They came, they rode, they bought popcorn. Its a slow day in the blogsphere when bloggers blog about each other but the boys from Bike Hugger were in town so we took them out for a ride. They admired our dairy products being delivered on bicycles and our fresh turtles in the food markets, they entertained the locals with their outlandish headgear and it was generally agreed that they weren’t in Kansas any more (sorry, Washington State and Colorado).
We tried putting our arm in this position but it hurt. We’re going to stick to bungee straps when we need to carry a suitcase on our bike!
We are currently off our bike on doctors orders so are filling in the gap with this video shot from our bedroom and balcony as the old factory next door bites the dust. Not surprisingly we eagerly await a heavy rain to wash said dust off the house.
The price of steel is so high in China now that it is worth paying seven guys and an excavator for three days to extract all the rebar from the rubble to be sold as scrap.
Hello?…hello? yes…I’m on a bike…hello?…what?… Yes, I’ll be..hello?… home for dinner…Yes…hello?… noodles sounds goo… Oh bugger!
We usually keep clear of buses anyway but this one was on a mission! Guangzhou city in the south of China banned the use of horns 2 years ago and we keep waiting for the same ban to be enforced in Shanghai. Who was he tooting at anyway? The road was empty apart from me and I don’t think he even noticed me on the bike. The best theory we have is that his shift is nearly over and he wants to get back to that oldest established, permanently rolling, mahjong game at the depot.
We think it is. Last year we had the opportunity to visit China’s famous Flying Pigeon Bicycle factory in Tianjin - see photos below - and brought home this souvenir.
We fondly remember wobbling our first Flying Pigeon across Tiananmen Square in 1989 but have to admit that these days we prefer the comfort of a mountain bike (especially since our route to work frequently takes us across a building site) and the last time we lived in Beijing in ‘98 our office WAS a building site. So this Flying Pigeon hangs proudly on the courtyard wall waiting for a visitor brave enough to take it out for a spin.
Steel frames piled up
Frames being welded
Spokes go in
Flying Pigeon badges
As The Crash Test Dummy is still off bikes for a few more days we thought we’d take the opportunity to blog this clip of tai chi practice in the local park.
Very beautiful, very graceful.
A friend of ours tried this in a park in London once and nearly got arrested.
