Re: Dead newsgroup; let’s talk about UNICON!
“John Foss” <john_foss@asinet.com> wrote in message
news:631B3F1D150FD3118E4D00A0C9EC1BDA227829@SERVER…
> Not much newsgroup activity lately.
>
> I think a lot of us are recuperating from UNICON and taking it easy. But
the
> people who didn’t go are anxious to hear about it. What were your impressions?
> Your stories? Your best and worst experiences in China?
[snip]
I’ve been working on getting photos up. The first album of 50 Great Wall
pictures (two trips, two days apart) is up - take a look at:
http://www.zing.com/album/?id=4293756335&code=386601&mode=invite
click on a picture and you can see it medium sized, then pull down on Normal
Size and you can see the full sized version. You can order prints of these too.
If you use these on a web page, please include “Photo by Nathan Hoover”.
Both these trips were highpoints of the whole experience in China. Another was a
nighttime ride to Tianamen Square. 15 of us rode to the subway and took it
downtown, stopping 2 stops short of the famous square. When we arrived, we
attracted lots of attention (including from the Police). After a long photo
session, we did a complete lap around the square which was great. It was about
9pm, dark, lots of people out and many were flying kites.
I loved riding with the Chinese kids too. At the track the first day, it was
really fun watching them practice, showing them my Muni (huge smiles when they
got to ride it), and riding with them. No smiles at the Muni race though - they
were all business. At one point I was passed on the flat by a little kid on a
16" wheel! They are SO fast and fearless. Not even Dan Heaton or Kris Holm had a
chance against them. Next time I say we make the course WAY harder, and no
walking - you have to ride every section!
Going out to dinner each night was great fun too. It was adventuresome as most
places didn’t have non-Chinese menus and English isn’t really spoken. One night,
by chance, just about all 50 people from the US ended up at the same restaurant,
taking over 6 tables, about half of the place. We got adventurous and managed to
order dog, then snake. My first meat in 15 years was dog! Not bad - didn’t taste
like chicken. The snake was more involved. After pulling it live out of a cage,
it took about 30 minutes to prepare. Others had finished eating, but no one
wanted to leave without trying the snake. We had spiced snake skin with
cucumber, snake meat with vegetables, and to top it off, snake soup. Beer is a
great deal in China. 640ml for $0.25 to $0.75 depending on the place. And no
discernable drinking age which REALLY appealed to the younger guys.
The beer drinking workshop is somewhat of a blur in my mind. I barely remember
my last successful test at 16 beers, but Roger wrote it down so it must be true.
It is amazing how hard it is to ride and do stuff after lots of alcohol. I
brought back 6 of those little 100ml bottles of rotgut that sold for $0.25 each
- the guys here at work tried it and liked it - I remember that during the beer
workshop it didn’t taste like much. Bruce killed us all, but he paid for it
dearly the next day.
What was a low point? The low point for me was the morning of our elusive “Muni
ride in the mountains north of Beijing.” Andy, Roger, Geoff and others had
worked really hard to pull this ride off. In fact, the night before they had
succeeded in getting a 15 person bus with driver for 9:30am. But come 8am, Geoff
and I were riding over to the Muni course looking for a mountain biker who might
accompany us for the day and show us some great trails to ride. Of course we
failed to find anyone who would agree - even with the whole thing spelled out on
paper. This was the low point.
The ride was salvaged though - plan B was to go to some temple/park that had a
high steep hill. We were dropped off and although we all set personal sweating
records, and much of it was unrideable for all but Kris, it was pretty fun after
all. We got to ride 1km of very nice singletrack that I’m sure has never before
been unicycled. We startled a couple looking for privacy, took lots of pictures
and the beer was great at the end.
There were lots and lots of other great things - it was a really amazing trip.
THANKS to everyone who helped to pull it off! I’ll write some more when I have
more pictures up.
—Nathan