D19: 三元桥 → 东仙坡（双语）

October 13, 2024

How else are you supposed to transport decorative goldfish? 还能怎么带观赏性金鱼呢？

I got back to the hostel last night close on to 10:30 only to find that the laundry room closes at 9pm. Considering the super energy efficient near-silent models of washers and dryers in the laundry room and the very impressive amount of sound proofing¹ the rooms had, I can't think of any good reason for the laundry room to close at all, but I'm not one to make a fuss over dumb rules².

My first wake up happens while it's still too early³ to do my laundry, which in turn results in my not leaving until it's gone on past 10:30, but not leaving until it's stupid late is normal for me and I would end up cranking out enough kilometers by nightfall that I'd get leg cramps around midnight, so, no real loss.

昨晚快10点半我才回到旅社，却发现洗衣房晚上9点就关门了。鉴于洗衣房里那些超级节能且近乎无声的洗衣机和烘干机，以及客房里令人印象深刻的隔音效果¹，我实在想不出洗衣房有什么非得关门的好理由，但我也不是那种会为愚蠢规定大惊小怪的人²。

我第一次醒来的时候，时间还太早³，还不能去洗衣服，结果导致我一直到10点半过后才出发。不过，对我来说，等到很晚才出发是很平常的事，而且我最终在天黑前也能骑行足够多的公里数，以至于到了午夜时分我会腿抽筋，所以也没什么真正的损失。

This Wohkoon Hostel is an average 10y more per bed but includes free laundry. The other one charged⁴ for their laundry room. 这家行者孙青年旅社的每张床位要贵10块钱，但提供免费洗衣服务。另一家旅社的洗衣房是要收费的⁴。

I would pick this brand again 我还会再住这个品牌旗下的旅社。

For the past 30 or 40 years, the trees have been winning the battle of Old Trees vs. Modern Road Planners 在过去的三四十年里，在古树与现代道路规划者的“战斗”中，树木一直占据上风。

Arriving about 11am, well before I expected them to be open for the day, I find that the famous Li Qun's Hutong Duck Restaurant hasn't closed yet and still smells as amazing as always; but the cheapest duck meal on the menu is for two people, the Break Fast leftovers that I noshed on while doing my laundry have me barely feeling any hunger, the current weather is warm enough that meat will want refrigeration, and I just don't see myself eating that much before it spoils.

So, with much sadness, I keep going until the GPS unexpectedly spits me out on Niujie Moslem Street near the windows full of halal deliciousness that Myf took me to on my way out of Beijing in 2018.

我大约上午11点就到了，比我预计的开门时间要早很多。我发现著名的李群胡同烤鸭店还没关门，而且闻起来还是一如既往地香。但是菜单上最便宜的烤鸭套餐是两人份的，我在洗衣服时吃了点开斋早餐剩下的东西，现在几乎不觉得饿，当前的天气足够暖和，肉得冷藏起来，而且我觉得在肉变质之前我也吃不了那么多。

所以，我满心遗憾地继续前行，直到导航意外地把我带到了牛街回民街，旁边就是那些摆满清真美食的橱窗，2018年我离开北京的时候，馬驛颿带我来过这里。

A steaming mushroom statue⁵ that I suspect is an attempt to make a steam vent look pretty. 一个冒着热气的蘑菇造型雕塑⁵，我怀疑这是为了让蒸汽通风口看起来更美观而设计的。

The zao have followed me from Shaanxi! 枣子从陕西一路“跟”着我！

Ring Road Traffic and a weird tower that looks like air traffic control but clearly isn't 环路交通，还有一座奇怪的塔，看起来像空中交通管制塔，但显然不是。

I pick the window⁶ with the shortest line. Foreigner in line attracts attention to the line I picked and, by the time I'm up at the front, it's gone from 5 or 6 people waiting to buy something to over a dozen. Then, because this line is long and long lines must be for better stuff, it just keeps growing.

I'm glad that I bought one of nearly everything but sad that I didn't get two or three of the amazing looking (and tasting) Cow Tongue Bing⁷ because, by the time I've had a taste of everything, my original window now has at least twice as many people as any other line and I can't justify going back.

