2。
well, hard to believe, but zhang yong and i are only
about 50 km away from wenzhou. that means we'll get
there tomorrow. two days ago we left my friend's home
in xinchang and biked 105 km in one day, through
mountains and by rivers. it was a really nice day,
although the first two hours were all uphill. zhang
yong had told me before...hey we can do it, with every
uphill there's a downhill. but i wasn't seeing any
downhills. finally, they arrived and after that it was
easy. long long downhills winding around hills where
i could shout out songs from 7 brides for 7 brothers
with no one to laugh at me. unfortunately, zhang yong
got a flat tire and so had to walk 5 km. this is
where cell phones really come in handy. i was ahead of
him, so he sent me a message to let me know he was
delayed and i sent him a message when i saw a bike
repair man. there are so many streetside bike repair
shops in china that it's not really necessary to know
how to do repairs yourself-however, i wish we had
brought some tools for my bike chain and zhang yong's
tire. we made it to tiantai and then decided to bike
another 50 km to linhai. it was a really beautiful and
nice ride until a very scary long tunnel (2 to 3 km
long) that freaked me out. i now have decided i have
a phobia of tunnels where i can't see in front of me.
the light at the end of the tunnel is a metaphor i
truly understand now. afterwards, i was a little wiped
out and accidentally biked into a stack of straw which
i didn't notice on the side of the road! i was so
exhausted by the end of the day i went straight to
sleep. yesterday we biked half a day to taizhou, about
50 km away. it was an easy ride and we passed farms
and goats and by the time we got to taizhou my chain
had come off for the 50th time. zhang yong is an
english teacher and has students in taizhou who took
really good care of us. one insisted on paying for
hotel rooms and dinner and even showed up this morning
with oranges for the road. it was a little overboard
but when i tried to pay for dinner, we almost got into
a physical altercation(not uncommon at all between
people fighting over a bill in china) so i left it at
that. this morning another of his students' took us
for breakfast and then we were on our way. it was much
colder today, the past few days have been 15-18
degrees celcius but today was 5. after my chain fell
off the 56th time, i decided to go to another bike
mechanic and this time it got fixed for good. i'm
hoping that it won't fall off again! after biking for
a few hours through large towns decorated with
lanterns for the lantern festival which is in a few
days, we walked up a long long hill, maybe 6 km., the
natural border between taizhou county and wenzhou
county. somewhere on that hill i lost a sock i'd been
using as a mitten, just another thing i've lost in
china (the most interesting being 5 missing pairs of
underwear). at the top we passed by square mountain,
which is a mountain that is square. and then the
downhill i'd been waiting for, but unfortunately zhang
yong got another flat. so i biked to the next town,
maybe 6 km away and waited and waited and waited for
him to show up. i may have been the first white
person in that town as everyone who passed me remarked
'laowei' (foreigner) and stared at me longer than i'm
used to. one boy stood staring at me for a while and
then followed me to stare at me more. then he walked
to the other side of me so he could see that side too!
while in town, zhang yong got his bike fixed and we
had lunch (he cooked a meal for the owner of the
restaurant so that she would have time to cook his
meal) and watched a wedding party pass by (bride in
red wedding dress with roses, lots of firecrackers)-
in all today we saw 7 weddings go by! we passed lots
of people biking and pulling wheelbarrows filled with
metal poles, trees, and other people! we made it to
yueqing by 7, crossing over the gulf of yueqing and
accompanied by lots of fireworks shows to watch on the
way, but we weren't tired so we decided to bike 17
more km to the next town. the maps and the signs must
have been wrong because 6 km later, we were there and
now we only have 53 km or so to go. so we'll go there
tomorrow. originally the plan was to make it to the
border of fujian province but i don't think i have
enough time because i have to go to a meeting for work
on the 15th and lilly has invited me to her home again
for lantern festival. i'm kind of surprised that we've
made it this far. but zhang yong's student told us
that he'd read about a 74 year old man who rode a
tricycle carrying his mother from the northernmost
province to henan province, so this is nothing!
i hope that this e-mail contains less swear words and
is more acceptable for my "elderly parents."
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