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I'm very confused by this year's Flower Exchanging Festival. It's at least the second time that I've brought flowers with me in advance, at least the fourth time that failing to find anyone to flirt with by givin them my flowers so I gave them all to various police and medical workers, and at least the seventh time that I've gone.

My first ever time being paid to be at Flower Exchanging Festival, it is the only Flower Exchanging Festival I've been to where no one offered me a flower.

That having been said, maybe because this year's Festival was expanded from one night to a week of activities (partly to cash in on the tourism aspects, partly because it lessens the crush at the peak), and maybe because the Festival is happening opposite the first Authorized Fireworks Show to take place in Haikou since they're saying 13 years ago, (but I don't ever remember seeing or hearing about an Authorized Show) there seemed to be less going on tonight than there usually is. No big-ass lantern displays either in the alleys or in the park, and only the big temple seemed to be having activities.

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But that's not what confuses me.

What confuses me is the number of traffic police, military, and firemen who were like "nooooo, I don't want a flower" while working crowd control and safety at an event called FLOWER EXCHANGING FESTIVAL!

The whole way home from the festival (which I was clever enough to do on a sharebike because traffic was mental) I stopped every single street cleaner I saw and said "I have flowers from Flower Exchanging Festival. Have one" and they were all big smiles and happy and "for me?" and "what beautiful flowers!" But the people at Flower Exchanging Festival, even when they weren't telling me "no," and even when I wasn't filming, they were looking at me like I'd grown a third head for even thinking to so much as offer them a flower at, let me remind you, a traditional event that—for the past 41 years—has been based around the giving and exchange of flowers¹.

I started my day off with a ride to the laser hair removal place I've been going to. Since I've still got some stubborn hairs that keep coming back, I wanted to extend my package with them, but they were such pains in the ass about the whole 15 yuan difference between my paying for six months up front via Meituan versus paying at the counter, and lets not even get into what they wanted to charge for the seventeen hairs (I pluck, I've counted them) I've currently got going on on my chin, so I found someplace else 3km away and now I have a six month package with them for both the 'stache and the chin hairs.

Then, I went all the way across town to the Super Secret Job Interview that I'm not telling anyone the details about until I have a signed contract in hand because I'm just too fucking excited. 

I tried to do something nearby in order to not to be absurdly early, I thus ended up being 15 minutes late, but it was more of an "okay now we've met in person" onboarding than it was an interview, and I really really want to write about it but—even if they're the ones that brought this up—I'm finding it hard to believe that they're actually going to go through with only two days a week in the office and "we know you want to take summer off for bike touring so you can go full remote then," so no bouncing off walls and shouting from the rafters just yet.

From there, I biked to the festival, where I spent at least three hours very slowly walking back and forth because I was determined to do a full minute of doing my very nicely written script without having any jump cuts and, not counting the times that I practiced with the camera off because I was someplace that didn't have a good backdrop, it took me 38 recorded takes before I managed without someone or something interrupting me².

Then, home, and to sleep ... for tomorrow I shall return to my bike and my bike tour.

¹ Prior to that, it was based on the giving and exchange of lit candles and incense, but in 1984 the Fire Department pointed out that flowers are substantially less dangerous to carry in large crowds and the medical people who had been treating minor and not so minor burns agreed with them and it only took a few years of publicity before the general public mostly went along with the change.

² I'm not sure what's funnier, the look on my face in the clip where I'm one sentence from the end when the national media guy interrupts me or the look on my face in the clip I used when I realized I'd actually made it all the way to the end without screwing up or being interrupted.