When I got to the offices of China Daily, the person I was meeting was sure that I could just leave my bike leaning against a wall near the entrance and it would be fine. They're in a very white-collar office park full of somewhat elite businesses out in the middle of a development area. It's not the sort of place that gets foot traffic that doesn't belong and, even if it were, petty crime in China has plummeted the past few years.

Being as I don't ever want to be put into a situation where someone suggests that my bike be left outside overnight, I specifically do not carry a bike lock. Also, owing to my breaking one of them on the Chinese New Year mini-Tour, I don't currently have the quick release pedals that have served as my stand-in lock for the past decade or so.

However, I saw his point, and after a moment or two of wobbling, agreed that he was probably right. Especially with the mildew spotted and much patched cloth panniers, chances were pretty good that no one would recognize my bike as being valuable; and, as previously noted, China has gotten a pretty good handle on petty crime like pickpocketing and bike theft via a combination of factors such as extensive video surveillance, harsh punishment, and the criminal element perceiving online scams as less risky.

Although I agreed with him, I still grabbed my laptop and my passport.

This is important as, 28 hours later, when I'd arrived at the hotel in Changzhou, my passport wasn't in the handlebar pocket it's always in.

For the past two months, I have retrieved my passport on a nightly basis from the same pocket of the same bag where I kept it for a month during the Chinese New Year mini-Tour, the October Holiday romp, last year's Tour, 2021's, 2020's, 19's, 18's, 17.... basically every bike ride since I bought this bag in 2015. Therefore, my muscle memory is expecting my passport to be in that pocket.

And, its not.

It's not there because its in my laptop bag, next to my wallet.

But I don't remember this until after I call my friend from last night in a panic and have him go through his whole (thankfully small and not overly furnished) apartment confirming that it's not on the chair where I sat when I reorganized my stuff post laundry; not on the sofa or the coffee table where I made like seven rounds of moka this morning; not on the balcony where we smoked shisha; not in the bedroom where I slept; not in the bathroom where I showered; not on the shelf where I put my devices to charge!

My smartwatch says that my heart wasn't actually racing. Says that I was only 10 or 15 beats per minute over baseline. But it sure feels like it, and then, once I've found it, and I'm trying to destress, some kid in the lobby is peppering me questions about my trip and I'm trying so hard to be Perky Friendly Cheerful Marian because the kid has done nothing wrong and failing so bad that the associated Parent is politely doing the "not now, honey, she's tired from riding all day" when that's not it at all. I'm just awash in stress chemicals that haven't yet realized  the situation is fixed.

Checked in, I go up to my room to shower off both the ride sweat and the sour smell of stress before changing into clean clothing and grabbing a cab downtown to visit..... a complete stranger who is not my friend Galia.

But she's named Galia, and she's got a cute anime avatar that looks exactly like my Galia, and suddenly it makes so much sense why I didn't remember anything about Galia getting married or moving to Jiangsu.

I love the restaurant that she and her husband Rich take me to. More of a bar with some food than a restaurant, it doesn't have the "expat hangout" cachet of the place in Wuxi, which I think may be why the western food was both better tasting and cheaper than in Wuxi.

It's gone past midnight by the time I get back to my room and peel off my "can't smokers smell themselves?" clothing to put in a pile with the stanky bikewear from earlier in the day with the full intent of quarantining them both in a plastic bag away from the rest of my laundry as both stress sweat and cigarette residue reek in ways that, so long as hand washing might be necessary at some time in the future, I don't want to infect my other clothing with.

As for the day's riding, well, it was flat with a side order of straight and uninteresting.