The hills...

are alive! Well maybe not, but at least they were visible today, which was a first. The weather has been perfect for the last couple days. Nice blue skies, low humidity, daytime highs around 25, and of course, good visibility.

What else is new? My bike is falling apart piece by piece. The kickstand rusted in half last week so I got it replaced. It cost me 7 RMB to replace it. There's nothing holding the seat onto the bike now, so if I'm walking it over a curb I have to hold the seat down to keep it from flying off. The chain also falls off sometimes, usually when I'm trying to go quickly, which tends to be the worst possible time for it to fall off. Despite all that I still love riding it. It's a at least a septillion times better than taking the bus to work.

Biking is a lot more fun and interesting here than Ottawa. The traffic here can be incredibly chaotic, especially on smaller roads. There are construction vehicles, cars, trucks, cyclists, and pedestrians going in in both directions on what is essentially a one lane road, because people basically just go wherever it's convenient rather than sticking to the right side. Despite that, AND the fact that my bike is a crappy one speed that is literally falling apart, I feel much safer biking here than I did in Ottawa. People actually pay attention to what's going on and respond appropriately!

Anyway, as soon as I can figure out a good way how I want to take a video of biking up the small road near my place. The larger road that I turn onto is pretty mundane, but the small road is usually pretty interesting in the morning, and sometimes even moreso at night, especially in the rain!

Anyway, more pictures and stuff as I get back into the habit of posting.