AsiaWheeling has a few classes of penpals at the Cherokee Trail Elementary School in Colorado.  Here, and periodically throughout the journey, we will answer some of their questions about life on two wheels.

We received a few questions in the comments of a recent post, the answers to which are below.

Q: Do you feel safe around all the people there?

A: Not all the people, but most. Indonesians are in general very friendly and welcoming. Every once in a while we encounter someone who is trying to trick us into giving them money for nothing, or over-charging us. On a very rare occasion we might meet someone who does not like Americans very much, or does not want us to photograph them or their stuff. In these cases, we try to be as respectful as possible. There are many reasons why people don’t like America or tourists in their country and we understand that.

But on the whole, we feel very safe, and enjoy meeting new people both locals and other travelers.

Q: How far do you ride on the cool bikes every day?

A: We ride between 10 and 70 km a day. It really depends on the weather, the traffic, and the way points that we chose.

Q: Do you like the food?

A: We love trying new foods, and whenever we can be reasonably sure that it won’t make us sick we try new things. Most of them we like. For instance, a few nights ago, we had some chicken hearts and lungs that were incredible, all wrapped up with veins and very well spiced. Sometimes we have things that are strange, but not so tasty, things like some very fishy crackers that are popular in Indonesia, or some fried cows lungs, which I think had sat out too long.

Q: Have you met anyone new (not a part of Asia Wheeling or their families) there?  How did you meet them?

A: We meet new people all the time. We meet lots of fellow travelers in hotels and on the streets. We also get to meet many locals. Since there are not many white people here (did you know that being a white person is actually quite rare and special on planet earth?), people come up to us and ask to take their picture with us, so we make friends that way. We also need to work with locals to buy tickets and get food and shelter, so we are constantly meeting new people.

Q: Have you seen any other people that you knew before (like the plane trip)?

A: Nope so far all new people. Soon we will have some other friends come join us, though. So stay tuned.

Q: Where are you sleeping and how long do you stay at each place?

A: We stay between 2 and 7 days in your typical place, depending on how good the wheeling is there. We try to stay at all kinds of places except expensive. So we stay at youth hostels, business hotels, and family-run inns. Later on we might stay at a few super-fancy places, but those are few and far between due to the high cost.  Our favorite places to stay are old hotels with lots of character at affordable prices, such as the Hotel L’Orient in Pondicherry.

And now for the postcards.

Hey There Aiden,

Glad you’re studying about Asia in school.  It’s an interesting place.  Here, we drink a lot of water every day.  Because we’re out in the sun, riding bicycles, and taking medication to fight malaria which needs lots of water due to side effects of skin sensitivity.  On an active day, we consume about 5.7 liters of water.  Do you know how many gallons that is?

However, in most places in Asia, you can’t drink the tap water, because it will make you sick.  We either drink bottled water, or tea or coffee which is so hot that it kills the bacteria.  Bottled water here is not very expensive compared to in the United States.  In Indonesia, India, and China, a normal 600ml bottle of water may cost around 17 cents.

Staying hydrated by drinking water is important no matter where you are or what you’re doing.

Best,

AsiaWheeling

Greetings Garrett,

Thanks for your letter.  Our favorite colors are Ivory, Graphite, and Avocado as you can see from our website.  You’re lucky to have so much school and go on Ski Trips as well.

We’re so glad that you’re a math geek.  We are too!  In fact, we wear calculator watches because we do so much math every day.  Doing it in your head is good practice too, especially because you can’t use a calculator watch on tests in school.

Keep it up,

AsiaWheeling

你好，Ilka, 你的名字中文可以叫爱卡，很好听的名字，相信你的人长得也像你的名字一样美丽。中国地大物博，有很多好吃好玩的东西。 祝愿你好好学习，好好学习中文，将来有机会到中国来 看看。也欢迎你多上我们的网站，里面可以看到各个国家的奇闻趣事。最后，祝你越长越美丽。

高洁

大中华高级顾问

全球自行车探险 (AsiaWheeling)

Good Day Trevor,

Great to hear that you do so many sports.  We like Indiana Jones too.  In fact, our favorite activity is exploring the jungles like he does.

