I'm sure if I asked for permission to write about what went on in the training session, I'd get it. I'm equally sure that there is nothing which went on the training session that needs to be written about.

For those of us who have been Consular Liaison Volunteers long enough to remember when it was called being a Consular Warden, we were actually rather surprised that the "seriously, how could they possibly find a whole morning worth of content to train us on" training session actually had a whole morning worth of useful content.

The banana muffins were sublime. I carefully stuck to the little sandwiches though as they had mayonnaise on them and were less likely to be reasonable candidates for taking back with me as leftovers. (I got about 2/3s of the leftover muffins with one of the Shenzhen volunteers taking the rest.)

From the Louisiana style restaurant near the consulate where we had lunch to the train station was nearly an hour by taxi. After a rush rush hurry through the station to a train that sat at the platform until it was 30 minutes late departing, I had a 3 and a half hour train to Guilin North Station, more rushing, and another 30 minutes or so back to Xing'an. My taxi in Xing'an inexplicably didn't have a visible meter which I didn't notice until it was time to get out and he told me that the flag fare for Xing'an was 20 (my total going to the train station two days earlier had been 10) and I just didn't have the energy to argue with him.

Bike was where I left it at the back of the lobby; hotel gave me the same room as the previous time and, like the previous time, I didn't mention that they advertised cheaper rooms because they'd just stored my $5,000 bike for two nights. Quick shower and change then dinner, a massage, and back to the hotel room to repack my stuff, determine what needed to be mailed to Haikou, and go to sleep.