tandem4family – Mit der Familienkutsche von Shanghai nach Beijing
“It will be 20 km. to Yixing, and then we see,- maybe we go another 30 to Liyang,”- says Volker brightly in the morning. Just 20 or 50 km. – peanuts after a week of biking. After yesterday’s leg along Taihu, along the perfect and virtually empty biking lane, with the shining lake on our right, with the fields and orchards and villages on our left, shielded by rows of blooming decorative trees, – I felt I could bike not merely 50, but even 100 km a day. In my mind I was already putting together a program for our stop at Yixing, the town famous for its unglazed ceramic wares, especially the clay teapots that are prized by tea connoisseurs all over East Asia. Our friend in Shanghai – the calligrapher and painter Xu Gufu, has given us a contact to an atelier in Yixing, in which he also works. In the recent years he has started carving calligraphy on Yixing teapots, from which frottages could be taken afterwards, and I was curious to see his works, may be even have a look in some kilns.
