Ines « China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

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Tall-Bike and Climbing

Sonntag, Juli 26th, 2009

My friends Lulu and Ludwig from Germany are in town. They actually live in Shenzhen now and came to Beijing for a short sight seeing and leisure trip. We met for a late lunch and then they tried out Fede’s tall-bike. Ludwig had some issues getting up onto it but he did manage to smile once he was on it.

Ludwig Mounting the Tall-Bike

Riding the Tall-Bike

Lulu also took her try on the tall-bike after seeing another girl almost crash while trying to ride it. Lulu even was able to do a U-turn in the narrow hutong.

Lulu Riding the Tall-Bike

But Ludwig did seem more happy on a lower bike so him and Lulu took regular bikes to tour around the hutong alleys.

Ludwig on a Regular Bike

In the evening I went to the Ritan park for some rock climbing. It was quite crowded in the beginning and some people taking ages to get up a climbing route. I do not like the new look of the wall with all the advertisements and grey color. But it is still great for climbing.

Ritan Park Climbing Wall

Posted in Climbing, Fixed Gear | 1 Comment »

Scitech Outlet Mall Grand Opening Event

Samstag, Juli 25th, 2009

Outside Beijing in Shunyi area between the never ending construction sites of new multi villa compounds a mall complex for brands had their grand opening. Fede and me were booked as performing artists to entertain the visitors with juggling tricks, slapstick, unicycling and bike tricks.

Fede and his Ball

Jess and some other musicians were booked to play jazz music for the VIP guests. Jess received professional make-up and hair-do by the stylists of the models.

Jess Getting Styled

The Chinese fashion world seems strange to me. The models must be considered beautiful and handsome by somebody, or? I still wonder who likes their „fashion“ clothes like for example the horrible cream colored skirt with black dots of the model on the left side of the picture. Or their ugly shoes that they have problems walking in. I might just not understand Chinese fashion.

Chinese Models

The place was quite crowded and it was fun to do some bike tricks there.

Outlet Mall Opening

Escalator to VIP Section

Jess looked amazing in that silk cocktail dress and with a real flower in her hair.

Jess Meider and Band

Jess Meider Jazz Band

Afterwards back in the city I met visiting friends in an outdoor „beer garden“ style venue. It was the first time I got some mosquitoe bites this summer. But as always they were gone right away.

Posted in Fixed Gear, Juggling, Media, Natooke, Performers | 1 Comment »

Gao Ya Kou to Miao Feng Shan Bike Ride

Samstag, Juli 25th, 2009

As almost every Saturday the Beijing Peloton road cycling club has arranged for buses and mini-vans to take us to the mountains outside of Beijing. We started at the Gao Ya Kou village (near the Stone Lions) and went the normal way over Gao Tai with various intermediary small passes and down the valley. At the train tracks overhead we turned left (east) towards Beijing. The route then went through the “Dong Fang Hong” tunnel climb. I stayed with the B riders (just doing the 80km route) and did not do the tough climb with the A riders (doing 100km including the Yang Tai Shan climb) hat I had done last time we cycled here. We continued until we reached the “Miao Feng Shan” archway. I cycled till the village but I had to rest in between as the road up towards Miao Feng Shan is a 13km uphill at 6% of which the first 7km are a false flat. Tom made a nice table of the intensity of the various mountain climbs for road cyclists around Beijing. Despite the sun shine and blue sky the temperature was bearable. But I did get a slight sun burn on the spots where I forgot to put suncream.

Road to Miao Feng Shan

View on the Way to Miao Feng Shan

Posted in Beijing, Cycling | 1 Comment »

Rain, Plants and Bikes

Mittwoch, Juli 22nd, 2009

Currently like every summer it is the rainy time in Beijing. I wanted to participate in a bike race today, but it had been canceled last minute. They said there was a strom with rain approaching. And yes it did. Here is the view of the Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD) during the heavy rain

Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD) in rain

And this is a picture just 30 minutes after the rain. Suddenly the CCTV Headquarter building and the World Trade Center 3 tower as well as the Yintai Building with the highest hotel are visible again.

Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD) after rain

All the rain means that the city is quite green. I parked my old Flying Pigeon bike for 7 days and this is how it looks like. I find it beautiful. But unfortunately I had to remove it.

Plants Overgrowing Classic Flying Pigeon Bicycle

Plants Overgrowing Classic Flying Pigeon Bicycle Handlebar

Posted in Beijing, China | 1 Comment »

Enchanted Juggling

Montag, Juli 20th, 2009

Tonight we had the weekly Beijing Jugglers meeting in Yugong Yishan. It was special because Jess Meider and Fede Moro practiced their joint performance: Jess playing the guitar and singing her own beautiful „Moon Song“ while Fede has a crystal ball to do contact juggling to the music. It looks just like the moon.

The Moon Song Contact Juggling

Jess Meider and Fede Moro Performance

Posted in Juggling, Music, Performers | 1 Comment »

Chinese Medicine

Sonntag, Juli 19th, 2009

As I am having some diarrhea I decided to go to my Chinese doctor (and blind massage place). When I entered he asked „what is wrong?“ across the whole room with all the patients waiting while continuing to treat another patient. I said I have diarrhea. He said „Great!“. I said „No, it is not great. It started Friday night and I have to go to the toilet a lot“. He asked „How many times did you go to the toilet today?“. I answered „Already 5 times, I feel dehydrated“. He said „Very good! All that stuff has to come out. You have been traveling too fast to too many places. It will soon be over and you will be fine“.

