click on pictures to see them full size
the view from our apartment during the daySo today is May 1 in China. National Labor Day, Golden Week, there are many names for it i guess. Basically the entire country is off and travelling all around China. Picture Thanksgiving weekend travel in the States, but with twice the number of people and three times the chaos.
We had a really good May Day here. We rode our new bikes out into the suburbs of Shanghai where our friend Jessica lives and walked around QiBao Old City (a tourist trap. mistake), went out for lunch and then just hung out at her apartment complex, took a nap and played soccer with a bunch of friends. Relaxing way to enjoy this awesome weather. Pics below:
At QiBao Old City. Daisy being fed zhong zi by Faith. I'm sampling fried baby chicks. Bones and all. Not bad, but not great.
Labor Day football (soccer). Grayson and I having a moment on the couples swing.
Like I mentioned, we got new bikes this week. They definitely have helped us out in terms of getting around and exploring. The subway system here is great, but we were getting tired of all the walking. If staying in Shanghai for an extended amount of time, I definitely recommend getting a bike. Yes, the traffic rules here are more like suggestions and it can seem quite overwhelming, but if you just go with traffic, look both ways, don't panic and use basic common sense, it's not really all that dangerous. The one thing we do have to think about is bike theft. It's like a whole underground industry over here. We're told to almost EXPECT our bikes to get stolen. So instead of buying bikes at GIANT, where we saw the cheapest one for about 500RMB ($74USD), we went to Carrefour (the French Target) and bought cheaper bikes for 400RMB ($56 USD). There are even cheaper ones that range from 160 - 250 RMB, but we're gonna be riding them alot, so they should be somewhat comfortable. The three rules to follow to prevent bike theft here are: 1) Lock your bike up TO something. 2) Park your bike where there are alot of other bikes parked. 3) When possible, find bike attendants, whose job it is to just guard parked bikes and pay the 7cents US to have your bike watched. If we can go a year without them being stolen, I'd consider it a success. We'll see how well we do.
Our new Chinese brand bikes from Carrefour.
hope you guys are having a blast out there!
ReplyDelete-Sihan
wow just realized you had a blog for your journey.Everything looks good over there! hope you guys stay safe and have fun!
ReplyDeleteDude you need to get a Kryptonite lock for your bike. It's 100 dollars but has a warranty that says if your bike gets stolen using one of their locks they'll refund you. Check it out man, should be a good investment!
ReplyDeleteHey guys!
ReplyDeleteHope everything is working out well for you both! That bike with the basket looks really useful. You should invest in bikes that fold so you can carry it around with you!
omg the stolen bike industry is soo true! when we were there one of my friends got his bike stolen within the first 2 days we had it! miss you guys and hope you're doing well! =)
ReplyDeleteword them baskets on the bikes are key!
ReplyDeleteok so i know i'm a little late in reading up on your blog, but i just kinda got into this whole reading ppl's blog thing. anyways, just wanted to say my bike just recently got stolen after having it for 1.5 years and i considered that pretty darn good. we, unfortunately, didn't realize the whole 'expect your bike to get stolen' mentality until AFTER our friend brought us to buy giant bikes the day after we arrived in country. anyways, having a giant bike for a year and a half ain't bad. and besides, we recently invested in an electric scooter and it's sweet. i'd highly recommend it
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