Getting Around Town

The bicycle and the moped (think Honda Spree circa 1989) are HUGE players here in Shanghai. We knew that before we moved. What we didn’t know was the extreme resourcefulness used with these “vehicles”. Some examples:

Last week, while we were walking in our neighborhood, we heard the gentle hum of a moped behind us. As the sound approached, we also began to hear an accompanying clanking. Not knowing what was going on, we turned in shear amazement to find a man pulling a lawn mower from the back of his moped.

While coming home from work several days ago, Scott spied two gentlemen – each riding a bicycle. What was slightly peculiar about these two gentlemen was that each of them had an 8 foot wide by 12 foot tall pile of trash anchored to the back of his bike.

We didn’t know how lucky we were to have a car and driver...until last night. On a very busy road, in the rain, we saw a family of three buzzing down the road on a scooter – which if you ask me, would be uncomfortable for one.

And then finally, this morning, we saw a guy with not only a queen-size mattress tied to his bike, but also the matching box springs. Oh – almost forgot – it was in the middle of... literally...a monsoon.