You Need to Park your Bike Here Chengdu, Sichuan 1. Bicycle Park

When you ride your bike to town, you have to park it in special bike parking places. There are thousands of bikes parked here. Some ladies run the parking facilities. They show you where to park, put a numbered wooden tag with a string on the bike and give you the corresponding tag to keep. When you get back to claim your bike they check your tag against the bike tag to make sure you are getting your bike and not stealing a bike. It cost 3 fen, about 1 1/2 cents US for the service. The unit kindly gave us each a bike for our use. We picked up the bike at a government store. It was assembled but not so it would work. There was also no air in the tires. We had to go to a private shop to have it properly repaired to make it usable. Bernice and I put American Flag decals on the bike so we could find them amongst the thousands of bikes in the park. Whenever we rode people would shout in English to us, "Hello Americans." It was a good way to get acquainted with people.

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