My Daily Commute

Every morning I have a 20 minute bike ride to get to school. This is getting harder and harder as the days get colder and colder! In a way, it is good, because I get my heart rate going early in the morning to jolt me awake. Is it because of the bike riding? Nooooo...the riding is painfully slow due to the high numbers of other bikers with various speeds and conditions of bikes. Some are old and barely working, others have huge loads on them: piles and piles of vegetable or cardboard or tin drums to roast sweet potatoes in, or anyother thing you can think of. Sometimes the loads of stuff is piled 6 feet high! Needless to say, I have to bike very slowly to navigate through this mess. The thing that gets my heart rate up is trying to cross the intersections...there are traffic signals but no one seems to follow them. Cars, bikes, buses, and people go as they plese regardless of whether the light is green or red. The only thing you can do is just push your way forward and hope you don't get hit. I have several near misses per day...it really gets your adrenaline going! When Matt was in Beijing, I had one of my near misses when I was trying to flag down a taxi, and it didn't phase me. Matt was like, "You almost died right now!" It is mayhem, but a lot less so than other countries. Progress is being made also. Now they have a driving test that you have to pass before you can have a license to drive a car!


Morning in Beijing 


My Daily Commute