Hello world! I have emerged from my thesis writing den to share a really neat project that is pedaling through Japan right now. It’s called I Believe That Dreams Can Come True, and it is the brainchild of Val and Tay, two girls from Singapore who are riding around the world, collecting dreams. Apparently they stumbled into my friend’s restaurant, became fast friends, and their project was introduced to me via the interwebs. I haven’t had the chance to meet them in person yet (I am a thesis hermit), but I had them answer a few questions through email. It’s a very interesting and inspirational project; apparently Tal learned to ride a bike for this.
Jess - What is the I believe dreams can come true project all about?
I Believe That Dreams Can Come True is about 2 girls, 2 film makers who has abandoned their traditional TV business, to go around the world on our bicycles to document stories of people taking their first step towards their dreams, people en route chasing their dreams, and people living their dreams on videos, photos and writings.
It is a community project borned with the intentions to
Spread the belief that dreams can come true
Share stories of people’s personal dreams
Inspire dreams
And with this project, we hope for “One Dream Shared, One Dream inspired“ - with every dream that is shared on the website, somewhere out there in another part of the world, another is inspired.
Jess - How does riding bikes fit in to the project?
We initially decide to cycle because the first dream we were going to document was that of an old Taiwanese Uncle. Trains are his passion from young. At the age of 65, his last dream in life is to cycle to all 273 train stations in Taiwan and take a photo to remind of his glorious days at each of the train stations. Uncle has lived his life pursuing his dreams, one after another, even at the age of 65, his eyes sparkled while talking about his next dream. We were touched by this fire, this passion, this innocence, this simplicity to live a life driven by dreams. And because, his enthusiasm touched a deeper part of our hearts, Val volunteered to go on the round-Taiwan cycling trip with him. Because of this promise, “I Believe That Dreams Can Come True; Around The World; On Our Bicycles” was born. In a romantic way of expression, we wanted to cycle as a symbolic way to pass on Uncle’s spirit of living his dreams from one country to another, from one person to another. On a practical note, it is the cheapest mode of transport and it allows us to travel at the pace we want to and stop wherever we want to, gone with adhering to the bus & train schedules.
Even though Val had quite a tough time learning and getting over her fear for the bicycle, our bicycles (Stylo & Mylo) have served us well.
Jess - So far you have been to Taiwan and now you are in Japan, what other stops are you going to make?
We planned to cycle around the world for the next 5 years, to as many countries as possible. We do not have a planned fixed route because we have learnt that it is quite pointless planning anyway, our plans could never keep up with the changes that are happening at every moment of our adventures. However, the rough guide will be from Japan-Canada-Alaska-Denmark-US-South America-Europe-Middle East-Africa-Australia-New Zealand-Asia (back home to Singapore)
Jess - What kinds of activities do you have planned in your ports of call?
We plan what we are going to do in that particular country when we have reached there and had a feel of the place and its culture. Taiwan is a country known for her welcoming people and their hospitality. And because of that, we decided to do a round-Taiwan-island cycling trip and collect dreams along the way with the people we meet and it worked beautifully! We met so many strangers turned friends, from young children to old retirees who have no qualms about doing a video interview and sharing their dreams with the world.
For Japan, we have decided to gear our activities towards the children of Japan. Firstly because we have a soft spot for children, secondly and more importantly, we observed that many Japanese, especially in Tokyo lived a well-conditioned life that resolves around their work. We wondered what their dreams are? And we thought: what if we can start with the children, who are still innocent. What if we can let them know, it is alright to dream, to dream big, to dream what the heart truly desires? What if we can let them feel the joy of living a dream? What will their future be like then? With the hope of sowing seeds to empower the children of Japan to dream, to encourage them to do the things they truly love, to help them believe that we can all be someone greater, we decided to work with the children of Japan. And the plan is let Japanese tell their children what it is like to dream. We have sent out mailers to ask Japanese from all over Japan to send us a message, a drawing, a present they would like to give to their children. At the same time, we are cycling onto the streets, to significant spots in Tokyo to collect drawings from people. We will be producing a film at the end of submission based on the drawings we have collected to be given to all children-related organizations for education purposes.
Jess - So far, how has the cycling been different in different places?
Singapore - a country we will not cycle in, for now because cars do not honor cyclists on the roads.
Taiwan - very ‘long distance cycling’ friendly, i.e. if you are doing a round-island cycling trip or if you are like us, cycling around the world carrying panniers on your bicycles, you will be greeted by strangers zooming past in their cars, scooters who would shout out from across the road to you: “Jia You!” which means “Gambateh!” We made many friends just by carrying our panniers around. Once, a couple stopped their car in the middle of the road whilst we were cycling along the road to tell us our seats are too low. They even showed us there and then how which seat position will make cycling more energy efficient. So, in Taiwan, we never felt alone when we are cycling.
