July 10, 2021
T - 0: 勉县
The freeze dried strawberries are a complete failure. Not only do they rehydrate poorly and at a different speed than instant oatmeal, they are so amazingly delicious on their own that I doubt there will be any left by the day after tomorrow.
From Cheng I took the coach to Hanzhong and then from Hanzhong another bus to Mian. I suppose I could have accepted the quote that the driver at the Cheng airport made of 600y to take me straight there but it wouldn't have made things that much faster (perhaps only 2 ½ hours instead of 4) but most of the time elapsed was spent waiting at the Cheng Station faffing about on my phone and it wasn't all that different than what I'd have been doing if I had already picked up my bike and gotten into the hotel room.
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The owner/manager at the Mian Bike Shop refuses to take money or gifts or an invitation to dinner beyond the promise that, whenever he gets the time to do a Round the Island I help him out, and that—until that time—I let him continue to live vicariously through my social media. There's nothing I want to buy from his shop either and I'm already carrying too much as it is so it must be as it is.
I end up at the hotel he recommends some 500m away from the shop and if they've never had a foreigner before or never registered a foreigner before, that doesn't mean they are the slightest bit unwilling. It is, however, one of the particularly poorly implemented versions of the Registration Software¹ and it takes me at least 10 minutes to get my own information input.
¹ Where "US Minor Outlying Islands" is alphabetically listed under M, "China" is an option for country of citizenship on the foreigner registration form, and the list of non hot-keyed countries which you must scroll through is ordered by the English name that you can't see.
Today's ride: 1 km (1 miles)
Total: 2,877 km (1,787 miles)
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