WOO HAH

After a long hiatus, I am back in a big way (that's a terrible attempt a joke about me being tall and in China. Get it?).  Summer's been all kinds of done for quite some time now and I suppose it's about that time to throw another update out on the series of tubes known and the internets.

So:

What it do friends, family, and chumps of other various affiliations to myself?  I suppose it's been a while since I've put anything up here and it's getting to the point where some of you may be wondering what the hell I'm doing (probably not, but a guy can always pretend that people care about him).  Well, as most of you are aware I'm back in China.  I've been back now for about four weeks now and I guess I'll try to bang out a greatest hits post here of what it's like being back.  

First things firstly, since this is shaping up to be more of the informational type post I may as well entice you with some music which will then hopefully guilt you into reading the whole thing.  Or I suppose you could just download an hours worth of free music that I prepared for you (with love no less) and then get the funk out.  But then you would suck.  Don't be that dude.  (Kehoe, I'm looking in your direction).

Check it: FREE MUSIC

Now that you got some jams pleasuring your earholes, let's get to it.  Upon my arrival a few weeks ago everything went smoothly.  Both bikes made it without getting lost as did my luggage (first time that's happened in three trips over here).  The driver from my school picked me up form the airport (ballin) and drove me to my new apartment where my old friend (from the Stp) and new roommate Megan was waiting with Q-Tip the D-O-double-G.  I didn't really know where my new place was since Megan found it this summer while I was back home but once I found out where it was I was super excited to say the least.  It's right at a subway stop, around the corner from a bunch of restaurants and a short bike ride from some really great hutong (old chinese alley) neighborhoods.  It also turns out that I'm a 10 minute bike ride from the hutong where three of my friends just moved to also.  In short, I'm A LOT closer to everything I wanted to be closer to (friends, restaurants, bars, places to bike) and now only a 35 minute bike ride from work.  Also, that 35 minute bike ride includes about 10 minutes biking around and cutting through a very beautiful but largely abandoned olympic park.  I find this part of my commute pretty awesome just about everyday.  I'll try and put some pictures up of that soon too.

We got a bunch of new teachers this year and they all seem pretty cool.  All in all, the office just feels more comfortable this year than last year and also much more positive and professional.  Small world alert: the new nurse graduated with me from St. Olaf but we had never met.  Weird stuff.  

I spent the first couple weeks and weekend scoping out the new neighborhood and seeing friends I hadn't seen for a couple months or more.  I was introduced to a guy who suggested that we get together with the guitar player from his band and jam in their practice space.  I damn near wet my pants at this suggestion.  So hopefully that's gonna start soon.  

The weather's been bouncing back and forth between hot as bawlz and actually pretty nice.  It rained for about 4 days in a row a week ago, and in a place where rain is enough of an anomally, 4 days straight was pretty strange.  However, after it cleared, Beijing experienced that lovely post-rain chill that us Minnesotans know so well and we were hit with about a week straight of clear skies (again, weird stuff) and 70's, just perfect for my first long bike ride of the new school year. 

Saturday we embarked on our journey via bus at 6:30am in an attempt to beat traffic out of the city and get to the country side at a reasonable hour.  After a few hours in the bus (traffic hit us like a ton of shit bricks) we made it to the drop spot, got out, and started riding.  After a couple hours and about 80 kilometers of pretty hard pounding on the pedals we took a break to get more water, maybe a coke, and I opted for some white rice at this restaurant:

(check the shirtless dude in the back.  He may be reason #1 why I enjoy living here so much sometimes)  

It was around this time that Tom (the guy who organizes the rides) discovered that we had missed a turn/that turn didn't exist.  That meant that instead of having about 30 miles left, we instead had about 50 to go.  It also turned out that most of those 50 miles were false flat (gradual uphill) and into a head wind.  Fun stuff.  So last saturday I rode my first century (over 100 miles in a day) on accident. I got back home around 8:30pm, making it a 14-15 hour biking day.  Not too bad, but tough on my poor legs that had only done city biking and a carney sized handful of 40 mile rides this summer.  For those interested (which is most likely none of you) we did the whole 100 miles in almost exactly 5 hours with a couple substantial rest stops, making our average speed somewhere between 22-24 miles per hour.  Not super fast but definitely not slacking.  

Lastly, my dog is hella cute:

Peace & Hairgrease Homies