We also like doing math, drinking coffee, and understanding better ways to stay safe while traveling.

Your Friend,

AsiaWheeling

Hi Jake,

Nice stussy.  Those are all great sports. Stay active and be safe.  Our favorite number is 23.

Cheers,

AsiaWheeling

Howdy Austin,

We’re glad to hear that you like hockey and biking.  The most important thing is to be interested in things and do them as much as possible.

Keep riding that bike, and when you’re older, you can pick any part of the world to explore.

Wheel Safe,

AsiaWheeling

Rain poured from the sky in Jakarta as Scott, Jackson, and I diligently worked on correspondence. As the sky began to clear, we loaded the cycles into the back of the Kijiang and headed toward south Jakarta.

We were scheduled to have lunch with a Dr. Sharon Eng, a musician and globetrotter, who had developed a relationship with Jackson during his time touring Asia playing the viola. The morning’s rain had caused the city to descend into madness and gridlock. As we drove, we saw large parts of the road had been completely submerged. And as we made our way into south Jakarta, the flooding grew worse, and the traffic ground to a stand still.

In desperation, we exited the Kijiang and began on foot across mud and crumbling pavement toward the restaurant.

We entered a building and were suddenly transported to somewhere outside of Salt Lake City. Inside was a jumble of very high-end home goods merchants, with fancy bamboo flooring, and many signs in English advertising the fact that all the products were made with organic materials and a portion of all sales went toward protecting Indonesian rain forest wood.  It was a diamond in the rough of Jakarta’s soaked streets.  Walking into the restaurant, we chose a table toward the back.

The clientele of this restaurant, Koi, were a curious and varied breed, but all clearly well moneyed.  To our left, two Dutch women, one of about 34 and one of about 59 had recently been been seated across the table from each other, sandwiching a young boy with curly blond hair.  After we were presented with the chalkboard menu, the younger of the two women with her hair pulled smartly back came over to inspect it.

At our adjacent table, sat two ethnic Indonesians in their mid-twenties sporting British accents and refined, considered clothing.  The man wore facial hair and had his new MacBook on the table, complete with a Supreme sticker featuring Kermit the Frog.  The woman, strikingly beautiful, wore hair down to her shoulders and a blue blouse with white lace trim and black slacks, which buttoned well above her waist.  At the corner near the door, five women in ornate Muslim headscarves and silk, cassock-like dresses picked at duck-confit salad served in a crispy, edible bowl.

The restaurant itself proved to be, while expensive by Jakartian standards, quite delicious. Dr. Eng arrived shortly after she had completed her own battle with the traffic. We found her to be a fascinating, intelligent, and quite friendly woman.  Conversation ranged from a recent orchestral trip across China she had participated in, specifically the rabble-rousing caused by the Polish members of the tour.

While shocked that Jackson, her cerebral and talented music student, had gone into banking, she excitedly discussed potential joint-ventures.  If you can’t beat em, join ’em.  Sharon, any time you decide you are interested in a position on the AsiaWheeling board of advisers, just let us know.

With full stomachs and minds freshly opened by quite a few cups of coffee and pleasant conversation, we unloaded the bikes from Jackson’s Kijiang and hit the road. South Jakarta certainly had a different feel to it. Smaller structures, and 1 1/2 lane roads. We snaked our way through the city, following Jackson’s bishop. As we rode, the sky began to once again darken and a strong wind began to shake the overhanging jungle trees. Jackson suggested a revision to the waypoint roster, but it was already too late. The skies opened, and we were quite suddenly wheeling through a torrential downpour. We called a waypoint at the most proximate small store, and hove to in order to wait out the rain.

Our shop turned out to be across the street from the Ministry of Education, and we had the pleasure of sharing the overhanging awning with a number of employees who had ducked out for clove cigarrettes. At their current rate of consumption, it seemed to us that the bureaucrats would need to duck out again for more kreteks before the rain had even ceased.  We took a gander at the modern little market’s inner workings and pondered its many offerings, wondering how many isles of rhino-branded flu cures, lethal insect “bombs,” and muscle-enhancing powders we would walk through before the deluge halted.

