day 85 - 112, Beijing District

Day 85, 150 km

Next morning I woke up at 3 and could not sleep. Instead I checked if I had got any sms. Hans Georg had written that he was interested to go together with me to my Warmshower-host Livy Ge. I answered him that I was actually almost in the same town and that we maybe could meet before we went there. At six he answered that I was welcome to his hotel to get a breakfast. I rode the 25 km to the hotel and there he told me that most of the Chinese hotels are not allowed to host foreigners! It was difficult for him to find a room and finally he had to take a dubble-room in a quite expensive hotel. That was the reason why I could eat breakfast there. And it really was worth to make the way 15 km longer!

After the breakfast we biked together on the old road and passed a giant coal-power station and then a city with a lot of people, cars, and bikes. Most of them actually drove electric bikes. It was really nice to experience the Chinese atmosphere and to have somebody to talk to. H-G is engineer and very interested in alternative energy questions so we discussed how much sense it made when everybody was riding electric bikes as long as the energy came from the coal power station.

It was difficult to find the mainroad through the town so we had to ask several times. Everybody we asked actually said the same so we trusted them, but five kilometers later it showed out to be the wrong road anyway. Because we did not want to return 5 km we lifted our bikes up to the highway and took a shortcut. There we decided to stay because the highway came much closer to Kanzhuang, the town were Livy Ge waited for us.

My pedal was very bad now again, it almost fell out of its hole. But I could ride in the windshadow of H-G so it was not so difficult for me.

We passed a very beautiful landscape with deep valleys 

and high mountains. 

But it was a little misty.

Finally we arrived at the Beijing Renwen University and called Livy Ge. 

He also came with an electro-bike and brought us to his parents house. 

His mother worked as cook and had prepared a wonderful meal for us.

In the evening Livy Ge showed us the town and invited us to test more Chinese food. Amongst others we tested shredded cartilage (bråsk/Knorpel)

Then we went to bed in the beautiful home of Livy Ge.

Day 86, 20 km.

Next day the first thing we did was to see if the local bicycle dealer could help me. Actually ha had a crank with three gears that almost fitted. Of course I cannot use the smallest cogwheel but I think I can make it to Beijing and fix a new longer axle there. It was scratchy and dirty so it was not so expensive (together with a new pedal 55 Yuan).

Then we ate breakfast in a little breakfast restaurant. They made fresh bread outside which you ate together with a soup. 

Then Livy Ge helped me to buy a new phonecard.

We decided to ride on our bicycles to the Great Wall which had a very famous tourist point in Badalin, only 10 km away. Livy Ge rode on his mothers bike.

We bought tickets for the cable car bot the queue was several hundred meters long! 

Finally we came up but there the queue continued up to the Great wall.

It was incredible how crowded it was on the wall neaar the cable car. Sometimes you were happy when you could move one step per ten seconds. And about 99% were Chinese people. Even they stared at us and wanted to take pictures of us together with them. Especially H-G was very popular because he is more than 2 m and has long blond hair. We joked about that he should take paid for every photo they took an he would become rich...

You could walk several kilometers and then there was not so much people.

I wore my t-shirt of my sponsor of Svartsö Matsal, so now this place will be known in whole China.

But to walk on the wall was very exhausting because it was hot and it was going up and down all the time. 

Sometimes it was really steep so many people had difficulties with their shoes and climbed over the steps without any shoes. The steps could be much higher than deep.

In the end we just sat down

ate some food and watched people going around and taking pictures.

Finally we walked down to our bikes and rode home to Livy Ge's house. There we ate dinner and then we went to an Internet cafe where I hoped to be able to solve my technical problems. Unfortunately there was no WIFI in the whole town and at the cafe it was forbidden and impossible to up- and download anything. Anyway we had a good time there and made many important things.

Day 86, 10 km

Livy Ge had to get up early because he worked in Beijing and H-G wanted to go there by bike to organize and prepare his studies at the University. I had got contact with an organic farm in the very same city where I was and I should be there at 8. So we said good bye to each other and to Livy Ges parents.

Day 85 – 111 beijing

Here is a short summary of my wonderful time in Beijing:

First I stayed for two days at a farm called Organic and beyond.

I also went to the interantional airport of Beijing to meet my son Anton who now studies in Hongkong. He had some hours waiting time and we used it to go downtown Beijing and have a good time.

Then I moved to another farm which had many fields with flowers and vegetables.

Here are my working mates:

People from whole Beijing came there looked at the flowers, picked some vegetables and took many pictures. 

Also local TV and newspapers came and interviewed me about my journey. I asked them to mail a link with the interview but there never came any. Instead I heared from  people I met that they had read about me in the newspapers or that they had seen me on TV.

I volonteered also by participating in luxourios dinners with politicans of the town.

The farmers owner Suwen (left) was marketing her farm intensely and introduced me as her foreign friend. I also became photomodel in one of the brochures of the farm.

From the farm I made different excoursions by bike, amongst others to a grassland where I rode on a horse

and to a george where I took a boat on a river 

and then climbed a very steep mountain. 

I liked it so much 

that I decided to climb another big holy mountain 500 km south of Beijing before I would go to South Korea.

The third week I was invented to one of the new Waldorfschools in Beijing. 

I told about my journey for class four and showed them many pictures.

I also went with them to the northern mountains. 

When Chinese people rest they often sit in a very special way

There we slept in tents. 

In the evening we made a fire and the children sang chinese songs.

Next day we climbed on a mountain and had a wonderful view.

Then I worked some days in the garden of the new school. Nobody had taken care of this gaden for ages, so it was almost like a jungle. The last day of my visit we made an excursion by bicycle in the sourroundings

and in the afternoon we made huge compost heaps in the garden.

I also made eccursions downtown Beijing and saw the tempel of heaven, the forbidden city the summer pallace and the botanical garden.

Here are some pictures (I made several hundreds):

The last evening in Beijing (the same day we rode bicycle and made compost), I met Levi Ge (which I had met my first day in Beijing) and Hans Georg (which I had met in the Gobi desert and some more times after that). He brought also his room mates who like him study chinese language.We decided to invite Livy Ge to a german restaurant called Schindlers Tankstelle.