我选了排队人数最少的窗口⁶。我这个外国人排队引起了人们对我所在队伍的注意，等我排到前面的时候，队伍已经从五六个人等着买东西变成了十几个人。然后，因为这条队伍很长，而长队肯定是在买更好的东西，所以队伍还在不断变长。

我很高兴几乎每样东西都买了一份，但很遗憾没有多买两三份看起来（吃起来也）很棒的牛舌饼⁷，因为等我把每样东西都尝了一遍后，我最初选的那个窗口的排队人数至少是其他队伍的两倍，我觉得没必要再回去排队了。

Bag of goodies, a glutinous rice thing with purple flavored filling, cat's ear pastry, cow tongue bing, and a block of hawthorn⁸ jelly 一袋美味食品，一个紫色馅料的糯米制品，猫耳朵点心，牛舌饼，还有一块山楂⁸果冻。

Is it still Neoclassical Architecture⁹ if the classical in question is Chinese instead of Roman? 如果所涉及的古典风格是中国的而不是罗马的，那它还能算是新古典主义建筑⁹吗？

Although I frequently abandon my thoroughly planned routes, I've usually got more of an idea where I'm going than I now do with this Restart and no particular Detours have shown up in a passing perusal of Maps so it's mostly just different ways of trying to be on roads that aren't broad boulevards of nothingness.

I'm quite pleased to say, the periodic resetting of my destination point and occasional ignoring the GPS's instructions in favor of obvious greenways or more interesting looking roads gets me quite a pleasant ride with gingko trees that are starting to show fall colors and little canals whose banks are lined with fishermen.

虽然我经常放弃精心规划好的路线，但通常我对自己要去的地方还是比这次重新出发时更有数一些。而且，粗略看了一下地图，也没发现有什么特别值得绕行的地方，所以大多时候只是在尝试走一些不是那种空旷大道的路。

我很高兴地说，通过时不时地重新设置目的地，偶尔无视导航的指示，选择明显的绿道或者看起来更有趣的道路，我有了一段非常愉快的骑行体验。沿途的银杏树开始呈现出秋天的色彩，还有一些小运河，河岸上有不少钓鱼的人。

I think he was skimming weeds or dredging garbage 我觉得他是在捞水草或者清理垃圾。

A collection of red banners¹⁰ in a neighborhood that is in the process of being demolished 在正在拆除的街区里看到的一堆红色横幅¹⁰。

At the Liuli River, around the time I crossed from Beijing into Hebei, there was one historic stone bridge that I've previously had a look at and, with nightfall approaching, wasn't interesting enough to want to cross five lanes of traffic.

Other than that though, over the centuries, this area has too consistently been well-ish off for anything to get old enough that people see value in it for being old and want to preserve it.

在琉璃河，大概是我从北京进入河北的时候，有一座历史悠久的石桥，我之前看过一次。随着夜幕降临，这座桥还没有吸引到让我愿意穿过五条车道的车流去看的程度。

不过除此之外，几个世纪以来，这个地区一直都还算富裕，所以没什么东西能老到人们会因为它的古老而觉得有价值并想要保护它。

Funny thing about tonight's hotel check-in is that, being one of the cheapest (if not the cheapest) online bookable hotels on the border with Beijing and on the kind of arterial road that Chinese cyclists insist on riding for some reason¹¹, she's used to getting bikers, and it isn't until after I've been shown a room and am discussing my ability to—with her permission—go behind the front desk and register myself, that she even realizes I have a booking.

今晚办理酒店入住有件有趣的事：因为这家酒店是北京边界线上、在那种中国骑友不知为何坚持要骑行¹¹的主干道上（如果不是最便宜的话）算是最便宜的可在线预订的酒店之一，前台的女士已经习惯接待骑行者了。直到她带我看了房间，我和她讨论在她允许的情况下我能否到前台后面自己登记入住时，她才意识到我已经预订了房间。

Manually operating a height restriction gate 手动操作限高门

Width Restriction for a Dangerous Bridge 一座危险桥梁的限宽标志

¹ Better than the hotel near Jiaxian where, during our evening game of Scrabble†, Dr. M was able to identify which of our neighbors were having sex

¹ 比佳县附近的那家酒店要好，在我们晚上玩拼字游戏†的时候，M博士能听出哪个邻居在做爱。

† The same travel set she and her Mom took on their Silk Road ride from Suzhou to Venice.