This turned out, however, to merely demonstrate our ignorance of Indonesian weather, for no sooner had Jackson purchased us a few startlingly sweet Indonesian yoghurt drinks, than the rain had stopped and we were once again tempted to wheel.

The next waypoint was a haircut joint. Both Scott and I were in need of a little tidy-up. Jackson recommended a place by the name of Pax. This was an old school Indonesian barber, and the fellows there were all about professionalism. For about four US dollars, Scott and I received top notch AsiaWheeling haircuts on the spot.

These easily eclipsed the Agra cuts from the pilot study in terms of style and precision.  Points were also scored for cleanliness, and avoiding the “Desert of Flesh” which can often be found extending behind the ears after an AsiaWheeling haircut.

Newly shorn, we commenced meandering our way back to the city center where Jackson’s parents waited to take us out to a farewell dinner.

The dinner took place, not surprisingly, at a local mall. The food was incredible, and Jackson’s parents, who have been so generous and warm to us, proved to be quite pleasant dinner companions as well.

We feasted on delicious Italian fare and drank from specially requested ebullient burgundy glasses with a wine brought from household’s private collection.  Below, a ravioli topped with crispy ham is served.

As the clock ticked closer and closer to the departure of our 9:10 AM train to Bandung, Jackson switched into overdrive. Having dropped his parents off back at the house, we piled into the micro-SUV and began a whirlwind tour of Jakartian nightlife, visiting no less than nine establishments in five few hours.  Considering the driving required in between each waypoint, and the traffic which ground the city to a halt, this was no small feat.  After a final nightcap, we lay down for a final brief yet fitful night of sleep at the household.

Well, this is it. It has begun. The last few days have whirled by Scott and me like a blustery fall day, peppering us with goodbyes –to old and new friends, family and loved ones, and some of the less obvious things like English signage and running water. With both hearts weighted by these goodbyes, and lighted with excitement about the untold wonders that lie ahead, we strode onwards through a wind of passports and visas, various cables, bottles upon bottles of pills, and many packings and unpackings of our bags.

We stood amidst this bluster in the luxurious and surveyed  our inventory for the next ten months. Scott and I carry three items each. A general backpack, a technology/carry-on bag, and our Dahon collapsible bicycles.

We stared out across the gleaming carpet upon which all the equipment that was to propel us over these ten months was laid, and marveled at the immensity of what lay ahead. For those of you who are not so into inventories, by all means, cease your reading immediately.

For the rest of you out there, who share Scott’s and my own propensity for lists… I give you without further ado, our inventory.

Mobile Pharmacy:

• Imodium
• Benadryl
• Pink Bismuth Tablets
• Imitrex
• Prevacid
• Dramamine
• Medicated Eye Drops
• Jarrow Brand Saccharomyces Boulardii + MOS
• Jarrow Brand EPS tablets
• Tamaflu
• Diflucan
• An Epi Pen
• Promethazine
• Malerone
• Flagyl
• Nitrofur MAC
• Ciprofloxin
• Hydroco/APAP
• Azythromycin
• Metronidazol
• Flexaril
• Doxycycline (a lot of it)
• Tetrazodone
• Bandages
• Moleskin
• Micheal’s Paraherbs
• Red Bull Energy Shots

Woody’s Carry On:

• AsiaWheeling Business card holder
• Bundle of AsiaWheeling business cards
• 1 Canon Power Shot A610
• 1 Battery Charger
• 2 sets ear plugs
• 1 Alphasmart Dana
• 1 pouch filled with cables
• 1 MacBook Pro
• 1 Dop kit (toothbrush, dental floss and the like)
• 1 copy of Nick Danziger’s “Danziger’s Travels“
• 1 copy of Micheal Chabon’s “Gentleman of the Road”
• 1 Document pouch including:
• 3 photocopies of my passport
• Evidence of my exit flight from Indonesia
• A copy of my diploma
• A signed and notarized letter from our great helmsman commending us to the journey

Woody’s large backpack:

