After nearly a year of thinking of this project and bike trip, it is finally time to start. We begin our day today with a pancake, egg and French toast breakfast cooked by Muzi, which will probably be our last Western meal until Shanghai. Alexis has also brought back a nice bottle of Champagne from France, of which we will each enjoy a glass in a minute since we forgot about it last night. Our route today will take us down Chang’an Jie and through Tiananmen, where we will attempt to take pictures in front of Mao’s portrait and the SWAT guys standing around with automatic weapons. From there, we will head south down G106 and into Hebei province where we will find a place to rest around four or five in the afternoon. I don’t think anyone got a particularly good night of sleep last night, so a small hotel may be necessary. But the game is on! We’ll be updating frequently on our Twitter account, and those little updates will show up in the bar on the right side of this page as well, although the time stamps usually seem to be pretty far off. Wish us luck!
07
2009
Photo: Friend of the Family
Evan is in Beijing for 10 days and we took a bike ride last weekend to Sancha Village below the Great Wall. The family we stayed with consists of a husband and wife, who rent out a couple rooms in their house and cook meals, and their elementary school-aged son, who they send to live in the city with a relative during the week to attend school. They also take care of this mentally disabled man, who is friendly and endearing, but doesn't say much. I asked him if I could take his photo, and he closed his eyes and gave me a smile. He is lucky, though. So many of China's disabled citizens have no one to take care of and love them, and many of them wake up to the sight of the underside of an expressway rather than to fresh air, sun and green mountains.