. One of the things that we went through, and we saw a lot of it was one of China's many deserted cities. Its just tower after tower of apartments and houses, with beautifully manicured gardens and parks and there is not a single living person living in them for mile after mile. There are buildings that even look like showrooms of some kind but there is no sign that they were going to be filled up. It looks really strange. For those of you that might get the reference, its like the planet Miranda in the film Serenity. Then after a while we headed back. All in all it was a good five hour ride and longer one are planned for the near future.

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