T2：海甸岛→白马井

January 13, 2025

Is this English right? It looks funny to me

I've winnowed the bike clothing I'm taking back with me down to three jerseys and three shorts, but I've expanded my off bike clothing as—among other things—I'm rather hoping I'll get to see Chinese Boyfriend before the next time I go home, so I'm still going to be carrying about the same amount of stuff.

However, as I cleverly only took the one pannier with me when I went back to Haikou, I can't actually overpack.

I take a sharebike to Sarah's so that I can leave my only known¹ working set of spare house keys with her and so I can get the sunglasses that were left on her coffee table² when Shawn showed up and I ran downstairs rather than keep her waiting on a non work day.

A photo of the piece of furniture that my keys are in, because if my original keys aren't in my handlebar bag, I can't afford to lose this set

The proximity to the port and the trucks on the road to Chez Saracita (and all my other Poly Coast friends) are the only downside I can come up with regarding moving³ out here

From there, I decide that, even though Haikou Station is farther away than Haikou East Station, that the tailwind and the multiple busses I can catch just before I leave the area where my annual subscription⁴ makes the bikes free to use make it the better choice. It does not, however, occur to me to check if trains heading west stop at the westmost of the city's train stations cause that would be silly, of course they do.

They don't.

Which means my choices are to now go into the wind for 15km or get a taxi.

These really annoying locks that must be opened and closed with the app seem to be electronically connected to something very small in the hub

My China Rail App issue still hasn't been fixed and I have to go through the manual line

It's a cold, blustery day, and I'm not dressed very warm because I don't want to need to figure out what to do with a jacket or the extra fluffy tights when I get back to my bike, so I take the taxi.

All this running around, plus the fact that I've actually been working today means that I'm far too tired and grumpy to try explaining to the nice man from the hotel that I'd rather take my time walking than get picked up at the station, and dinner ends up being oatmeal in the room.

¹ At times, up to 10 of my friends have had keys to my place. However, because I can go months at a time without locking myself out, they get tossed in the back of drawers and lost and I'm somehow down to just these

² Are we sensing a pattern?

My hotel was named 中华 (China) but Market Supervision and Control put a kibosh on that. So they changed it to 中园 (Central Park) written in a font that really looks like 中国 (China)

³ After spending over 14 years in an apartment that was supposed to be for 6 months while I waited for the winter high season to end, I've decided to move in March, and will probably be moving to Poly Coast

⁴ Which is like USD 20 because these are heavily subsidized by the government and because AliPay will eventually figure out some nefarious Big Data use of all the information on where people ride.

Today's ride: 21 km (13 miles)
Total: 244 km (152 miles)

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