Tibet Day 2

 

After biking for four weeks, we find ourselves…

 

HOORAY

Special Update

Our fundraising goal of $20,000 US dollars was a very ambitious one, which we were all very well aware of. We wanted to set it high, but we knew that it would be an incredibly difficult to reach target.

In the past week and a half we have continued to receive numerous donations via Paypal, Checks, and Firstgiving’s Online Donation Page. During this time, we also received an anonymous donation for $10,000 which has actually brought us past our fundraising goal! Our donations so far have reached $20,255 USD!

We would again like to thank everyone who has supported us through comments on our blog as well as financially. Without your support none of this would have been possible! We hope that through our videos and commentaries that this trip has been as much yours as it has been ours.

Billy, Craig, Steven

 

Biking: Day 25

Day 25 (Morning):
Start: Jiande City, Zhejiang Province
End: Lanxi City, Zhejiang Province
Daily Traveled Distance: 54 KM
Total Traveled Distance: 1768 KM

Day 25 (Afternoon):

Lanxi Social Welfare Institute Volunteering

Changes

Lanxi

As soon as his feet hit the mat, Lan Xiao Yong seemed to lose his posture and balance and began to fall forward. Before I could rush forward to steady him, however, he shocked me by quickly breaking the fall with his out-stretched arms. It had only been eight months since I’d visited the Lanxi Orphanage, and at that time Xiao Yong seemed to have a difficult time even crawling on his belly, let alone balancing on all fours.

But he was not done. Posed like a track star ready for the starting gunshot, Xiao Yong tilted his gaze slightly upwards and launched himself ahead like a cannonball. The sight of this little boy bent double and crawling on all four limbs with his head close to the ground looked very much like a baby bulldozer. “Clear out of my way, I’m built for speed” seemed to be his sentiment as he shot ahead without regard for his surroundings.

The changes in all of the children at the Lanxi orphanage have been astounding since the beginning of Red Thread Charities’ intervention two years ago. Starting with a group of close to twenty special needs children that were mostly unable to lift their heads by themselves two years ago, the six remaining children now are all physically active and so mobile that they’ve had to put up a toddler gate at the stairs. Starting with an orphanage environment where the only sounds to be heard were the cries of the bedridden orphans, the only sounds you hear now are the joyful squeels of the children as they play with each other and the caretakers.

In one more year, the financial support that the Lanxi Social Welfare Institute receives from Red Thread Charities will be withdrawn. With the rehabilitation training that the staff has received during its three years with RTC, along with the relationships that RTC has set up with the local area hospitals and medical centers, the Lanxi Social Welfare Institute is now in a good position to assume its role as a special needs child rehabilitation center not only for the orphans, but also for the local population. In 2009, RTC will be beginning a new partnership with the Yiwu orphanage which has over seventy children.

Biking China

As we’ve continued to bike, the heat has replaced the winds as the toughest obstacle in our daily rides. Starting our days at seven in the morning means that we can get in around two hours of biking in ninety degree heat before the sun’s rays fully overwhelm us. One hundred degree plus days are the norm and as we go further south, it will only get hotter and more humid.

Steven and I both been affected physically and mentally by the unrelenting heat, from developing heat blisters to feeling faint while biking. Thankfully, however, neither of us have suffered from heatstroke. We debated for several days what our options were, and in the end, we have both agreed to end our trip about two weeks early to be most prudent and safe.

One of our biggest concerns upon reaching this decision was that we would dissapoint our readers and those that have sponsored us financially. In our initial discussions, we decided that we were still going to go south on the bikes, but as we got closer to Lanxi, it started to make more and more sense to end at our final orphanage visit. It felt like the most meaningful and appropriate way to end this trip.

From growing intimately familiar with tendonitis (Steven), fixing flat tires after hitting the point of extreme exhaustion (Craig), and becoming a master of the animal domain (Me), we have experienced more on this trip than we had ever thought possible. We are grateful for your supportive comments and donations, and hopefully this blog has done two things: entertained you, and more importantly, raised awareness for Red Thread Charities and orphanages in China.

