Jump to the present

Okay, I will update you soon on my trips to Suzhou and Hangzhou (about 4 and 3 weeks ago, respectively), but I wanted to inform you all about my new hobby: Mountain biking.

Recently I've borrowed Jane's mountain bike, and I think I'm going to buy it from her. I went biking on Saturday morning with a man named Bret and Tom, Jane's husband, and we biked about 42k (25 miles). We biked to the subway station and to a plaza with Western restaurants. There we met two other friends for breakfast. Unfortunately one the ride Bret fell and really hurt himself (broken fingers and a broken arm), but he kept biking and didn't say anything about the severity of his pain. We biked to several bike shops, and I purchased biking gloves.

Saturday morning I biked about 42k (26.10 miles).

I enjoyed biking so much I joined a group of regulars who go for long bike rides every Sunday morning. I joined them and we went through farmland and also over bridges that went over canals filled with gross water. We had the chance to really see how some of the poorer Chinese people live, but it wasn't to the point of being destitute.

I got a flat tire along the way, so one of the guys in the group, Barry, was with me and helped me repair the flat tire. Of course we ended up with a crowd of about 10 watching Barry change the tubing of the tire... haha.

Following the villages/farms/bridges we headed under the mag-lift, which is the fastest train in the world. It goes from the Shanghai Pudong airport to the LongYan subway station. We biked under it, and shortly before that we went over a pedestrian overpass (over a busy road) that was covered in rice. The rice was there because you need flat open spaces for the harvested rice to dry. Of course it's fine if you bike/walk/whatever over it-- hopefully at some point they'll clean it off! Otherwise I guess the boiling water helps.

After we went under the mag-lift, we actually ended up in the factory yard where they originally constructed the mag lift. The area was desolate and huge! Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera but next Sunday I plan to.

We biked even farther and saw signs for a Buddhist temple called the 会 龙 寺(Hui Long temple) because it was on Hui Long street. The temple was beautiful. We spoke to some monks and went inside where we saw a huge wooden statue of Buddha and many other wooden statues around the area. We also passed a cool candle factory that I want to check out at some point.

Sunday morning I biked 52k (32.31 miles).

Last night (Tuesday morning) I also went biking with Tom and we met a friend named Sharyn at a place called Century Park. There we biked several loops around Century Park, relaxed at Starbucks (I had a hot chocolate and a scone), then Tom and I biked back to school. So, last night's total ended up being 40k (24.85 miles)

So basically I have biked 134k (83.26 miles) in the past four days. CRAZY!

I'm tired.