Its nice to be back because...

It was wonderful to be back in the States with all of the English speakers and fresh air, but now that we are back in China, what are the things we are most happy to have back?

Bicycle room would be the big thing for Cara. Everywhere you go here cars and pedestrians make room for bicycle riders. Well, they make room for bike riders in as much as they make room for anybody, which is to say pretty much not at all. But by the same token, everyone just accepts being cut off by a car, bicycle, or pedestrian with an equal amount of acceptance. When we were driving in Pennsylvania, there was a bicycle who wanted to share the road with the cars because there was no bike lane for him. It was somewhat disruptive to traffic as the cars behind him had to slow down. And while no one actually honked during the 50 seconds the horrible disruption lasted, it was easy to tell how out of place the bicycle rider was.

Now we are back to where bike riders don't slow traffic down because they are quietly riding on the side of the road. Here they completely take over car lanes when there is no bike lane - or if the bike lane simply feels inadequate due to construction, general crowdedness. or whim - and cause massive slow downs. And if there is a break in the cross traffic when a gaggle of bike riders wants to cross the intersection? Well, if those on-coming cars have a destination so non-critical that they are willing to allow a 20 second gap in the traffic, then clearly they also have enough time to wait for the entire peloton of bikers to (ever so slowly) race across the intersection, usually drafting any waiting pedestrians along in their wake. It has been my non-biased assessment that the pedestrians actually cause more intersection slow downs because they take a much longer time to cross than us speedy bicyclists.

Ahhh... its good to be home.