• 4 pairs of Ex-Officio Travel Underpants
• 5 linen shirts
• 1 AsiaWheeling t-shirt
• 1 Russian short-sleeved Liz Claiborne knock-off
• 1 pair of Japanese men’s pants
• 1 pair of running shorts
• 2 pairs of Smart Wool Socks
• 1 wool sweater which my father purchased in the seventies
• 1 Master Brand Braided Steel BIke Lock
• 2 mini bungi cables
• 1 Master Brand micro luggage lock
• 1 black raincoat and rain pants
• 1 spoke wrench
• 1 triangular allen wrench set
• 2 Knog tire patch kit
• 1 dive mask
• 2 Wiki Readers
• 1 flashlight
• 1 clothesline
• 1 pair of gloves
• 1 steripen
• 1 quick dry towel
• 1 silk sleeping sac

Books:

• Edward W. Said – Orientalism
• David Byrne – Bicycle Diaries
• Niall Ferguson – The Cash Nexus
• Lonely Planet – Central Asian Phrasebook
• Luxe Guides: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Laos & Cambodia, Phuket

Electronics:

• Flip MinoHD Video Recorder
• Earbud Headphones
• WikiReader
• MacBook Pro
• Olympus E-P1 Micro 4:3 Digital Camera
• Various USB and international charging cables
• Wintec WBT 201 GPS DataLogger
• MiniMaglite flashlight

Mobile Pharmacy:

• Doxycicline 280 Pills (Anti-Malarial)
• Ciprofloxin (60 pills Antibiotic)
• Acetomenaphen with Codeine (Pain Killer)
• Azythromyacin (Antibiotic)
• Jarro Dophilus EPS Pro-Biotic
• Saccharromyces Boulardii + MOS
• Michaels ParaHerbs
• Michaels Adrenal Xtra
• Band Aids
• Ibuprofen
• Ultrathon Insect Repellent

Dop Kit:

• Tooth Brush
• Tooth Paste
• Razors
• Sunscreen
• ToothPicks
• Dental Floss

Corporate Identity:

• 600 AsiaWheeling business cards
• 500 AsiaWheeling stickers

Clothing:

• AsiaWheeling 2.0 V-Neck T-Shirt
• AsiaWheeling 1.0 V-Neck T-Shirt
• Muji V-Neck Undershirt

• William Cheng & Sons Button-Down Shirts (3)
• Christie’s Panama Hat
• wool sweater
• Microfibre towel
• handkerchief
• 3 pairs Exofficio boxer-briefs, cotton boxer shorts
• raincoat
• 2 Carhartt Shorts
• Levis 514 jeans, khaki pants
• 4 pairs socks

Shoes:

• hiking boots
• Havana sandals
• Blue Zig Zag Wino Canvas Sneakers (Size 13)

Bike Equiptment:

• 3-size allen wrench
• tire irons
• Knog Patch Kit
• repair kit for Planetary gear shift
• Dahon Speed TR Folding Bicycle
• Knog Nerd, Frog, and Gecko Lights

Misc:

• RedBull Energy Shots
• Sunglasses
• Neck Pillow
• Scuba Mask
• Maglite, Pencils, Muji Pens
• Passport
• Documentation, Sir Kensingtons Work
• Pack Lock
• Quickdry Towel
• A copy of my Brown Diploma, My Eagle Scout Award, and a letter of service recognition from Congress, as well as our Mandate from the Great Helmsman David Campbell

Bags:

• Karrimore Track 30 Daypack
• REI Starlite Backpack

Cash:

• USD, HKD, SGD, VND, CNY, JPY in various amounts

The adventure had drawn to a temporary close when Woody and Scott boarded flights in Incheon airport. The trip had been a wild success. With over 22 cities under our belt, you, dear reader, might think we had caught our limit. To the contrary! A new, even more savage trip is just about to get underway. Stay tuned as we approach 2010 and the launch of the next AsiaWheeling. In the meantime, feel free to peruse the highlights of what might now be called the AsiaWheeling pilot study.

Or… try starting at the beginning.

Leaving Tianjin, city of rust, was like a long goodbye kiss with China. And china had  abstaining from brushing and been smoking packs of cigarettes in preparation.

We had no “clean break” as one might in a plane launching from an airstrip, rather two hours stalled ferry, as our ship was continually delayed due to smog cover. We passed the time gawking at the Port of Tianjin. The acrid fog refused to thin, and when we finally departed, it was half an hour of snaking through the smokey labyrinth of docking canals, as our pilot ship escorted our own “Tian Ren” to the mouth of the Yellow Sea.

