For this “green” bike event we had a ceremony in
There were less bicycle enthusiasts attending than in
In the evening there was a beautiful sunset. It was nice to see that most houses had the solar water heaters on the roofs. And you could see the mountain range in the west – the direction that we will be heading tomorrow by bicycle.
Today I went with Radio Beijing to Qinhuangdao. This is one of the Olympic cities – Soccer will be played here. It is North-East of Beijing on the coast. The famous Beidaihe beach (especially popular for Beijingers) and the place where the Great Wall meets the ocean (Shanhaiguan) are very close by.
We met the people from Radio Qinhuangdao and had a very exquisite seafood dinner in a new restaurant overlooking the beach (see picture below). We had crabs, fish, shrimps, oyster and sea cucumber as well as famous baijiu (high percentage rice alcohol).
The highway from Beijing to Qinhuangdao is nicely built out – 3 lanes in each direction with new asphalt. But it was not possible to go to a service station for a short break as each and every one was blocked by huge trucks. There was no way to get off the highway and enter and teh next one was always around 40km away. Good that we did not need gas and that none of us needed to go to the toilet. And also the highway exits are scarce – sometimes 30 km to the next one and no parking lot in between.
This is the time of the year when many foreigners leave Beijing. Some of them leave because their internships are over. But this year many have to leave due to visa issues. Trouni had his goodbye party in a cosy Hutong bar. It had a nice upstairs room with chalk and a small door to get onto the roof terrace.
Yesterday I met with the Chinese bike performer Zhou. He showed me his tricks (Click here to see the video of his performance) and I showed him mine on my artistic bike and then we did some tricks together (Click here to see the video of us doing the Saddle Handlebar stand together).
A Beijing Evening Newspaper reporter and a photographer came and asked Zhou some questions. Today there was this article in the Beijing Evening News
His friends had self built bikes. This was the first time I meet Chinese that have interest in making these kind of cool bicycles. I have heard of some foreigners who visited Beijing with tall bikes and other strange bicycle. But it is great to know that there is a bicycle cult scene starting to grow in Beijing.
Today I was having lunch at the small hopefully-not-soon-to-be-torn-down family „baozi“ restaurant (well more the small hole in the wall type). As it was a nice early summer day with just a little bit of haze I wanted to eat sitting outside. That was already strange in the ears of the restaurant owner and family. When they found out that I do not want to sit under the sun umbrella it created more fuss. They tried again and again to tell me that if I do not sit inside or not sit under the umbrella then rays of sun will touch me. I tried to convince them that I like that and that is why I chose to sit outside in the sun. Then they tried at make me understand that sitting in the sun is warm because the rays of the sun will touch me and make me hot. After quite some discussion I was able to take a small stool and put it outside in the sun to eat my baozi and jiaozi (two kinds of Northern Chinese dumplings). The whole restaurant was talking about that strange foreigner (probably all thinking how stupid I am).
Just in front of my stool on the street a 3 wheeled bike (tricycle) transporting some metal junk and a taxi stopped. I did not see it happen, but the taxi driver got out and looked a tiny scratch on the side of his back door. So I assume that somehow that was from the tricycle. The taxi driver called the police and soon after a motorbike policeman arrived. By that time it had already attracted the attention from all the people in the restaurant as well as the shop owners of all the small business next door (the „Tante Emma“ stores as the Germans say). The policeman actually said he thinks it was the fault of the taxi driver. This was probably not what the taxi driver was expecting. But the small shop owners were happy and also started all confirming that the taxi driver didn’t see the tricycle and ran into him and therefore it was the taxi drivers fault. I was happy about that conclusion because from where the taxi had stopped it did look like he had cut in front of the tricycle. And I was happy that the crowd was all gathered around the policeman watching what he was doing and confirming his decision and not interested anymore in the foreigner eating quietly her baozi on the side of the street.
This is a tricycle but not the one involved in the accident mentioned above. This was from the last time I moved in Beijing – we did it all environmentally friendly by tricycle.
