T1: 海花岛 → 保利海景

January 11, 2025

When I told the owner of the Paddy Shack that I would be back for the Grand Opening Weekend, I had thought I'd be checking in to the Hilton on Wednesday and that they'd only be giving me one night's stay.

Once it became obvious that wasn't what was happening, I changed my plans from "bike to Ocean Flower and back again" to "leave my bike somewhere near the train station and come back to keep biking."

Unlike some people I know who realllllllly ought to know better¹, this does not mean just leaving my bike at the train station.

Bit posher than usual selfie outside my hotel

Instead, I call ahead to a hotel near the train station and confirm with them that, so long as I book and pay for a room the day I'm coming back and I take "everything expensive" that isn't the bicycle², they'll keep it for me.

Forgetting to pick up the Taobao packages I had sent to Ocean Flower and therefore ensuring that the resumption of my journey will not involve me going further inland from the train station, I then compound my scatterbrained idiocy by not thinking to confirm where I put my house keys until after I've arrived in Laocheng.

Which is how I have the honor of being the first overnight house guest at the place Sarah has so recently moved into that I have to sleep on the couch.

Outdoor haircuts are more of a northern China thing than a Hainan thing. However, this area is all snowbirds

New hotel taking me to the train station on his ebike

¹ I'm not sure which one is worse, the lady who left her unlocked 517 rental outside her urban hotel overnight and who was surprised to find it not there in the morning or the one who thought hiding her $3000 bike in a field behind some trees was the way to go when going somewhere by train for a week†.

† Yes, Ellie, I'm talking about you.

² Obviously, I'm not going to tell them how much my Rohloff costs

Today's ride: 12 km (7 miles)
Total: 222 km (138 miles)

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