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Published: December 10th 2013
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Going south on a bicycle is like a lesson in time travel. If we stay still for too long it gets closer to winter. Every day we move south, it gets a little warmer. The harvest become a little less ripe, and animals and insects a little more lively. The days become longer and the nights become shorter as we descend our way towards the equator.
So we spent our days amongst the many many Tulous of the Fujian province. Then temperature dropped and it got too cold for our sweatshirts and jacket/vest things. At 10degrees we decided to book it. But to where? The easiest way would be to double back into Zhangzhou, but really, I don't care for that kind of thing. Going back? Never. It doesn't matter that to the west were mountains, to the north, mountains, and can anyone guess what was to the south? Well even more mountains! So We pushed south and uphill going up and up and up till we found tiny shack a rows of Pomelos and some kind of trimmed bush. All with an amazing view of a Valley below. We also answered a question as to whether the tree's we'd
been seeing were Olive trees, and in fact they were not, they were Pomelo trees.
So we took our photos of the valley and the road we'd fly down southward, put our fingers around the well trimmed bushes near two mountains, trying to guess what they were. (Two days ride later we'd discover the same kind of bushes but untrimmed, and as it turned out they were Tea Bushes). I had a great time running up and down the lines and lines of well trimmed tea leaves and toeing the line of a several hundred foot drop. Lemmie explain the grandeur of the view. There we were standing on the edge of a flora filled precipice with the view of the road that slithered for miles along the walls of tree covered mountains like a snake from some demented nightmare.
This was the first fall of 7 different ups and downs totalling a total of 4300metres of uphill elevation over a battling 200km stretch. Our legs pumped all day and our backs ached in the evening but me managed to leave the mountains. Though, really it wasn't all that bad. We went through Banana Country(I will talk about
bananars later), and in Pomelo Country we could smell the crisp citrus smell of Pomeloes for miles as occasional trucks would pass us, or we'd pass the hundred of not so perfect Pomeloes put into large piles in the gutter. After that, we went back in time once again. Like going from the 90s to the 80s the tea bushes went from trimmed to just about to be trimmed and the smell, oh god imagine an entire day of smelling the highest quality Oolong tea's because that is exactly what happened.
Bananers and Time travel. Each day we found them less and less ripe. On the first day we found fully picked Bananer trees and hundreds of vendors selling them of all kinds of ripeness. By The second day they left the stands and returned to the trees, days away from picked, and by the final days I say my first Bananer flowers.
Some other thoughts.
On the road I feel like I'm really improving a few things.
The most obvious is understanding of my bike, I'm learning how things work and even grasp the gears, how they change, what they do when they
do etc, which a few years ago I simply viewed a magic button. Likewise my ability to speak Chinese, and understand Chinese culture has improved by many folds. I'm capable of performing a clumsy version of the Chinese tea ceremony. When attempting to gain respect, it not through kindness nor aggression but a razor thin line between the two that typically involves some kind of complaining, however well I'm having a better success rate that before I still cut myself often on it.
Why Hadn't I got these things before? I think the way the schools here in China work strangle you in terms of adapting. Due to the T.A., Native speaker combination you really have no equals except other foreigners, So when going out with anyone the whole system is already unbalanced, you aren't discouraged but definitely not encouraged to deal with parents so that outlet for their culture doesn't really exist their either. And due to the schedules(In Training schools) your free-time rarely coincides with anyone else's free time thus strangling your ability to learn about Chinese culture.
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