Bicycle

On Monday Cullen decided it was time to have a bicycle. Our quest began at the nearest subway station. A colleague of his recommended a certain shopping center only about 4 stops from our place. When we got off it took a bit of help from some Olympic volunteers again to find our bearings. Once we found the shopping center, we realized we were in for a huge treasure hunt without a map, and the only direct instructions were "it's in the basement." Which meant it could be anywhere in the basement... one of 2 basements...

We wandered about in the upper parts of this goliath mall that was more interesting than any mall I have been in. There were more people than I expected on a Monday afternoon too. It was only about 3... on MONDAY and the place was PACKED!! Then again... I have to remind myself.. This IS the Monday before the Friday that the Olympics begin.

We stopped in a shoe store, where Cullen looked for a fancy set of shoes to match his new suit he bought in Hong Kong. This time, there wasn't so much of an issue with his shoe sized. One more thing to check off the list of difficulties in China. They found several pairs that fit him, and he pick one. Once again, much less than you would expect to pay for shoes.

With his new fancy shoes safely stowed in his backpack, our side-track was completed, and we were back on our mission. A Bicycle... so while they got his change, he drew a picture of a bicycle in our handy notebook, and one of the women in the store pointed us to the correct mall... the one across the street. She also wrote us a note in Chinese that I suspect said "I want to buy a bicycle."

Once inside this mall, we proceeded to the nearest Olympic volunteer... they helped us out immensely so far... and he ushered us down down down to the basement two, and through a bit of round about we found... deep in the farthest back corner of a grocery store....A department of the store that sells GIANT brand bicycles.

The selection wasn't small, but the room they packed them into was. I was amazed as always, at the Chinese ability to put so much into such a small space.

So the first thing that caught Cullen's eye, and the thing he has been wanting since before we left Texas, was a selction of 5 electric bicycles. Yes... Cullen now owns an Electric bicycle. This bicycle was reasonably priced, and they claim that it will go 40km on one charge... time to test it out...

You can't take bicycles on the subway... we decide this through deductive reasoning... no one does, there are bicycle parking places near the entrances to the subway stations, and the subways are always packed. The only solution to our distance dilemma was to ride the bicycle all the way back to the apartment. Fortunately for us, the bicycle came equipped with two seats...

The ride home was beautiful. As Cullen will readily tell you, Beijing is full of beautiful landscaping. Trees, flowers, and shrubberies abound. It is difficult to believe that with all these tall buildings, pavement, and industry around, there is still so much beautiful foliage.

The bicycle's battery made it all the way home, without even weakening. We have yet to check the actual mileage that it went, but we are sure that it will be able to take us just about anywhere in Beijing we need to go... unfortunately the back seat is very painful to sit on for even the ride we took home... We will just need another bicycle.