Traveling the World

For the first hour I taught my girlfriend how to ride the bike.Within a few minutes, we were off. Except not, because my girlfriend still didn’t know how to ride a bike. So we slowly walked our bikes to the back of my apartment building where no one could possibly see her goof up and maybe fall flat on her face. Sadly, for all of our amusement, that didn’t happen. For the next hour, I pushed her to try and try again. She was amazed at how simple I made it look, to which I explained I had been riding since I was 3 or 4, the normal age for a Westerner to begin. On a side note, like most Chinese people, she can’t swim either.

After the first hour was over, I had her riding circles around the building like a pro, and we took off to the main road. We road east down Wu Luo Lu to a shopping area called Ya Mao. Every few minutes, she would get scared of being too close to a bus, or of pedestrians, and she would get off the bike. As this was her first time riding, it took her a considerable amount of time to get the courage to jump back on the bike and pedal. This turned out to be quite a waste of time, but I can’t get mad at a girl trying really hard to learn! We turned right at Ya Mao onto Shi Pai Ling Lu, where we stopped for 2rmb ($0.15) worth of spicy potato wedges. After being stared at by locals, and even approached about the bikes we had by an older woman, we hopped on the bikes and headed towards Xiong Chu Da Dao.

At this road, we turned right to head back in the direction towards my apartment, thus forming a rectangular path. As we turned onto Ding Zi Qiao Lu, the last leg of our journey through the city, Lily hit a huge wire cemented into the ground that’s meant to hold up a power line. She fell off the bike, but I held back the laughter for fear of death stares. It was pretty hilarious since I saw the wire and saw it happen, but didn’t say anything because I thought she saw it too. After two hours of teaching her and finally riding, we returned the bikes. Exhausted and sunburnt, we collapsed on the couch of my apartment having been fully satisfied with the experience. Well, I can’t say she was satisfied with falling off a lot, but I was satisfied with watching it happen! I’m bad, I know.

Update on the bike rental system: As a result of too many applications and not enough bikes, they’re rolling out about 60 more rental stations and another 2,000 bikes within the next month. New applications for IDs will begin on June 10th, 2009.