We just had a 3 day mourning period in China which started on Monday – one week after the earthquake. People were requested to wear black in this mourning period. Some people distributed long ribbons for people to wear. But more amazing was that all the entertainment venues had to close and all the entertainment programs had to be canceled for this 3 day period. I asked a friend to come and do sports and the response was no. This solidarity in this mourning period was unbelievable.
Exactly 1 week has past since the strong earthquake made China shake. For Southern China this was the second catastrophe of 2008 (the first one being the snow storm). Many people lost their lives and unfortunately many children died in collapsed schools. The earthquake also shook Beijing but the damage was minimal. No comparison to the South of China.
In Beijing we just held 3 minutes of silence to show our condolences to the victims and their families. It was held at the same time as the earthquake last Monday at 2:28pm.
And it was breathtaking to look out of the window. People were gathering in big crowds on the bridge crossing the ring road. The traffic that was flowing freely on the 8 lane ring road with the 4 lanes parallel to them suddenly all stopped at 2:28pm and you could hear horns everywhere. All cars and bikes stood still for 3 minutes in silence. I hope that the donations we made will help the families of the victims return to a normal life.
Is there any other way to spend a rainy Sunday than to meet your friends for a Game-A-Holics Gathering? We came a bit late but still had many hours to play Shirades. And the wine did help to improve our body language for all the funny acting.
Chris – master of „yang rou chuanr“ (羊肉串) and organizer of yesterday’s „3rd Ring Road Yang Rou Chuanr Challenge“ – tonight still wanted to eat again yang rou chuanr (lamb skewers). His comment was „The beer in this ‚hole in the wall‘ restaurant is colder than yesterdays‘ number 4 restaurant“. And the prices were reasonable despite the small chuanr size (and also small lamb balls) and the difficulty getting the vegetable dish we ordered cooked in the way we ordered it. Unfortunately these kind of restaurants are getting harder to find in Beijing as more and more are torn down due to the upcoming Olympics.
Sarah got married! What a great wedding party! I rode my pink bike to get there. So I had to wear a black & pink Qipao to go with my bike. I like this picture despite the fact that we were late and it was not so easy to take it riding my fixed gear with no brakes wearing the Qipao.
The ceremony was very nice. They are a great couple. Sarah looked beautiful in her dress and with that sexy tan from climbing in Krabi (Thailand). A brides‘ best lady fainted and two of the grooms‘ best men were wearing white shoes. But they all looked really cool.
The friends were a colorful bunch. After the dinner Sarah and ZY had to go from table to table and drink with all their guests. ZY looked drunk when he arrived at our table but danced like crazy during the party. More pictures are here.
May 1st is always a public holiday in China. This year it was proposed to work on May 4th (Sunday) in order to get May 2nd (Friday) off. Most companies agreed to that suggestion. So 5 friends and me decided to go for a 3 day 2 night wild camping plus rock climbing weekend. Unfortunately I had to participate in the bicycle race in the morning of May 1st, so two of us took a long distance bus to get us out of Beijing and into the North near the new rock climbing site.
As it was the May 1st holiday also other people were traveling with buses. It was actually good that we took the bus in the afternoon as the mass of people had already arrived at their destinations and the queue to buy a bus ticket was shorter than we feared it would be.
We met the others who had set up the tents right in the small bee valley where other Beijing climbers had set up 30 new climbing routes late last year. It is beautiful rock with many more possibilities to be developed. If you have a close look at this picture you can see a tiny white dot in the middle of the cliff (slightly right of the center of this picture). That is Echo climbing one of the longest routes in this area.
The first morning the weather was okay. It was slightly overcast but very pleasant temperature. We had a big breakfast together on our private „camp ground“.
And then we went rock climbing. There were some really interesting routes. Some had overhangs – some were face – some had chimneys. It was a lot of fun. Click here to see all of the pictures of this trip.
We were looking forward to the next climbing day. That morning we had nice breakfast when suddenly very strong wind started. We just finished packing away the breakfast remainders when it started to rain. We waited and read books in our tents hoping the rain would stop soon. After a while we decided to wait for the rain to get less and then pack our things and head back to Beijing. Echo and her friend decided to wait in her car. When we had a look their tent had already flown away… So we packed up despite the rain and drove back. Friends who stayed in Beijing that day said that it was a big storm with hail.