† 就是她和她妈妈在从苏州骑行到威尼斯的丝绸之路之旅中带的那套旅行用拼字游戏。

² If the "no foreigners" rule actually existed outside of urban legend, misinformation, and laziness, I probably wouldn't have stayed in China as long as I have and—as a consequence—wouldn't be making a fuss about it.

² 如果“不允许接待外国人”的规定不是只存在于都市传说、错误信息和工作人员的懒惰之中，我可能就不会在中国待这么久了，而且也不会对这类规定大惊小怪了。

³ Not because the laundry room was still closed but because the Front Desk person I needed to buy a sachet of detergent from was still sleeping

³ 不是因为洗衣房还没开门，而是因为我需要购买一袋洗衣粉，而前台工作人员还在睡觉。

Cheap enough honesty box mushrooms that I was sorely tempted to buy them, except for my total lack of any way to cook 便宜得让人很想买的蘑菇，我真的很想买，可惜我完全没有办法烹饪它们。

First functional level crossing of the Tour 这次骑行中遇到的第一个能正常使用的铁路道口

⁴ I knew I'd want to do laundry before leaving Beijing, so I don't know by how much

⁴我知道在离开北京之前我会想洗衣服，所以我不知道具体贵了多少。

⁵ Decorating with mushrooms was very much a Chinese Urban Art thing in the early 00's.

⁵ 用蘑菇造型做装饰是21世纪初中国城市艺术的一种常见做法。

⁶ It turns out to be the pastries window. Which, since Chinese Muslim food is quite Turkish in nature, is so much sugar that most items get only a single bite before being wrapped back up and put in my handlebar bag for later.

⁶ 结果发现那是卖点心的窗口。因为中国的清真食品在本质上很像土耳其食品，所以点心都很甜，大多数点心我只咬了一口就包起来放回车把包留着之后吃了。

⁷ Shaped like a cow tongue, stuffed with nut paste and spices

⁷ 形状像牛舌，里面夹着坚果酱和香料。

Probably dating to the 90s but updated and maintained, a surprisingly decent map of places and roads people just crossing into Hebei might want to know about 这张地图可能可以追溯到90年代，但经过了更新和维护，对于刚进入河北的人来说，这是一张相当不错的地图，上面标注了一些人们可能想知道的地点和道路。

⁸ The sour red flavor that gets sweetened is cranberry in North America, ligonberry in Northern Europe, and hawthorn in Northern Asia

⁸ 在北美，经过加糖处理的那种酸酸的红色水果是蔓越莓，在北欧是越橘，在北亚则是山楂。

⁹ The amount of green and orange tile makes me think it's from the 60s

⁹ 大量的绿色和橙色瓦片让我觉得这座建筑是60年代的。

¹⁰

Awards for signing agreements prior to the beginning of eminent domain related demolishing are limited, if you miss your chance to get them, you won't have another opportunity.

Cheerfully, Legally, and Harmoniously Accept Relocation

Sign an Agreement. Pick a Home. Move. Have Good Fortune.

Don't Make or Spread Rumors, Each Household Will be Compensated Accordingly

¹⁰ 这些拆迁标语很典型。

¹¹ Everyone has GPS. Fear of getting lost should not be an issue.

¹¹ 现在每个人都有导航。迷路不应该成为一个问题。

Now that I'm no longer with Dr. M, I don't have to feel obligated to avoid foods I know she doesn't like 既然我现在不再和M博士在一起了，我就不用避开那些她不喜欢的食物了。

Since she wanted to take pictures with me and her best hotel rooms, I probably should have tried harder to include the cringeworthy round bed with red vinyl headboard in this picture 既然她想和我以及她最好的客房合影，我本应该更努力地把那张带有红色乙烯基床头板的尴尬圆床也拍进去的。

With regards to letting me sit in the chair behind the Front Desk, Hotel Management is far more dubious than the Hotel Owner 关于让我坐在前台后面的椅子上这件事，酒店管理层比酒店老板对此更怀疑。

Today's ride: 78 km (48 miles)
Total: 1,267 km (787 miles)

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D19: 三元桥 → 东仙坡 （双语）

D19: 三元桥 → 东仙坡（双语）