Whie this marks the end of our biking journey, Steven and I will still be in China for another two and a half weeks. We will be exploring parts of China and of course you should expect our usual blog entries. More details will come in the following days, but in the mean time, thanks for everything.

 

Biking: Day 25: Lanxi Orphanage Day

 

Biking: Days 24 and 25

 

Biking: Days Twenty-Four and Twenty-Five

Day 24:
Start: Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province
End: Jiande City, Zhejiang Province
Daily Traveled Distance: 161 KM
Total Traveled Distance: 1714 KM

Day 25:
Jiande Rest and Relaxation Day

Viewer Comments (Part 2)

• Pat: 3rd coolest Pat? No sir, THE coolest Pat of our graduating class. Thanks for the link though! And I’m very glad to see that you watch the website regularly enough to reply to my reply.
• Nick: Pollution was a pretty big problem during the first week of biking. The further south we bike, the better the air quality gets. We’ve entered hill country, REAL hill country, and the only consolation is that the hills give rise to lots of terraced rice fields. Quite the sight to behold.
• Cheryl: Our discounts have all been at the hotels we stay at! Usually the hotel won’t be willing to give too much of a discount, but sometimes we get a bit lucky (especially at the hotels that newly opened or was recently renovated because they are trying to attract more business).
• Kathy: I am glad my delirium is good for something :)
• Jane: I loved your haiku! I will work on one myself in the near future for a post. Speaking of river towns, if you have not done so already, read the book “River Town” by Peter Hessler.
• Fred: In every town we land in, I continuously bug the locals until I can find one whose accent isn’t too strong. Then, I bug that individual until he/she can tell me what the places of interest are in the town. It’s worked fairly well so far.
• Kenny: We stick our bikes into cars and only pretend to bike :)
• Kiki: Very happy you are enjoying the videos! We all have Steven to thank for that. He’s a resourceful guy for sure.
• Sharon: All the music is courtesy of Steven’s vast collection!
• Jane: Along the roads that we bike on, we see a lot of farmers out with their goats and water buffalo. There also tend to be a lot of chickens that run around randomly. Stray dogs appear here and there. As for non-agricultural and domestic wildlife… We see a lot of magpies. We’ve been waiting for a panda to come crashing out of the bamboo forests that we bike past, but that has yet to occur.
• Kathy: If there were fences around the well, then how could you possibly look straight down into the abyss? Oh… I see…
• Kathy: The little old ladies only charged 10 Yuan per individual. We gave them 50 when we got off of the boat. It’s a rough life as renegade row boat racketeers, so we tried to be as helpful as possible.
• Tim: You researched Nanjing well. All of the places you mentioned we visited. Spectacular sight-seeing. There’s still more to Nanjing, of course, but we could not fit it into one R&R day.
• Stephanie and Family: Xuxu is a bright one. I knew I couldn’t trick her with my crusade of misinformation. As for the locks, people generally engrave them in one of two fashions: Either with their personal wishes and desires or just as a memento with their name and date. We got the latter.
• Julie: You have no idea how much I want to see Kung-Fu Panda (and Wall-E, and the other summer movie releases). I hope Mia keeps up the chopsticks practice so we can race each other in the future :)
• Fred: I personally think it was a gigantic NYC subway rat that have burrowed its way to China.
• Jane: Correction. I can eat almost anything. We got another chicken later on, but it was a male chicken. I could not deal with the crown.
• Ellen: I’m glad you are still staying up on our adventures :)
• Eming: Thank you for educating Steven and myself on the historical importance of the places we visit. It’s all lost upon us, unfortunately.
• Kathy: I had no idea you were so well educated in Chinese 7th grade literature. I believe your translation of the poem was spot on.
• Kiki: Wow… this upcoming trip is sounding more and more like a reunion of last fall! Minus myself unfortunately. I wish I could get the time off from school, but I don’t think they are too keen on letting their first year students go on vacation in the middle of classes.
• Justin: You are wrong sir. Pigeons are man’s best friend.
• Kathy: Did I soil myself while watching Steve struggle for footing in the giant inflatable ball? Almost… not quite… but almost.
• Tim: You have no idea. Nanjing is known as “The Furnace of China” and we’re already well to the south of that city now.
• Kenny: Wrong. Refer above. NYC rodent for sure.
• Leona: We’re both very glad that you are continuing to follow us on our journey :)
• Stephanie and Family: The best part of watching Steven in the inflatable ball was the initial splash landing. It was priceless.
• Sherika: I will do my best to keep Steven safe!
• Craig: I hope you enjoy watching and reading the blog. As much as we enjoy updating it at least!
• Jane: Was Quin also laughing hysterically at the hamster ball adventure?
• Eming: Steven has biked a significant distance even with his injured knees (around 350 KM). He’s been a tough guy.
• Craig: You have no idea how amazing Adventureland China was.
• Scot: Thanks for the encouragement! I was able to completely a 161 KM day, so I can honestly say that I’ve done a full century.
• Kathy: We went to a place called “Shuang Xi” to experience the raft ride. But from everything you’ve said, I feel like we successfully found the one you and your family went on. We were serenaded to by a man playing the Erhu and a woman singing to us from a loudspeaker. We had twin dragon heads spewing out water. We were not offered straw hats to wear, but then again, we had our own Marlboro cowboy hats.
• Kathy: Steven and I both complain to each other that we are no longer being educated on a daily basis at our meals by Craig. So the feeling is mutual. We wish he was still here with us. We will be sure to take a lot of footage of the children at Lanxi. And lastly but definitely not leastly, I hope the shoulder is okay!!!
• Jane: You have an uncanny knack for predicting our next video :)
• Craig: We are still looking for buyers! We don’t want to be too hasty in our anxiousness to sell. Additionally, the wind has almost been an non-issue since Nanjing. Did you take it with you back to Minnesota?
• Justin: Any luck now on watching the video?
• Jim: Welcome to our website! We hope you enjoy your stay. We had the chance to stay in Changxing for a night, but we were too beat to see the city unfortunately. Hopefully our videos and our journals will be descriptive enough for you to immerse yourself in.
• Miriam: My written journal and Steven’s video journal regarding our day at the amusement park really did complement each other fairly well! We didn’t even try to make it like that!

