Bicycle! Bicycle! I want to ride my...

Yes, Kiera and I have finally gotten bikes with which to roam the sycamore-shaded streets of Nanjing. Joy! Just today I biked down to the Phoenix Bookmall to buy a LP guide to Mongolia--summer trip plans are coming my way--and then on down past the construction site of what will be the world's 3rd tallest building (for a brief time after completion), and on up Beijing Street past an ancient bell tower. A new sense of freedom has been gained thanks to my bike--which I will be naming Heilong, or 'Black Dragon'. I had wanted to buy a green bike so that I could call it 'Lü Xiaolong', a pun on Bruce Li's Chinese name (Li Xiaolong), but no dice. There were no green bikes of good quality and reasonable price in the supermarket where we bought our bikes.

So it goes.

In other news, I'll be done testing my students soon, and then my summer can truly begin. It seems I'll be doing a bit of work here and there--providing lectures for top business and government officials at nearby Hohai University, or for younger students on the opening day of an English summer camp in Huai'an. I also may be tutoring a Chinese student who is planning on attending a boarding school in England next fall. End of July I'm thinking of heading up to explore the crystaline lakes, feathery steppes, cragged mountains, and vast deserts of Mongolia (Outer Mongolia as the acquisitive Chinese reckon it). End of August should see the arrival of my mother, father, and sister for a guided tour (myself the guide) of Shanghai as well as various parts of southwestern China.

A good summer it should be.