My first bike ride

"So you wanna race, huh?"

Sadly, he was finished before we finished the first km, that's a cigarette in his left hand.)

I hauled this huge bike box all of the way around the world, I figured it's about time to use it. I rode towards the ocean today. It wasn't bad. I think I went about 50 miles, but I haven't recalibrated my computer for the new big tires, so it ready

about 47. I was surprised to see the streets already full of traffic first thing this morning at 6 when I got up. I needed to get my bike fixed up anyway and I prefer to leave my place very well organized to make it more obvious if anyone goes through my stuff or if anything is missing, so I didn't end up leaving until about 8:15. I don't have a map yet, a small book and school supply store in Xiwu says they will have me one tonight. I studied the one website I've found that has the roads in this area and set out. I've heard it is 40k to the ocean, and I could barely see it when I turned around. I didn't want to push my luck too much and I wanted to continue beyond Xiwu to Fenghua when I got back anyway. I stopped at a small market at a T-junction I guessed correctly that I could identify later and ate some bananas and huge grapes. There was a huge tail wind on the way out and headwind on the way back, but I was able to keep up with most scooters and some buses when I wanted. I drafted a couple trucks and buses quite a long way. There's usua

lly a few heads hanging out of the buses studying me as they go by. The traffic is scary for the cars. I would see people passing with oncoming traffic, and a motorcycle pass between the two cars going the opposite directions. A few times I veered off of the back of the car I was drafting assuming there was an immanent head-on collision, only to see them miss each other. I think I'm going to do some weekend long touring style rides into the mountains southwest and to along the coast. I came to the conclusion that chasing cars isn't intrinsic to dogs, they don't even blink we I and other vehicles go by – not even one did. I don't get it why U.S. dogs are so aggressive, maybe the dogs here are still in-grained with the communist ideals and they understand that the land (they would be pro

tecting in the U.S.) belongs to everyone.

There are a many duck farms (they look kinda like chicken houses but come with a pond, I realized what a few actually were when I heard the quacking of thousands of ducks as I rode by), lime

farms, the ubiqitous rice patties, and some other plant that looks like what I know in the U.S. as the inedible wetland plant 'elephant ear'. The overwhelming smell in the countryside is that of feces, from many sources. I passed many three-sided outhouses right on the edge of the road, put there, I assume, to fertalize the fields. Xu Laoshi told us the farmers actually fight over the contents of reservoirs that contain the product of public restrooms etc. The small plots' soil is black and rich looking, still it's pretty gross to see kids peeing in the middle of the wide sidewalks here.

The local accent is especially pronounced (is that a

pun?) in the small towns I rode through, I also heard a little of some local dialect that was utterly incomprehensible. I started referring to Chinese as 'putong hua' instead of 'zhongwen'. The first is specifically the common language aka 'hanyu', or the Han's language, the latter is just Chinese. One feature I noticed was the use of 's' vs. 'sh' or 'z'. These sounds are used allot - I'll being fussing over a word, trying to look it up and everything and it will suddenly occur to me it's something I use all of the time.

The mountains are really big! Google earth shows the mountains south of here topping out around 1800' but I'm guessing they're close to 3k'. I'm going to have to figure out the best approach to some lookouts I spotted. It looks like there are some temples
along the ridges near the ocean.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to press my case to live in Fenghua. It's quite large with many modern restaurants, high rise buildings, shopping centers etc. So far I've found one 'real' restaurant in this town, most are just little cubbyhole type places that kinda scare me, but I think they're safe. It's where my coworkers take me. I don't mind small towns, but unless I'm missing something I think living in Fenghua will be worth the 8km commute. This is a panorama from a bridge in Fenghua.