Today’s distance / ???????: 32.8 miles / 52.8km
Average speed / ????: 9.5mph / 15.2km/h
Time on skateboard / ????: 3h 28m
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: 7,120mi plus 386mi (?) / 11,459km plus 622km (?)
Ascent / ??: n/a
Descent / ??: n/a
End-of-day GPS coordinates: N31°03′01.7″, E120°50′56.9″
Great pavement and finally a tailwind! A good one at that. I am still tired however, and after an hour of pushing I need a break. A tailwind, by the way, is both a blessing and a curse. The wind helps you along, but in a hot place like the oven that is this part of eastern China right now, it also deprives you of any cooling from the wind as you skate. You are cocoonned in your own little bubble of muggy hotness.
Watermelons were my friend today. Although being twice the price of those I was eating in Gansu Province (Gansu: 0.06 Euro a kg, Jiangsu: 0.16 Euro a kg), I was not going to pass them up.
I was following a river for most of the day. Very therapeutic.
I was very happy to finally catch up with Steve Ruelle, a Canadian teaching physics at the Sino-Canadian High School in Luxu. Luxu is a strange little satellite town to Shanghai, and Steve lives in a massive hotel/holiday apartment complex. The place is deserted however, and it is a mystery how the place makes any money.
I was also thrilled to meet the one and only Felix from Felix and Mr. Pumpy fame. As coincidence has it, Felix is working at the high school, and only started a few weeks ago.
In the evening I caught up with other Canadian expats working at the school. Steve and I visited Lauren’s place, where a group were gathered for none other than…Fantasy Hokey!
If anyone is going to cheer you up, a good group of Canadians ought to do the trick!! 🙂
Must be nice to be able to converse in your own language for a bit!