September 7, 2024
T-10: 海甸岛
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A lot of shit has happened in the past few hours. Half of the lean-to on my roof (used for drying laundry and keeping the direct heat of the sun off the building) is gone, the power is out all over the city, numerous friends in high rises (including ones on floors as low as me) have had to evacuate to the hallway or to underground shelters¹ after their windows blew out, and I've found out that the non-biking really cool pre-trip event² that I'm going on before the Tour is not starting on the 14th.
Nor is it a "happening but not happening for me" kind of fuck-up the way the bike race in Fujian³ that was my original reason for postponing until mid-Autumn Festival.
Instead, it's ending on the 14th.
It's ending on the 14th and my flight off the island is scheduled for Sunday morning, a mere 16 hours after the airport is due to reopen.
- This means I have to get all my bike stuff found and packed (or repurchased online and sent to an address in Beijing) in the next 24 hours,
- I need to get all the clothing I'm going to wear for 6 days of press junket⁴ packed,
- I'm not going to Wuzhishan before I leave and I won't get to hand deliver the baby gift I had made for the new daughter of the owner of the WZS 1867 Continental Team,
- I'm probably not going to be able to see Chinese Boyfriend again for months and months
- My filming schedule with An Important National Media Outlet⁵ will not include "going to the bike shop and packing" or anything in Haikou and needs to be completely rejiggered,
- All the stuff that's supposed to be arriving in the mail over the next three days will have to be picked up by my assistant and forwarded to me
- She's also going to have to take responsibility for sending my bike to Beijing
Oh, and I was notified of this sudden need to get all of everything ready now during the eye of the storm, so I had all of about 30 minutes to start doing things before everything went dark and scary.
I don't think the Beaufort Scale 17 wind was actually any worse than it had been the first time round, but the first time around it was a gradually building crescendo over multiple hours as opposed to Sudden Rage after a period of calm.
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And, although it doesn't usually come up outside of when I'm going to great lengths to avoid being in a tunnel, but I'm afraid of the dark and for all the power grid managed the high winds coming from the south with just the occasional flicker all day, it couldn't handle the high winds once they were coming from the north.
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¹ Even with the wheel lock water tight doors and the knowledge that they are supposed to be built to a shelter standard, I'm not sure how safe I'd personally feel in a parking garage.
² I'm going to see the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang and the grottoes at Maijishan and I don't know what all else and I'm getting to do it as a Special Invited Guest who gets to go places normal people can't even pay to see
³ It's much too complicated for a footnote but someone to whom I owe the biggest ever debt of gratitude and who was also my teacher's teacher asked me to get him some foreigners for an amateur race. Then, after we done organized everything, the race never got around to buying our flight tickets.
⁴ In the past year, I've joined a China Daily-led press junket in Jiangsu, been on a Cyberspace Administration of China-led press junket of Hainan, been on Xinhua in two languages, had the English language Xinhua video reshared on the webpage of the Information Office of the State Council, had the Chinese version reshared by People's Daily Online, been background footage in a Xinwen Lianbo report, been invited to the ChineseBridge semifinals, been briefly mentioned in the overseas print edition of the People's Daily, been in the print edition of the National Immigration Administration's magazine, been on their WeChat Official Account, joined China Daily on a press junket in Fujian, and been invited to the Chengdu Auto Show.
⁵ On the plus side, it means I'm getting into Beijing before the mid-Autumn Festival break and that makes it easier to meet with the other† Important National Media Outlet program that wants to do a pre-filming interview.
† I was so confused about them not knowing my travel plans when we talked on the phone two days ago. Then, I found out it was two different programs who have separately invited me.
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