Shaanxi n00b with photos (and questions!)

[VTECsauce]

Thanks all for the warm welcome, I'll reply to some of your comments!

Dear Sauce,

Greetings and what a fantastic tale about your entry to our crazyfun world.

Surely that's a Chinese-made Honda, so should be no problem making it legal, but you will need that fapiao. Find the guy in whose name it's registered, and just organize a transfer from him into your name, which will be easy as long as you have a legal residence permit. Oh, don't forget to get your license, which is another adventure altogether, as you'll see in copious detail elsewhere in this forum.

The pictures look great -- we want more! From the looks of it, you'll have a blast on that bike up there on the loess plateau. There are tons of rural roads all across Shaanxi. Just watch out for coal trucks!

ride safe, and keep us posted about your progress. You're a fine storyteller!

cheers

Yeah, the roads around here are great, but (like everywhere in China?) there's plenty of stuff to keep you on your toes: Pot-holes, random piles of stuff, 3-wheel trucks on the wrong side of the road; etc. Will definately have to be careful.

Hi VTECjuice,

Your bike is a chinese-built honda and more than welcome here! 6000RMB with 200km on the clock, sounds like a steal! Go for it if there's the original fapiao!

Just to confirm the last posts, yeah you will need a fapiao to get a legal plate on her. Regarding who's name it's registered in, i wouldn't worry about it really. I've been riding bikes with legal plates in other people's names for 4 years now, been stopped many a time and that's never been an issue. Even if the bike is not in your name, you can still get the insurance in your name. That's my case.

Also, have you got a chinese driving license? That would be the only document the police will see with your chinese name on it anyway, so if you don't have one of those they won't even know that the bike isn't in your name. I wouldn't recommend that however. In fact if i'd to pick one or the other, i would think that a driving license would be the most important thing to have. If you get in an accident that can't be resolved before the police arrive, you might end up in very serious trouble not having a DL.

Anyway how do you like living in weinan? I'll be passing through there in may on a bike trip, and then moving there (well xian actually) at the end of the year. Perhaps we could meet up for a few beers at some point!

Gorgeous photo that second is! I'm thinking of setting up my screen in portrait just so i can have it as my desktop.

Let me know when you're passing through. If I have free time and have the bike all sorted, maybe we can say "hi." as for the beer; sounds good! ;)

awesome pics! enough to resurrect me from the dead. strobist info? (especially for the second pic!) do tell!!

also, congrats on the bike :)

Nothing like some off-camera flash to bring the photographers out of the woodwork.
Lifted from the photos description on my flickr page:
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Strobist Setup:
One Nikon SB-600 camera left (low). 1/1 power. Bare.
One Yongnuo Speedlite YN460 camera right (high). 1/1 power. Bare.
eBay triggers and slaves.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II
1/200 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Canon 24-105mm F/4L IS USm at 24mm.
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Oh, and I just sent you a flickr contact request. :)




I'm not looking forward to the shenanigans of getting a license. This city is so small, doing something like this usually results in a bunch of blank-looking faces from over-paid desk jockeys and things like "I don't know. A foreigner has never done this before. I don't think you can do it." blah blah blah.
So, wish me luck! However, with it being such a small place, I hope that *increases* my risk of just being able to give someone a few hundred RMB and be given a license with no test. :D