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Less honking.  Cleaner streets.  Tall glass office buildings…lots of them.  Narrow streets lined with peeling-bark trees I’ve seen only in southern France.  Street intersections with 3 or more streets merging at peculiar angles.  A white female doctor from Pennsylvania consulting me on my last Japanese Ensephilitus shot.  Luxury apartments.  Single family house neighborhoods.  Coldsto, WAIT, WHAT?  Coldstone.  Whoa.  Shock.  SHANGHAI.

Lucky for Jim, our resident icecream obsessor, there is a Coldstone down the street.  However American prices (27 yuan for a small cup - US$3.60) turn him right back to his standard cool treat - the Magnum icecream bar (4 yuan).

We’ve had the great blessing of staying in one of the nicest Chinese apartments I’ve ever seen for the last 4 days, a blessing thanks to Noriko, a Japanese friend of Nakia’s now living in China’s New York, or the Paris of the east as Shanghai used to be called in the 1920s.  THANKYOU!!!  Without a friend here, we would’ve let the high living cost keep us away from such a metropolis.  As it is though, the last few days have allowed us to run errands, reorganize, and relax after the first month of riding. 

30 days, approx 1,600km Beijing to Shanghai including rest days.

As it turns out, our timing couldn’t have been better.  The day after arriving, I was biking through Shanghai with a couple of the others looking for a bike shop to purchase a hard-to-find trailer for our instruments (poor Drew has been single-handedly hauling both guitars and the erhu on the back of his bike with an industrial strength but finiky-bearing wheel), when my bottom bracket (crank bearings and cup) completely busted on the sprocket side, immidiately spilling the ball bearings and bits of crushed metal onto the moving street below.

After asking at several bike shops and street-side bicycle repair stalls, and being towed around town by Drew and Jim over several days on my pedalless bike by holding onto their shoulders to do so, I now do have a new bottom bracket, sealed bearings, for a very reasonable 70 yuan - US$9.00.  Beautiful.  I have a new appreciation for a place to put your feet while sitting on a bicycle seat…

And our newest addition to the FBR (Fueledbyrice) team: a kiddie trailer, or The Bandwagon (thanks to Adam’s quick wit naming), as it will be hauling not only the 2 guitars and er hu, but also my S. African bongo drum.  This trailer will enable us to trade off carrying the extra load our music requires.  I will be, however, a bit nolstalgic of riding behind Drew’s Beverly Hill Billy-style load, but I’m sure he’ll get over it faster than I.

One of the joys we’ve had while living with Noriko (besides a super nice shower) is having access to a kitchen, and an amazingly big and nice kitchen at that.  For these few days, oatmeal, dark and wheaty breads, and left-overs from home-cooked dinners the nights before have replaced our typical baozi (stuffed steamed buns) and zhou (rice porrage) breakfasts.  Two nights ago, Nakia and Jim headed an Italian mass cooking for Noriko as one small token of our thanks: Eggplant tomato, pesto pasta, homemade garlic-buttered bread - maybe nothing special in the West, but rare treasure in the Orient outside of the biggest metropoli.  Noriko has been incredibly patient with us and the dirt and disorder we’ve brought to her home.  Thanks again to such a wonderful hostess!

Although her apartment doesn’t quite fit under “Luguan,” I’ll put a couple photos in that album. 

We’re gearing up for setting off for the 2nd big leg of our journey tomorrow: a couple weeks to Changsha, Hunan province to visit Adam and Jim’s old Chinese friends from their days teaching there, and then on to Guangzhou & Hongkong for our friend’s wedding at the end of November.  But as usual, its not the destination that counts, especially on a trip like ours.

Today, why not bike instead of drive?

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 1:42 am and is filed under Pete's Posts, Group Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.