It seemed the port was home to a single ferry, ours, and was a place clearly developed for transporting cargo. This cargo was being loaded onto all manner of ships, painted in primary colors that oxidized through the fog into twisted pastels. Cranes poised idle, weather on the dock or mounted to the boats themselves. Names of ports beckoned from the ships’ helm, and mounds of red dust awaited loading adjacent to nondescript corrugated metal containers.

These are the kind of sights that really get me going. Countless blogs cater those hounding over the latest consumer electronics. Most tech guys like watches, mobile phones, mp3 players, and little gadgets. I like the gigantic steel things that enable global trade.

These gigantic unglamorous vessels oddly poetic names like “CNA CCM AFRICA” “Overseas Soverign,” and “Shining star” are owned by greek tycoons vacationing thousands of miles away in St. Moritz, shouting orders at teams of bankers who scramble in New York to value these rusting money machines.You see, the cargo ships are not trivial.Non-trivial to finance. New builds are expensive. The bigger the boat, the bigger the earning potential, the bigger the bet. You must spend a staggering amount of money and engineer a stream of payoffs from operating profits during the lifetime of the ship. If everyone wants ships, everyone will be building them and materials, labor, and dock space will be costly. By the time you’ve finished your ship, Hanjin, Samsung Heavy, Hyundai Heavy have just rolled out new builds too. Atop that, the (roughly) six year American economic cycle has hit an inflection point and supply outpaces demand for your services, dropping the price. Oops. At least now you have a gigantic boat with a nice shiny paint job.

Non-trivial to build. These gigantic things take time, space, a surprising degree of engineering expertise. Korea has a lockdown on this market, producing many ships in Incheon and Busan. Tianjin, too is trying to match the quality and undercut the price, but the Korean Chaebols have experience where the Chinese have a lot of mistakes yet to make. Additionally, these Chaebols are locked into stayed relationships with banks, governments, and may be cushioned by the other constituent firms that make up their holding conglomerate.

Non-trivial to own or operate. How long will the given economic boom last and will it overlap with the life cycle of your ship? Ever dealt with Philippine pirates armed with Russian made machine guns in the Sulu seas? They’re a real pain for your insurance premium (sea piracy and shipping accidents were the reasons Lloyds of London came about). It’s also a pain when Chinese people smugglers, known as “snakeheads,” were paid $60,000 per head to transport illegal immigrants in a shipping container, and you’ve been summoned to court to explain why they were discovered getting off your boat in Oakland, CA, rather than while getting on in Xiamen, Fujian. If the stress is too much for you, you can sell the freighter on the secondary market, like the Hua Run below: Manufactured in Vladivostok by the Russians then purchased and painted over by the Cambodians, ushered to a new home in Phnom Penh for a new life of dry goods transport.

Non-trivial to liquidate. What if the supertanker is leaking crude across the Arctic ? When repair costs exceed the expected future profitability of a vessel, its time for the graveyard. These graveyards are located in Gujarat, India, and Chittagong, Bangladesh. Why? Miles of shallow water near the mainland of these South Asian countries provide a place for the ships to sit lopsided in the sand while skinny, muscular, men are paid USD $1 per day to extract all the valuable scrap metal and disassemble the rusting beast. In industry jargon, this is referred to as “Shipbreaking.”

Assuming you’re not one of these misfortunate shipbreakers, and rather you’re a more fortunate shipbuilder its possible to get the timing right. You can borrow when money’s cheap, build where labor’s both cheap and skilled, and by the time you smash a bottle of champagne on the helm, the ever cycling economy is banging on your door to shuttle iron ore from Perth to Shanghai. That’s at least what Baosteel or Rio Tinto wants. Or it could be GE sending washing machines from Shenzhen, China to the Bahamas, where products sit in untaxed warehousing zones before going to market. A Nigerian oil magnate may send thousands of barrels of black gold from Lagos to Hong Kong. Or it could be shoes, motorcycles, steel pipe fittings, soccer jerseys, and diesel generators from Hong Kong to Lagos by Guinean traders in Guangzhou. There are ships for dry goods, ships to hold containers, and tankers to hold oil. There are even ships specially fitted to accommodate gigantic chemical tanks. Where do you think American food processing facilities off the New Jersey turnpike get their raw materials?

