February 18, 2021
Shenzhen the Second Time
It was a lovely time spending Chinese New Year with my fiancee and her family. Interestingly it was also the first ever proper festival celebrated in the Chinese mainland in my almost 20 years of living here. I've spent time over the holiday in China before, but not like this with a local family. It was a very special and unique experience. Most of the time as teachers we get one month winter holidays, and so the usual thing is to get on a plane and head to warmer climates in SE Asia. Because of the pandemic, it presented an opportunity otherwise skipped and I am glad to have taken the time to do this and get to know her and her family more.
After about a week in Shanghai as things were getting back to normal, the plan was to head back to Shenzhen again without the bike this time. Instead we did training together, hiking, and meeting lots of people at social events. It was awesome.
As the final week of the holiday drew to a close, it was also apparent that all of the local virus cases were gradually cleared. I could see many indications in Shenzhen that things were getting more relaxed, and the usual checkpoints with travel history codes etc... were not manned any more. The final flight out was also rather packed, and more and more people were indeed traveling.
When I got back to Shanghai for the final time, people in my office rather predictably said I was a fool for doing this whole trip. Who's the fool now?
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The phone I had been using basically crapped out during the second trip and I said enough is enough, time to buy a new one. This turned out to be a wise choice as it took way better pictures and without that annoying watermark on the old one. So we'll end this journal with the new phone pics.
Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 787 km (489 miles)
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