Biking in the hills

I got invited to go for a bike ride Sunday morning. I said yes and then realized it was an invitation to go motor biking. Francois had an extra bike and he and his son were going for a ride. So the 3 of us headed out from their house early Sunday.

Now you might think that we got onto a nice dirt trail right from their house. You’d be wrong. You might also think it would be against the law for two 40 year old whiteys and a 14 year old boy to go bombing through the city streets of Changchun for 5 miles to get to an off road trail. There you would be correct. Francois gave me plenty of instructions though on how to handle this little detail. As we were pulling out of his garage he said ‘follow me. Don’t stop at the red lights. Never make eye contact with any authority figures. And never slow down if someone starts chasing us.” Seemed reasonable enough. I had a helmet after all. What could possibly go wrong?

In the end, we made it to the trail without any official incidents. We bombed around on trails for a couple hours around Moon Lake and then met our families for a little Sunday afternoon picnic. Turns out if you get far enough away from the city and the hovels, it can really be quite beautiful. We were on a bluff looking down across a wide valley with the city of Changchun in the distance. Not surprisingly the city smells a lot better when its 10 miles away. The trees and grass were a welcome change of scenery for the eyes and the ol’ factory.

Of course being china, after we set down our blanket and started having some food. A group of 40 Chinese folks set up shop around the corner and started having a good time. It’s probably easy to be lonely in china, but it is really hard to be alone.
For the picnic menu, the stouts brought some real American cuisine. We had twizzlers. We had peanut butter and crackers. We had flavored goldfish. Turns out American cuisine is not always appreciated as much as you might think. The licorice was deemed ‘without flavor’ and the peanut butter on crackers was described as ‘interesting’. The goldfish were just ignored straight away. Just cuz the other families had fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh baked bread and cheese. They thought their food was better than ours. OK, their food was better than ours. I admit it.

Now, I’ve not been to France yet, but I think I could spend some time there just eating. And drinking. I hear Italians know how to put together a pretty good meal as well, but the only Italian I know is Frank Ardigo and he married an American. Ann’s a great cook, but I’m not sure if that counts as true Italian food or not. I think us Americans have some room to raise our culinary game a bit.

Anyway, in the end it was a great day with motorbikes, families, trees, and dodging buses. It was a great way to say ‘au revoir’ to the summer and get ready for the imminent coming of fall and the cooler weather.

As a final note, when we were out there we found a praying mantis. These are apparently pretty common around here as we see them way more often than we did in Michigan. This is where my education let me down. I've always thought they were preying mantis'. As in the woman preys on her mate after they've finished their business. Everyone said that was strange because in french and german the word for the insect was the same word as praying because it looks like it has its hands folded in a praying position. I told them that was ridiculous and their languages were wrong. And dumb. Turns out I would be the dumb one. Praying mantis. who knew?