T-8: 海口 → 三亚

September 8, 2024

Depending on what they normally cost, I could easily see myself picking this chain again

After sleeping much later than I would have thought I needed considering that I was back in my hotel room no later than 1:30am, I started the morning off with 1,700 characters of translation about the resumption of nearly half the city's bus lines, the opening of the ports and airport¹, the partial resumption of train service, and the ongoing efforts to get the power consistently back on everywhere and at normal voltage.

I would have followed this with attempting to do some more chipping away at one of two current book projects² but a whole night on charge had only gotten my laptop up to a bit over 25% and I used most of that up on the work for the Media Center.

The selection was very eclectic and almost entirely in English, but the books on the shelf in the lobby were real.

The lobby automatic espresso drink maker failed to include any dairy in my cappuccino, had a "machine needs cleaning" warning light blipping, and was easily one of the worst espressos I've ever had. But, it existed and was free.

It was now half an hour past check out time and even if the staff hadn't bothered to bother me, I knew they were going to want to turn the room over to another customer, so I headed down to the lobby, checked out, bought a ticket to Sanya, and tried (unsuccessfully) to get a taxi to the station.

Considering the hour plus that a friend of mine failed to hail a ride the night before, this didn't surprise me any, and—as I was only 6km from the station—I decided to start walking in the hopes that I'd catch some driver's attention the way I had the day before.

Made it just over 2km before I ran into a Russian woman from my big WeChat groups. We went to the lobby of her building for a shaded rest and another hour of my going "no, really, it's not necessary, and the app is lying about available cars."

A desperately needed breakfast at 3:10pm

Then, another kilometer walk to the closest bus stop just in case any of the operating bus lines were going from there to the train station but, even though it should have been, by the time a driver pulled over to offer a ride, we'd only seen the thoroughly unsuitable #603.

I feel like I could have walked the rest of the way but Oksana was so insistent that I shouldn't that I saw no reason not to look a gift horse in the mouth and I paid³ Driver Xu a not too unreasonable 20y to take me.

Breakfast at KFC successfully managed digital payment, but the convenience store inside the waiting hall (which looked like something out of stories about Spring Festival Migration) was prodding people to try cash if they had it and that was enough to jog my memory.

I have never seen in the train station looking like this

Departing over 90 minutes late, I'm currently on the train with a standing room ticket but I've already managed two stations without anyone claiming my seat and I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll make at least as far as a third⁴.

¹ Not including my original flight to Lanzhou

² The fun translation one without a deadline, and the not fun proofreading one with a deadline

This sign only turned on about 15 minutes earlier. Prior to that, it was all paper and people walking around with bullhorns.

³ By "paid," I mean that we mutually took photos of each other's contact cards because access to the WeChat Pay servers was overloaded and I completely forgot about the emergency 100y note hidden in my backpack.

⁴ Managed. But only because all the intermediate stations were cancelled.

Today's ride: 3 km (2 miles)
Total: 35 km (22 miles)

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