 

Biking: Day 24: Hangzhou Orphanage Volunteer Day

 

Biking: Days 19 to 23: Jiu Rong, Li Yang, Chong Xing, Hangzhou

 

Biking Days Twenty to Twenty-three:

Day 20:
Start: Liyang City, Jiangsu Province
End: Changxing City, Zhejiang Province
Daily Traveled Distance: 85 KM
Total Traveled Distance: 1428 KM

Day 21:
Start: Changxing City, Zhejiang Province
End: Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province
Daily Traveled Distance: 125 KM
Total Traveled Distance: 1553 KM

Day 22:
Hangzhou City Rest and Relaxation Day

Day 23:
Hangzhou Orphanage Volunteer Day

You’ve experienced with us the thrills of the Thousand Buddha Bobsled Ride, and you’ve  soiled your garments while watching Steven emulate the life of an aquatic hamster, and now we bring to you the majestic grandeur of the “Twin Streams Rapids Amusement Park.”

NOTE: This update is pretty big and has taken me a while to write. It is also getting late as I try to finish this entry, so there may be a lot of grammatical mistakes and poor choices in vocabulary as well as run on sentences and a lack of transitions. Be advised that whiplash may occur. I have not had the luxury of editing this piece. Please forgive :)

China – The Land of Carnival Games and Amusement Rides

Part I

Steven and I decided to spend our rest and relaxation day outside of Hangzhou city, in a quaint little suburb which boasted “One of the Best River Rapids in the Nation.” It was actually an adventure just getting to this place because we had to change buses twice. But that’s another story for another time. Back to the topic on hand… We arrived at the ticket booth around noon, so there was no other tourist in sight. In fact, every single park attendant and worker that we saw was either eating lunch of taking their afternoon nap. We quickly purchased out tickets to avoid disturbing their meal and slumber, and slipped into the gates of the park.

