I bought the evaporated milk thinking to use it in yesterday's oatmeal. Then, I ended up only eating fruit yesterday. Not that you really want to know this, but I can definitively say that whatever was making my gut unhappy has been most thoroughly cleaned out.

Since the tin of milk was open for this morning's oatmeal and since it wasn't like I was going to try and take it with me when I left the hotel, I decided to go for making sweet milky coffee drinks with the lesser coffee. As a result, although I woke up at 7:30, I hadn't actually left the room when the first batch of emergency work notices arrived. Policies and measures from the Education Bureau for teachers and students returning to school for the Fall 2022 semester mostly.

Out by 11:30, I kind of figured the front desk would give me crap about not having come downstairs to explicitly say "I'm staying over another night" like I'd been told to do at check-in. But, I guess—particularly given that I said I might need an extra night—the obviousness of why I wasn't leaving must of been obvious¹.

I didn't realize the existence of the grumpy malaise that has settled upon me until late in the afternoon when I saw the agricultural drone. Not because it's been so long since I've honest to goodness actually been that excited when I've gone all squeeeeee for the camera², but because I'm pretty sure the world didn't suddenly get ten shades brighter and more colorful as soon I finished getting to see something new and cool for the first time.

There had been dramatic clouds, cool breezes, and patches of blue skied sunshine all day. But it wasn't until after the drone that I actively found myself appreciating them the way I ought to be on a trip.

So, with the person whose supposed to be providing me a place in Yangjiang now saying the 29th (apparently, I can stay from tomorrow but the levels of complication involved are doing my head in) or maybe the 30th, and the Haikou Municipal Headquarters for the Prevention and Control of Covid-19 having cleared the city of it's last medium-risk area  this morning, I am done with the wibbly wobbly wandering and I'm going straight home.

Even went so far as to publicly announce the Hotpot Party for dinner the day of my arrival (which will either involve me taking properly reasonable length days everyday between now and then or maybe doing 50 or 60km on a bus).

And the world got that much more colorful again.

Which is brilliant because I arrived at the Zhenhai Bay ferry crossing 20 minutes after the ferry stopped running and I now had another 22km to go before nightfall and I don't think I'd have wanted to do them in the mood I didn't realize I was in.

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¹ I mean c'mon, there was a sign next to the elevator informing guests that they would be turning the elevator off after a certain point because of the risk of people getting trapped when the power went out. 

² After the umpteenth time where I needed five takes in a row of fucking up recording how excited I actually am about whatever it is I just stumbled across, I've gotten pretty good at convincingly faking "holy fucking fuck, check this out"