Are you brave enough to bike around Shanghai, China?

From Left to Right: Lorie, Aiduku, and Marla

Before I moved to Shanghai, everyone said there were too many bicyclers and people on mopeds and it was pretty dangerous to ride around on a bike. After being here for close to 4 months, I disagree. Walking is definitely more dangerous. At least on a bike I can choose to hit other pedestrians and mopeders, livening up the accident instead of just getting run over myself--that's no fun.

I have been hit by bicyclers riding on the sidewalk a couple times. What they do is peddle really slow and then run over your heel. Its like getting hit by a shopping cart at the grocery store except you are out walking on the sidewalk. It really takes talent on a bike.

I decided to rent a bike to see how bad it really was. I've been thinking about buying one because they have special bike lanes on all the roads and you can ride places quicker than taking a taxi when traffic is bad. Brent and I joined a group of three for some dangerous play last Saturday, the 14th of November.


I called a local bike shop (just googled "rent bikes Shanghai") and was able to rent 5 bikes and have them delivered for about $12 a person for the day. You can rent trucks here just like taxis. The bike company had a truck deliver our bikes to Century park for just a few dollars. We didn't find out until we got to the park with our bikes that you have to pay to visit the park and you can't ride bikes there! Looks like Century park is an adventure for another day . . . .

As for the bike ride, mine fell over twice (mostly from trying to film while riding-not recommended). Lorie (the blondie) also had a crash. Hers was from trying to crack nuts for a snack to eat while riding at the same time.Wow. I'm seeing a pattern here. hmmmm....

We biked on the new side of Shanghai called Pudong. It's much quieter than where Brent and I live in Puxi-the original Shanghai. We live in a very buy commercial area that is more the combat biking scene.

Our bike ride was great. Quiet and peaceful. I raced a few delivery drivers from Sherpas on there little electric bikes (they weren't as into as I was).

I apologize now for the movies. Biking and filming is a bad combo (for you and for me). The weather was a little cold, about 45 Fahrenheit with a little wind. The temperature in November was hot for the first week and now we are into winter weather. Usually around 35 - 45 and with rains every other day or so. Not bad when your coming from Alaska.

We put our new Chinese law-aversion skills into practice. We are getting accustomed to Chinese ways quickly. They post many signs for rules like "don't bike here," but we know better. We followed the other bikes across all the areas with "no biking" signs. We even rode and waved to the cops and security guards as we went by. Its a bit like Singapore here when it comes to crime, homeless people, and disturbances. They happen. All the time. The government just hushes them up or covers them up. (I also cannot read the newspaper so I hear about these things even less).

I just found info online that says Shanghai is starting a bike sharing program where you can rent a bike for $1 yuan an hour through a company called forever bicycles. I also found a cool website that lists bike sharing across the globe for all you travelers. Check it out here. Sounds good to me!

How much would you pay to look like you've been mugged?

After another day of adventure in Shanghai, China, I love that I have a picture like this to show off. Your probably wondering how I survived the brutal beating that left these marks on my back, but there is a good back story to war wounds.

Any good Chinese doctor can do this for you (or to you) . . . . read on for the story.

The pollution in Shanghai worked its magic on me and I've had a sinus infection here for quite a while. I was feeling pretty run down two weeks ago, so I went with a few Asian expat teachers to try out some of the traditional Chinese medicine (tmc) that they swore gets your body working properly again.

I went to a spa/tmc provider located in a gorgeous apartment area near People's Square. I went in with my friends (who could translate Chinese for me whew) and put on the little Chinese pajama-type clothes they give to customers who get Chinese massages. The tmc practitioner came out and held my wrist to feel what was wrong in my body. She asked me some questions about how long I had been sick, my sleeping, coughing, and other personal tibits. I'm sure plenty of what I said was lost in translation--I find that happens often. I say, "I've been coughing and feeling sick because the air is polluted" and they get "she's been staying up late and drinking. Those foreigners." Well, many foreigners do like to party here, but I've been sticking to a normal granny bedtime of 9:30 pm so I figured she was a little off base when she asked me if I like to stay up late. Like to and get to are two different things right?

Then the doc talked to a few of her helpers and told them to give me a massage, to use a special heat treatment to suck the cold out of me and get my qi (or engergy) balanced, and to perform Gua Sha. Now when someone translates this to you they say, "hey, if you want to feel better, you need to do Gua Sha," and you think, "okay. I want to feel better. Let's try it." Like signing up for a job in another country, you never know what you are signing up for until you get here.

What the heck is Gua Sha?

Well, Gua Sha means to scrape the fever or sickness from the body. What they did for me was to put oil on my back and take a rounded wooded object (almost like a shoe horn) and begin to put pressure on my back with the object and stroke my back with the that thing repeatedly. This combing left quite the marks on me as you can see from the picture. Did it hurt. Okay, yes it did.

Surprisingly, the marks faded in about 4 days and were gone in a week. Sure it was painful, but I survived. I think that its one of those things that if you did it a lot, it wouldn't feel so bad. For anyone that remembers having to run the timed mile in elementary, before we knew that people actually practice running to get better at it, getting the Gua Sha treatment is a lot easier (not quicker though).

Did it work. Hmmm. Hard to say. It did make me feel incredibly tired, like I had to listen to an audio tape on rock morphology while digging post holes. My brain was mush and my body was about there too. I was so tired after the combing or back beating as I like to call it that I probably got the best sleep I've had since I moved to China. I was too tired to think, dream, or worry. My cough and sickness went down considerably over the next few days. I couldn't tell if it was from the treatment or not. It made me wonder about the old doctor's advice: "Take this and you will be better in a week. If not, you will have to wait 7 days."

Either way, I got an hour massage, a meal, some interesting heat treatments to suck the cold out of my body (kinda like putting a warm stick on pressure points on your body), and a nice Gua Shan beating all for about $50 bucks. I think tomorrow I'll just go for the massage. That sets me back about $7 an hour. I'll let you know how it goes . . . I don't expect to look like I got hit by a moped after this one though.