Before getting onto our bamboo rafts, we were first given the opportunity to ride a water buffalo pulled cart. As we waited around for someone to come to us, I noticed that there were a bunch of water buffalo in the stream. I thought it would be an incredibly fun idea ride on the backs of these big beasts of burden while they waded around in the shallow water. Unfortunately, the cart driver, who came just moments after, declined my request stating park policy forbade such dangerous and fool-hardy activity.

So instead of being adventurous, we rode a standard cart pulled by our own personal buffalo (whom I endearingly named Samuel) on what I would like to call the “land rapids.” I term the ride as such because when Samuel would trot along lazily it felt as if we were “floating” along. However, every time the cart driver would gently slap Samuel’s behind with his thin vine, our cart would jolt ahead for a few seconds as if we were “rushing” along with the current.

We reached the bamboo rafts area just as Samuel started to slow his pace back down to a lazy trot. We bade our gentle giant of a friend farewell and continued onto the next portion of our park experience as we headed towards the rafts ahead. Upon successfully weaving our way through the empty waiting lines, we found ourselves in front of a dozing ticket attendant. After a tactful cough on my part and a brisk apology on her part, we were quickly whisked away onto our own private bamboo raft with our rower.

Our rower was a middle-aged man with what can only be described as a farmer’s face: tough, leathery, sun-tanned, and weather-beaten. I asked him how long he had been working as a boat rower, to which he responded seven years. I took a look at his forearms and noticed that while thinner than my own, they were much more sinewy and muscular. Individual veins popped and bulged with every down stroke of the bamboo pole. Through short back and forth exchanges of questions and answers, I was able to find out that he still farmed, although he only had time to tend to his crops early in the morning prior to work and late in the afternoon after work. I found it difficult to imagine someone having the strength to cultivate fields after a day’s worth of rowing, so I asked him how many raft trips he takes per day, on average. One or two on slow days and up to eight or nine on busy days, he replied. I asked him how much he got paid per raft ride. He told me that he was paid 1.5 Yuan per person, and not per raft.

The “river rapids” was a bit of a misnomer, because the ride itself was actually very peaceful and smooth. It was quite a change of pace from the rigors of daily biking to be able to dip our sore and aching feet into the clear and cool waters that lapped at the edges of the raft. Every other sight we saw would be either a water buffalo soaking lazily in the shallow waters of the stream bank or local farmers collecting snails to cook for dinner or to sell on the market. Although we did not ride the thrilling and fast flowing waters that we were hoping for, the actual experience was still very unique, very serene, and very beautiful.

At the end of the ride, we thanked our rower, tipped him twenty yuan, and stepped off of the raft.

Part II

Upon getting off of the bamboo raft, we quickly realized that our adventures in the “Twin Streams Rapids Amusement Park” had only just begun. Laying sprawled out before our eyes was a treasure trove of rare and never-before-seen-in-the-West games of luck and skill. I’m going to break down the various attractions that we encountered in chronological order.

Chicken Archery

For ten yuan one receives a rental bow and five arrows and is allowed to shoot at live chickens that run around in a small enclosed forest. Fortunately for the chickens, and unfortunately for us, this attraction was not open today. Just kidding. Neither Steven or I could bear the thought of shooting at live chickens because they are just so darn adorable. Nor would the chickens have anything to be afraid of even if Steven and I were to shoot at them since we’re both lousy at medieval warfare. We both failed that college course.

Steven brought up a few good points, however: First, what would you do if you hit a chicken in a non-vital spot? It would seem incredibly inhumane to leave an injured chicken lying around. We decided that they must have incredibly skilled veterinarians on hand that specialize in arrow punctures. Second, what on earth would you do with your chicken if you actually managed to kill it? It would seem incredibly odd to haul a fresh dead chicken back onto the tour bus. We decided that they would probably offer to cook the fresh fare on the spot for a small additional charge.

Water Wheel

Next to the chicken archery field was a small open-air shed with two water wheels built underneath. I asked the attendant nearby what exactly the activity was that we were supposed to pay to partake in, because I was rather confused by the lack of anything that seemed “fun.” She seemed to laugh at me for asking such a silly question, and explained, rather matter of factly, that we can pay to try an old-fashioned water pumping station.