Japan - so far the experience has been comfortable. By comfortable, I mean lifestyle cycling is way of life for the Japanese: to ferry their kids to school, to buy groceries, to cycle in schools, policemen patrol in bicycles, etc. And because of that, we feel like part of the community as we zoom down the streets with the other cyclists. And we like the fact that we can park our bikes anywhere, walk around, come back and know that our bikes will still be there! And as we are typing, we are now finding ways and means to make our bikes stand out in the crowd and look different so that people will come talk to us for us to collect drawings since we do not speak Japanese!
Jess - Do you have any special adventures to share about your journey on bike so far?
If it is about biking you are asking, then here’s we are at with regards to cycling:
Val has journeyed from learning how to cycle circles in a tiny park in Singapore, to mastering cycling on the busy roads in Taiwan with scooters who would try to squeeze into any tiny space in between any vehicles possible and monster buses who shows no mercy cutting into the path of bicycles, to outlasting her own oxygen limits by cycling up never-ending slopes along the Eastern Coast in Taiwan on a foldie as tiny as she is. These learnings have been very adventurous!
Tay is trying to come from “We are not going to be able to accomplish this without a better, larger hybrid bike” to “Mylo is going to complete this round-the-world journey no matter what other people say”. She has come to accept our little foldie as our companions. She is now trying to master riding with her left hand so that she can hold the video camera with the right whilst cycling.
If you are asking about special adventures on our journey. We will need to write a book to finish talking about them, even though we are only at our 2nd country! Cycling has allowed us to meet many interesting people along the way and walk into their lives to share a very personal/ private bit of their lives with us. Each of them is a special adventure: The retired train master who has to postponed his dreams because his mum passed away, the poet we met one night in a little town in Taiwan, the class of students who told us they do not have dreams, the old couple who cooked us a whole table full of food, dessert and supper, the English teacher who host us because she wants to bring the world into her classroom, the special needs students who gave us a hair wash cum massage and sang us a song, the teachers who rekindled their passion for teaching, the owners of a B&B who makes delicious and healthy breakfast, the couple who runs a home stay that they built on their own, the Japanese family who treats us like their own children and provides us two meals a day, etc. Its an endless list. We have been asked many times what has been special and memorable so far, our answer has always been: the people. Its the people that we meet, the exchanges and sharings that we had, that made every single moment of this journey beautiful and every single sight worth remembering.
I just got back from a little academic/pleasure trip to Helsinki, Finland. It was awesome! The weather was beautiful (only one flash hail storm in the week we were there), it was hot and at this time of year 11:30pm is still twilight. Our hotel had free loaner bikes. They were battleship Kronans, weighing a good 30kg (at least), one-speed with coaster brakes which I haven’t experienced since I was seven and was totally unaccustomed to. We took these bikes out for some mini excursions as the university was quite close by, but it was the unplanned, wandering ride out of the city that was one of my favourite parts of the whole trip. This isn’t the exact route, but it was something like this. I had guessed it about 30km, but it turns out to have been more like 40.
We made some stops along the way. The first point of interest was the waterfall by the museum of (history? culture? I forget).
And some fisherpeople.
Refueling with Kage…
Then back on the road…
They have bike paths on the sidewalks in a lot of Helsinki, but even out in the suburbs (which feel like the country) they have great separated paths everywhere.
Well, it’s already Friday, so I’m a bit slow on this post. Last weekend was a long weekend here in Japan. Last Sunday was the vernal equinox, and since some people had to work on Sunday, everybody got Monday off. I was up in the near country side with a whole pack of cool ladies, playing soccer, trying not to get forced into playing softball, having BBQs, enjoying the early cherry blossoms and just hanging out. I was kind of eager to get back to the city since I’ve got a lot going on these days, but on the way back our train stopped in a town called Kawagoe, which is a really cool place, so we decided to go exploring a bit.
Kawagoe has some really amazing old buildings and is famous for traditional sweets, sweet potatoes, grilled eel, and soba noodles. It’s a delicious town. You can even rent bikes by the train station. I’ve been to Kawagoe a few times before, and I always find or learn something new. This time I stumbled upon this really cute tenugui shop. Tenugui is a kind of cloth that you can use for anything you like: wrapping, wiping, hanging, covering; it’s kind of like a long bandanna. I got a little leaflet explaining tenugui’s history, but I will spare you here. I had to buy this neat bicycle design one and then had to work on my wrapping skills.
