Youbiking on a sunny afternoon? We contemplated visiting the movies and eating out, but decided instead to take advantage of the perfect spring weather and get out and amongst it. We'd left our decision a little late, so we consulted the interactive bike station map to make sure there would be a bike available for us at our chosen destination. We are approximately in the centre of a triangle of stations and luckily the one nearest the river had the most available bikes. We headed down to the side entrance of Jishan Station to mount up.
After finding a couple of suitable steeds and adjusting saddles and heights, we weaved our way through a maze of streets to the river paths. Our easy access road was blocked by a giant new building project and another elevated road under construction! It's amazing how quickly this infrastructure gets built here: we'd only gone down this very road a few short months ago and no obstruction was evident! A quick detour to the 7/11 for a drink and a takeaway picnic lunch, a false start on a couple of alleys and paths and we found our way down riverside.
The bikeways were teeming with cyclists, joggers, strolling groups and hopeful fishermen. After a short spell of riding and finding a deserted and tiny isthmus jutting out into the confluence of two rivers pathside, we decided to take a little break and have our mini picnic; a salad for Cass and a sandwich for me. The marina opposite is an oddity here: we've only seen one other in our time on-island. The action on the far bank seemed to be mainly coffee drinking and boat admiring rather than any serious boating!
With a deceptively feathery tailwind, we started out for the city proper passing fields of baseballers all kitted out and playing/practicing, soccer kiddies battling it out on riverside pitches and hoards of family and friends in gigantic lines of concrete bleachers built along the entire length of the combined playing arenas. We passed by quaint temples with incongruous pop music blaring forth and tiny pontoons and wooden bridges over river inlets where dragon boats were moored, looking quite forlorn in their off-season. Onwards past the legal graffitti wall, under the feng shui nightmare of intertwining overhead freeways near the Grand Hotel and out along the Neihu riverside embankment wall.
We decided to go even further along to the main Dazhi suspension bridge, which we crossed at vertigo inducing heights before dropping down to the riverside park on the far bank. Somehow, the tailwind zephyr had morphed into a fierce beast, dulling our progress, changing our gears and generally making life quite a chore. Nevermind, the beauty of the Youbike system is that you can drop the bikes back at any station that has a free park! After winding our way around the Art Museum, we crossed over into Yuanshan Park where the annual Lantern Festival is in full swing.
We were quite a sight negotiating our way through the blissful crowds, an added complication that their eyes were trained skywarsd on various kitsch renditions of goats and Disney characters fashioned into behemoth lanterns. Many didn't know how close they came to being totally Youbiked!
Eventually, we made our way out beyond the station to the bike stand and deposited our rides back for a bit of pocket change wiped off our Easy Cards. Same card in hand, we strolled over to the MRT station and got the train four stops home. We watched an entertaining cricket match as the Aussies beat a very galant Sri Lanka, and Cass, to her horror, ended up cooking another weekend meal! We've earmarked a day through the week as an "eat-out" for this most unusual and unsettling turn of events!
Photos: Dave's neglected mountain of grading successfully conquered through the week, cats relaxing in their default positions, shots of the bikepath and riverside sights.