At this moment, the story of Tom Sawyer tricking his friends into white-washing his fence popped into my head, but quickly faded away. “Pay you money so I can perform physical labor for your benefit?!” I thought I myself… “Count me in!” So I paid the attendant the three yuan admission fee and jumped onto the water wheels pedals. Great idea right? Not only am I paying money to help pump water for them, but I get to exercise my rarely used quadriceps as an added bonus.

I had a rather difficult time navigating the controls in the beginning, because I thought I was supposed to be push down on the pedals as if I were biking. Clearly, however, I was making a fool of myself because the attendant quickly jumped onto the other set of foot pedals and attempted to show me the correct way to pump water. Ladies, I recommend that you ditch your gym memberships because this is the original “Stairmaster 500 (BC).”

Turret Shooting

Moving on from the water wheel house, we were quickly able to find solace for our hearts which had been aching to shoot things since the Chicken Archery game. What we found were machine gun turrets. Or at least… what looked to be machine gun turrets. Instead of expelling real ammunition, these weapons of minimal destruction spewed out golf-ball shaped and sized rubber bullets.

Although the cross hairs of the guns were not exactly up to military standards, with proper compensation (aka the first three shots) it was still very possible to hit the targets. While I personally had absolutely no luck (I blame the wind), Steven was able to hit the target three times in a row. It was not difficult to tell whether or not you nailed a target as successful hits would elicit a very out of tune version of the “Happy Birthday” melody from the surrounding loudspeakers.

Jungle Hunting

We thought we had seen it all after these first three attractions, but then we found something truly amazing. What we came upon was a mini-railroad track that encircled a small cluster of bamboo plants. On the tracks were six small toy jeeps painted to look as if they were meant to be used in some kind of safari adventure. Dotted around the circular path that the jeeps would traverse were various forms of life-sized (and sometimes larger than life) plastic critters. Next to the critters were these things that looked fist-sized silver orbs that were raised approximately three feet off of the ground.

We didn’t know what exactly we were supposed to be doing, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. So we paid the ride admission fee, we took back to back jeeps, grabbed the semi-automatic weapon look-alikes that the attendant handed to us, and set off on our jungle adventure.

As our little jeeps jolted alive, Steven, being seated ahead of me, started to aim and shoot his gun at the silver targets. Apparently the ride was more sophisticated than we had originally imagined because the lasers in our guns were matched to the sensors in the orbs. As soon as a direct hit was made, which was not difficult considering our arm lengths would sometimes allow us to be less than a foot away from the target, the animal next to the orbs would react in some manner. Although many of the animals seemed to be out of commission, we did have a monkey that told us to not shoot him, an alligator that sang happy birthday, and a squirrel that seemed to emit crying noises.

I had absolutely no opportunity to bag my share of jungle critters because my jeep closely followed Steven’s, and each creature after being shot at would take a good five seconds to reset.

Lonely Maze

This maze was unbelievably unphenomenal, and is probably the one attraction in this park that I actually regret spending time in. In fact, when I asked the ticket attendant whether or not the maze was worth going through, he hesitated for a few seconds as if thinking: “This maze is terrible, but I can’t tell you that since it’s my source of income, but I also can’t say it’s great because that would be a blatant lie.” So instead of answering my rather dangerous question, the ticket attendant showed us the written description of the maze, half of which I could not read due to my quasi-illiterate status.

Part III

The best part of every single attraction that we went to was that we always paved the way for further business. Prior to us, there would be nary a soul near any of rides and games except for the ticket attendant. But after testing out the waters at every station, we would attract more and more interested parties. After we were done with the pumping station, a young couple came over to try it out. After the machine gun turrets, a wannabe macho male came over to play. After the jungle/safari adventure, a few kindergarteners and their parents came over to become the next batch of big game hunters.

Unfortunately for us, the Chicken Archery game was not the only one that was unavailable today. We were not able to ride horses across a medium sized enclosed grassland because the weather was too hot for the animals. We were not able to ascend the giant inflatable climbing wall because they started to deflate it while we were still pumping well water. And lastly, I was not able to experience the life of an aquatic hamster because the ride attendants were fast asleep in the shade of their ticket booth.