Shipping connects some of the worlds poorest with the worlds mass market middle class, and is overseen and orchestrated by some of the world’s richest. Catching a glimpse behind the scenes of the international logistics market on the Tianjin to Incheon ferry was stimulating and eye opening, driving my curiosity to new levels. As AsiaWheeling’s resident adventure capitalist, I will research further and determine what kind of inefficiencies or injustices exist in this market. Ones that we may address and continue to investigate on AsiaWheeling 2.0.

Back to our storyAs the Tian Ren neared the sunny Korean peninsula, shore birds began to ride the airstream created by the ferry. schoolchildren and ship engineers alike held out snacks which the birds snatched mid-flight with their beaks.

As the birds circled, darted, and arced, an engineering feat riving the natural one of the birds progressed around us.

A bridge connecting the island two bodies of land across many miles of water seemed to erect itself, as large machines filled pylons with cement mix and crane barges lifted road crew trucks up onto the causeway.

Korea was flexing its muscles. Samsung had branded this bridge, and the work itself has changed the way I consider civil engineering and its disciples.

The people on the boat began to buzz with the energy that accompanies a return trip home, and the clean sea breeze of Incheon welcomed us in a way that no burgeoning city in China could. Seoul lay before us, and with it, wheeling, drinkable tap water, post-modern metropolitan nightlife, and a new level of gonzo attitude.

Armed with a makeshift Korean phrase sheet, we dismounted the ship onto a packed bus which spilled into the customs hall.

Riding with a team of gentlemen (or ladies) on bicycles in a new city can prove hectic. On AsiaWheeling, the obstacles in these cities multiply: unpaved roads, conflicting street signs, vehicles ranging from fellow bicyclists to gigantic fuming buses, livestock, rickshaws, and open sewers. Often, we are without map or compass to sharpen our innate sense of direction and stimulate interactions with the local population.

So what keeps us unified and organized so that we may surmount the intricacies of the many metropolitan villages? The Wheeling Field Commands.

As you may be aware, the rider frontmost in the pack and closest to the flow of traffic is christened the bishop, or symply the bish. The bishop issues the field commands to the rest of the formation, including both formational and directional commands. The rider bringing up the tail is known as the anti-bishop. All field commands must be both verbally acknowledged and signaled with the hands. These field commands are as follows.

Directional Commands

Command: Rauschenberg
Abbreviation: “Rausch”
Illustration:

Required Execution: (1) Turn right at the next possible intersection. (2) May also be used as a signifier for right side.
Example Use Case: “A rauchenberg here will get us to the animal market” or “Peep this industrial wasteland on your rausch”

Command: Liechtenstein
Abbreviation: “Liecht”
Illustration:

Required Execution: (1) Turn left at the next possible intersection (2) Directionally, as used like rauschenberg above
Use Case Example: “Let’s take a liechtenstein to navigate this construction zone” or ” Lets pass this guy on his leicht”

Command: Gerade Aus
Abbreviation: “Gerade”
Illustration:

Required Execution: Continue wheeling in the forward direction. No turns should be made at the approaching intersection. Synonymous to “straight.”
Use Case Example: “The light’s still green, we’d better gerade aus”

Command: Waypoint

Illustration:

Required Execution: To stop your bicycle at a point of interest in order to gawk at a specific object or otherwise dismount for pedestrian activity. Most commonly used here at AsiaWheeling Global to purchase bottles of water from street vendors.
Example Use Case: “There’s a market selling eels and crustaceans to our liecht. Waypoint! Waypoint!”

Command: Highway Speeds

Illustration:

Required Execution: To pedal at maximum velocity for a sustained period of time.
Example Use Case: “We’re entering a raging tunnel bridge. Highway Speeds!”

Posture: Rough Rider

Illustration:

Required Execution: To grip the handlebars and remove one’s behind from the bicycle seat to hover above the back tire. In the case that the back tire has a fender, one rough riding may sit on the fender and pedal.

