mixed emotions

Today I did a quick effort on the Laoshan Park course, I used to call this the Olympic Venue, but in the best traditional Chinese way, their way of 'preserving' items is to basically knock it down, and then rebuild it in concrete or other modern materials.

It is with much sadness that I have to report that the amazing, great and super tough Olympic MTB course, is almost extinct, gone, well sort of.

They are paving the trails.

To encourage more walkers and people to the area, they are paving the dam lot. It looks nothing short of a open air shopping centre. It's disgusting, and once the "The Bicycle Cluster" is now turning into nothing more than a couple of spots.

The area could have been a super fantastic area for China, Beijing to pedal their way forward for a sports area, but alas, it's not to be.

Time for me to move on.... but the areas are getting fewer and further apart.

That was the sad part of today ride, I am due to go out there again tomorrow, maybe I have 1 more week left of the trails, before they are all completely gone. Time is a killer on this one.

One of the bonus of living here in China is the smell. If you can forget about the pollution, the smell of all the vehicles, and go further than that, the smell of people cooking, when our outside is just amazing.

It is nothing short of a mouth watering festival every-time I go out, and come back. Why aren't the people fat? (Excluding the youth of today, and visiting the MacDs and KFCs of this world)

That is one of the reasons why I like it here so far, you have to look beyond the surface of things, and see what it is for real.