Tenugui in action:
The fabulous French Fab modeling a successfully tenugui-ed wine bottle
I just got back from a short trip to Dalian, China. My purpose was simple: meet up with some childhood friends from Montreal and have a little reunion, eat some tasty food, do a bit of shopping, and just get a feel for the place. This was my first visit to China and I asked my friend who is living there about getting a hold of some bikes to cruise around the city on. Her email response prior to my departure gave the impression that she had never considered riding a bike in Dalian. I was informed that a Dalian winter is much colder than a Montreal winter, which is much colder than a Toronto winter, which made me consider canceling my trip. I was envisioning -50°C at noon. She also told me that while there are some traffic signals, they are more like guidelines, but not so strictly followed, and that I would understand when I got there. So, I hopped on a plane for a few hours and ended up in a totally different world.
Thankfully I hit Dalian during a heatwave, though I was secretly kind of wishing to have to try out the amazing inch thick long underwear that I saw for sale in the markets. The thing about the traffic that my friend had warned me about became clear very quickly, and I learned to stick close behind the locals when crossing the street. While I did see a number of pedal powdered vehicles, they were mostly tricycles, and they were mostly stationary. The good thing about this is that they were usually loaded up with delicious fresh fruits and veggies. Bicycle culture in Dalian does seem to be shadowed by car culture or perhaps all the cyclist were chilling at home celebrating Chinese new year. I still had a great time sticking to the side streets, the markets and underground malls. I definitely want to explore more of China, but maybe I’ll save the biking for the countryside.
So it seems that frames made of bamboo are kind of hot these days. There are finished frames, do-it-yourself kits, courses, and charity organizations all offering bamboo bikes in some way. Apparently the material makes for a nice ride that’s stiff with a bit of flex. I’ve done some superficial googling for you:
http://bamboobikestudio.com
http://www.calfeedesign.com - the triathlon model
http://www.organicbikes.com
I assumed that this was a new trend geared towards the LOHAS crowd. Well, wasn’t I surprised to come across this:
114 year old bamboo bike
I think these bikes are all beautiful and would love to take a bamboo bike out for a test ride.
This product landed in my inbox this morning, and I thought it was a pretty hot idea. You ride in your own self-mounted spot lights. This is a row of LEDs that you strap on to your chainstay and down tube. I admit, they don’t look so great in the light, but in the dark, you’re looking at a flashy, and possibly safer night time commute. I’m thinking of investing in some.
One of my top youtube searches of 2009 was for parkour. You know, those guys, and sometime girls, who run around cities, scaling walls, hopping from rooftop to rooftop, and swinging off poles? Sure you do, those who are really good at it make it into Hollywood movies as stunt artists, and we also saw some really hunky parkour guys touring with Madonna on her Confessions tour in 2006.
Well, today I discovered the amazing amalgamation of two incredible urban activities: parkour and biking. The guy in the video, Danny MacAskill, has wicked skills and no fear.
I’ve now been back in Tokyo a few days after spending about 3.5 weeks in frigid Toronto and soggy Seattle. It was a great trip catching up with old friends and spending some time with the family, but I sure am glad to be back and to see that my bike was still curled up in corner of the lab at school where I left her over the holidays.
I’m a bit sad to report that I did zero riding while I was away. It only dropped to a mere -19°C in Toronto, and it did rain for 3 days without stopping in Seattle, but there were still people out riding in both cities. Toronto and Seattle cyclists are hardcore, and way heartier than I.
Candy Cranks authors have also been posting some great pics of winter riding. I have real respect for all of you who brave the ice and snow on two wheels. I was inspired to do a little research on winter riding and came up with the antique ice bike posted above, as well as a neat website based out of Sapporo that is dedicated to riding, both for commuting and recreation, in snow. Check it out (Japanese only): http://icebike.gogo.tc/
Sydney | London | New York | Tokyo | Berlin | Los Angeles | Milano | Boston | Dublin | Vancouver | Amsterdam | Paris | San Francisco | Zurich | Nagoya | Singapore | Nashville | Honolulu | Shanghai | Toronto | Salt Lake City | Houston | Portland | Glasgow | Kansas | Budapest | Atlanta | Jakarta | Chicago | Seattle | Memphis
Cycling has allowed us to meet many interesting people along the way and walk into their lives to share a very personal/ private bit of their lives with us. Each of them is a special adventure: The retired train master who has to postponed his dreams because his mum passed away, the poet we met one night in a little town in Taiwan, the class of students who told us they do not have dreams, the old couple who cooked us a whole table full of food, dessert and supper, the English teacher who host us because she wants to bring the world into her classroom, the special needs students who gave us a hair wash cum massage and sang us a song, the teachers who rekindled their passion for teaching, the owners of a B&B who makes delicious and healthy breakfast, the couple who runs a home stay that they built on their own, the Japanese family who treats us like their own children and provides us two meals a day, etc. Its an endless list. We have been asked many times what has been special and memorable so far, our answer has always been: the people. Its the people that we meet, the exchanges and sharings that we had, that made every single moment of this journey beautiful and every single sight worth remembering.
We made some stops along the way. The first point of interest was the waterfall by the museum of (history? culture? I forget).
