D16: 深圳 / 南山区→ 龙岗区

June 6, 2023

After the third time I loudly cleared my throat and the second time I used my words to ask the man blocking the stairs (he seemed to be sheltering from the rain) because there wasn't anywhere I could go while pushing a bike down the ramp, I felt no remorse about shoving him into the railing and pushing past

Waking up in the "it's not yet noon so it must still be morning" part of the day, I can hear the hotel staff talking about me in the lobby as I get ready. It's in Cantonese, so I've only got tantalizing cognates like "American" and "she threatened to call the police" but it seems I'll have made an impression on more than just the Front Desk worker who I cowed into submission the night before.

Today is a day where everything (even the things that go right¹) goes wrong.

I got a little bit of warning the day before with a call from the clinic in Hong Kong postponing my vaccine jab from Tuesday to Thursday because—even though they are trying really hard to make it sound like a logistics issue—it seems that booking a paid for appointment and paying for it doesn't keep them from just giving the vaccine to whomever shows up and there's no shot to give me this afternoon.

Two kinds of cheap hotels: those that put drying racks under the a/c and those that put signs on the a/c telling you they'll fine you if you hang clothing on the vents

Large fibreglass bunnies reenacting the Beatles cover outside the mall that was my first attempt at Buying Beans

It's just that, while I was on the hour-long boat that I told the person on the other end I was about to be on and that the person on the other end ought to be at least nominally familiar with², the Clinic tried calling me again and on account of my being on a boat and having no signal didn't reach me.

So, rather than reschedule me for the earliest possible vaccine appointment the way I had explicitly requested, or contacting me via one of the two WeChat accounts they had friended me with (which would have received messages as soon as I had signal), they cancelled my appointment and sent me an email telling me that since they couldn't get ahold of me for one whole hour, they'd initiated a refund.

Statues of normal people being normal was a Thing in the early 2000s and everything about this outfit screams that era.

Apparently the guy in red has seen me biking in my neighborhood in Haikou. He was not expecting me to say "yes" when he asked me if I'd biked here....

Ultimately, although I was the person who paid for the vaccine appointment³, because WeChat Wallet only lets Chinese citizens make international transactions, I wasn't the person who paid them for my vaccine appointment. I know the boss of the random café worker who made the payment for me but I've got zero leverage beyond it being "the right thing to do" to get him to give me the half month's salary that's just landed in his account⁴.

The back and forth over this nonsense will eventually result in me being listed by them as eligible for a free jab on Thursday but I seriously wasn't incommunicado for all that long and none of this would have happened in the first place if they'd just honored their own scheduling system.

On top of that, it's pissing down rain.

Photographing her deleafing efforts so that, when someone files a complaint about all the dangerous wet leaves, she can prove she was working

On top of that Shenzhen traffic sucks.

And on top of that, after deciding that I'm not going to go all the way out to LKLM's factory tonight but am going to stay relatively close to the place where I resupplied with the Beans of Life so that I can meet Edgar from the Chinese law for foreigners blog Law in a Minute for dinner, I somehow set my GPS for the hotel I specifically chose to not go to on account of it being too far away for dining convenience so I have to make another cancellation⁵.

¹ Like discovering that the café where I resupply my Beans has avocado salmon bagels and then getting this soft squishy abomination that was basically a savory donut.

The coffee was amazing. The bagel, wasn't.

It was only a few years ago that I finally realized the Sexy Girl Tiles (usually more soft core than this) in the showers were masturbatory aids

² I'm not asking them to be one of the Hong Kongers who ever travels to the Mainland but I am asking for basic awareness of things relatively close by to Hong Kong that have been operating on the same schedule for near on 20 years now

³ I still think I was eligible to get the jab for free but I couldn't figure out how to apply for it

⁴ I will get it back eventually

⁵ Cancelled the first hotel because too far. Had the second hotel refuse to confirm me because they didn't want a foreigner. Then, biked 10km past the third hotel, so had to cancel that one and book in at the fourth.

Today's ride: 37 km (23 miles)
Total: 1,004 km (623 miles)

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