Example Use Case: “Low hanging trees. Better get down. Rough Rider!”

Posture: Forward Position

Illustration:

Required Execution: To grip the handlebars and place feet firmly on the pedals. Stand up and arch chest forward with chin up. Thighs should touch handlebars or be as near as possible. Field of vision should exclude any parts of one’s bicycle.
Example Use Case: “I can’t believe we’re wheeling so hard in Tienanmen Square. Forward Position!”

We hope you find this post helpful and that you may utilize it in your daily lives. Remember: Signal your intent and wheel safe.

I awoke, still feeling the last sniffly bits of the cold which had followed on the coattails of the E-Coli. It was a sunny morning in Kun Ming. Jie and Scott were already diving into putting the day together. We took the elevator downstairs (past the mysterious brothel floor) and met up with a fine gentleman who explained to us that he ran the only licensed bicycle rental shop in all of Kun Ming. Whatever this meant, we expressed gratitude and interest in cycles, and followed him on foot to the city gymnasium complex. It was covered with Beijing 2008 olympic paraphernalia, as Scott assured me would be the norm all over china.

We stood and frowned at the cluster of bicycles presented to us. They were very new, all tiny, and most were mountain/stunt jobs, with funny attachments, mudflaps, and no bell. Shrugging these drawbacks away, we climbed aboard and were off. The things were very small. Good for stunts and going over curbs, hard on the knees.

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“Resistance is ornamental” – Rem Koolhaas, on China

China has become a bit of a dirty word in the American lexicon. While I’m detached from what any given American may think about this country, attention to media headlines would suggest the following: Killer toys and deadly toothpaste. Dictatorship by committee that displaces families in the name of power generation projects. Censorship of Wikipedia, our latest oracle of knowledge. Unbridled economic growth threatening our own sovereignty, underpinned by a currency lauded by our own economists as an unfair weapon in the war of international trade. And with equity markets unilaterally considered less governed than casinos, China tempts money managers and financial alchemists the world round.

Of course, as AsiaWheeling’s resident adventure capitalist and resident ???????, this leads me to look deeper and asses the foundation of these claims. Do these above assumptions still leave China undervalued? Or are the implied future growth rates driving overvaluation? I hope to provide data that I have collected to you, our dear reader, so that you may be better informed to approach these questions.

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去年三月份，准备从广州回深圳，买了票便坐在候车室里。远处有一个大约182CM的身影，是的一个大帅哥，仔细一看，一个洋帅哥。看他两眼困惑的样子，是不是需要帮忙。不过，他会不会不理我呢，会不会认为我是骗子想骗钱什么的呢，这个是车站，很多这样的人。如果他不理我，那我不是很没面子。我下意识的看了看周围，人好像还不少，不过好像没有注意到我。那如果他大吼一声，把周转的人都引过来了怎么办….短短的20秒，我的脑子里已经浮现出100个假设了。上去先认识一下吧，如果拒绝了，大不了走人….还在犹豫中，双脚已经不听使唤的朝着正9点的方向走去，正好是他的那个方向。其实他是背对着我的……” May I help you?”  他像是在沙漠里见到绿洲，看到了救命草。含着眼泪地看着我，”yes, I am going to Shenzhen, do you know where I can get the train ticket?” 这不是我想就的地方吗？我也要去深圳，咱们可以坐同一趟车。刚说出去，我就后悔，怎么说我也是个女生，好像不该这么直接吧。不过这家伙好像还挺乐意的。于是开始了我们之后一个小时的trip. 他对一切都那么的热爱，那么的好奇，你只要接近他，就会深深的被他所影响。他读经济的，可是酷爱高科技。见到我就开始说他现在滔滔不绝地描述起去过的去方，什么日本呀，香港，上海，杭州呀….

他说喜欢中国康师傅绿茶，特意要到深圳去带很多回香港，说是香港很贵。呵呵，我心里暗想，这家伙才没来多久，就知道中国物价，还学会买便宜货，难怪学经济的。 于是，我就带着他到Luohu汽车站的超市去买了绿茶。之后，他就回香港，我就在深圳回到自己的身活中去了。