That was a slightly different kind of response than I expected. They then placed a needle on my shin and an infrared lamp on my stomach, then later gave me a stomach massage.

In the evening I did feel better and went on our Sunday fixed gear bike ride. We met and rode along the second ring road to the South Railway Station and back. I told my Chinese friends that I was not feeloing all so well yet. They all said diarrhea is good because I was traveling too much – I will soon have fully arrived in Beijing and feel better. Let us hope so.

Posted in China, Fixed Gear | Comments Closed

DESERT DANCE Event

Samstag, Juli 18th, 2009

Today I went to the Ritan Park rock climbing wall. It was astonishingly empty for a Saturday late afternoon. Maybe this is due to the hot and humid weather. It was great not to have to wait in line to climb a route. And there were hardly any mosquitoes, not like in the past years.

This evening was the Beijing Burners Without Borders event called DESERT DANCE organized by Greening the Beige. It was a mix of art and music to raise environmental awareness. There was a belly dancer

Desert Dance Belly Dancer

Jess Meider played her songwriter songs in unusual positions while Federico performed contact juggling.

Jess Meider Letting Herself Shine

Federico Juggling and Jess Meider The Moon Song

The whole venue was extremely beautiful. It is a privately owned renovated former temple. Really amazing.

Ines at Desert Dance

Posted in Green, Juggling, Music, Performers | 1 Comment »

Beijing DESERT DANCE

Freitag, Juli 17th, 2009

Greening the Beige is dancing with excitement and pleased as peaches to announce DESERT DANCE, a Benefit Without Borders event, coming up this Saturday, July 18th!

The global fundraiser/awareness raising/multi-layered art event will focus on the topic of desertification in China and its Beijing realities. For the full event details including performance and film screening schedules, please visit http://www.greeningthebeige.org/node100

All photography display works are available for sale by silent auction. Proceeds will be used for the self-sustaining 3rd Annual Greening the Beige Event — RE-ENERGIZE BEIJING — coming this November 2009.

Note that our first choice of location has now moved to No. 4 Zhangwang Hutong (opposite Bed Bar, look for the golden gate entrance), Jiu Gulou Dajie. While we are not pleased regarding the circumstance for this change, we are extremely grateful and honored to have found such a stunning and generous new home for our event, a 500 year old restored courtyard temple, located north of the drum and bell towers.

If you’re planning to come or have any questions, or would just like to send us your positive feedback, love, and support, we definitely want to hear from you.

‚Til then, the oasis awaits.

Tree Hugs,
the Greening the Beige Desert Dance Crew

DESERT DANCE

亲爱的北京绿色朋友们，

点废成绿盛情邀请您参加刺激而有趣的沙漠之舞，这个受益无国界的活动将在7月18日（星期六）举行！
全球资金筹集人、全民意识提高、多层面艺术活动都将关注中国沙漠化的主题以及北京的现状。有关这个活动的详情，包括表演和电影播放节目表，请参见附件或点击链接 http://www.greeningthebeige.org/node100

所有的摄影图片将以无声拍卖的形式出售，所有的收益将用于点废成绿于2009年11月自办的第3届年度活动——重振北京。

请注意，我们的首选地点现移至北京市东城区旧鼓楼大街张旺胡同4号（在Bed酒吧对面，金色大门入口）。虽然临时的地点改动带来一些麻烦，但是对于这个新场地，我们感到更加荣欣和欣喜，它是一个拥有500年历史的重建庭院，就在鼓楼的北面。

如果您想参加活动，或有任何疑问，或只是想表达一些您的想法和支持，请写邮件给我们。

我们期待您的参与！

献上大树的拥抱,
点废成绿沙漠之舞工作成员

—
Greening the Beige点废成绿
www.greeningthebeige.org

Posted in Beijing, Green | 1 Comment »

Concert: Jess Meider and Friends

Mittwoch, Juli 15th, 2009

It is nice to be back in Beijing, meet some of my Beijing friends and have dinner in a Xinjiang restaurant. And it was cool that Jess Meider had a special concert today in the Yugong Yishan club. She was accompanied by Sarah (background vocals) and Zack (bongos) as well as Zacks‘ brother (standing bass) and Marie-Claude (accordion). It was a great mix. And my friend Fede performed during the Moon Song with his crystal ball.

Jess Meider Concert

Contact Juggler Federico Moro

Songwriter Jess Meider and band in Yugong Yishan

Ines back in Beijing

Posted in Beijing, Juggling, Music, Performers | Comments Closed

Munich Airport

Dienstag, Juli 14th, 2009

My last day in Germany was nice. It stared with a breakfast with a friend from Hamburg in the traditional „Tee-Haus“ in Erlangen. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture. We will have to do that next time we meet. Then I went to say hi to some friends in the nearby bike shop and get some things sorted at my local bank. After that I had a very delicious goodbye dinner at home. My parents cooked fine beef roulades with Franconian dumplings, red cabbage and a variety of garden salads. That tasted so good.

And then it was time to say goodbye and realize how heavy my bags were. It is good that you do not need to book a specific train in Europe, but you can take any similar connection with the same train ticket. There was one train that I wanted to get, but the time was flying and there was some probability that I could miss that one. Many discussions on what would be the best route did make us take the most efficient road so that I arrived with a comfortable 10 minutes before departure.

After check-in in Munich I met another friend that I have not seen for a while. He looks great like always. And then it was flying back to Beijing and arriving only 9 hours later.

Ines at Munich Airport

Posted in Germany | Comments Closed

China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes