at last, we ride!

Finally. I have been trying to get my buddies to buy bikes for the past couple of weeks and yesterday it finally happened!
Not wanting to be limited in Ningbo I bought a bike almost immediately upon arrival. It was a sweet little fold up bike. Tiny little thing and fun as hell. Well, it did not really fold up as much as it kind of collapsed. I spent a full 30 minutes bartering for it and busted out almost ALL of the Chinese I knew in the process. I honestly have never had so much fun bartering. I usually find it to be an annoying process. I was able to talk her down from 600 something to 470 kuai. That comes to exactly 60 dollars and 25 cents using the handy currency converter on my sweet new cell phone. It will also calculate my menstrual cycle and it will do Karaoke. Seriously.
Anywho, that fun little bike lasted exactly 8 days. Don't decide to go drinking with your friends and throw your bike in the trunk of a cab bar hopping. You just may forget your bike is still in the trunk.
So, bike number two is a decent Giant mountain bike. Giant seems to have a monopoly here in China as the only American import. This time there would be NO bartering as the prices are set. However i managed to get him to throw in a lock, so that was cool.
So, there i was alone with my bike for weeks. Scott and Shannon (the other teachers i work with) were holding off for better weather and some misc other reasons on buying one.
So, yesterday Scott and Shannon FINALLY buckled under my peer pressure and headed to the Giant store. They got 2 sweet mountain bikes much like my own and we set off for our first ride. We must have went 15 miles to and fro! It was awesome. We hit the very outskirt of Ningbo and came across a tiny little... I’ll call it eatery next to a convenience slash variety store. Both just cement floors and open like garages. Outside was a raggedy pool table on a bit of a hill and we thought that was awesome. We originally stopped for a game but decided we were a bit hungry and just sat down and talked for an hour. It was a beautiful moment. We sat there and had our fill of two dishes. Eggs and green peppers and eggs and chicken. Both mostly green peppers. Oh and of course we each got a liter of 2 kuai beer. Yes, that is 25 cents.
The people are really friendly in the outskirts. Seeing a foreigner is really rare. We got a lot of smiles and “hello’s.” The eatery had a young woman there with here 8 month old baby. I’m just guessing 8 months. I’m no good at baby ages. She would look over at us and smile a lot and take her baby’s hand and wave. I could see they were all interested in our bikes so I went over and lowered the seat for here and told her to take a spin.
Even in the outskirts of Ningbo there is obvious development about to happen. We were all sure these people would be displaced like the many others to make way for “the new china.” A huge project picture of a soccer stadium was just on the other side of the street and all around the area was the rubble of old torn down buildings to make room for new housing, shops, sky rises… anything. In a few years our friendly place will be gone with its residents pushed even farther outside of Ningbo.
Too bad I forgot my camera for our impromptu ride.