Sunday bike rides in Shanghai

Eric here: for the past several months I've been biking regularly on Sunday mornings with a group of guys from the Emerald and other nearby compounds. Our rides are anywhere from 40 to 70 kilometers, and have stretched from downtown Shanghai, to the little water villages that dot the Pudong area where we live, to the coastline. The most fascinating aspect is experiencing the uneven economic development of the area, from small farms that seem to barely have electricity, to the international brands lining the shopping roads in the middle of the city. There are newly built roads that seem to go from nowhere to another nowhere, because the places they're meant to reach just don't exist yet. We can stop for breakfast at a dumpling place in Pudong where we can get 8 plates of dumplings for 28 RMB, or stop at a Starbucks in Xintiandi where a latte goes for 30 RMB. The variety is extraordinary.

Just a taste of photos from this late summer and fall:

Riding through the wet market near Yu Yuan gardens -- the game is to flip to first gear and see if you can keep riding. Try to find the blue bike helmet in the sea of heads!

The group on the Bund in front of Pudong on a particularly sunny November day, with the Pearl Tower, the Jin Mao Tower, and the International Financial Center in the background.

At the coast -- this was a very long ride and the trip back was a bitch.

Down the Nanjing shopping street -- avoid the trolleys!

Big construction hole in Pudong -- probably another midrise on its way up.

There are a lot of pedestrian / bike / motorcycle ferries that

will take you across the river for 1 RMB -- here we are on our way across with the Lupu Bridge in the background

Another nice ride in Pudong with the Jin Mao and IFC looming in the foreground.

The farming areas in Pudong are criss-crossed with little canals that are crossed by bike accessible bridges...

Or in some cases pipes that are somewhat more perilous to cross...

We ran across a house in the farming area that had beautiful orange trees out front and had to stop for a snack. At first we weren't sure that the woman who owned the house understood that we wanted to buy some. After a few minutes of confusion, however, she ducked into her house and brought out her scale, all business. The first bag of oranges were something like 1RMB apiece; after we finished, she started offering us volume discounts on more. A true running-dog capitalist....