There are three reasons why my visits to Shijiazhuang are inevitably rushed and short.

我每次去石家庄，行程总是不可避免地仓促短暂，原因有三。

1. I'm on a bike trip and I want to keep going
2. Joy and Ridge won't let me pay for anything and I feel like a leech.
3. Their daughter's bed is astonishingly uncomfortable. 

我正在骑行旅行，想继续往前赶路；

明和李什么都不让我付钱，我感觉自己像个寄生虫；

他们女儿的床非常不舒服。

They know the first. They probably think my frustration over how many times they've treated me without ever once coming to Hainan and giving me the opportunity to treat them is politeness. And directly telling them the third would be horrible and ungrateful¹.

Faced with these three things, the person in charge over at Large Media Client who annually listens to me say "don't let my holidays interfere with my work" and then proceeds to mostly not give me any work while I'm on holiday being aware that I've stopped biking, and a dearth of wearable outfits² suitable for the weather and the knowledge that I really need to caffeine-up and sit down with Dr. M's book for a week of typing all come together with me buying a train ticket for tomorrow night.

他们知道第一个原因。他们或许觉得，他们一次次款待我、但却出于礼貌，从不来海南让我有机会回请，这让我感到的郁闷。而直接告诉他们第三个原因，会显得我既糟糕又忘恩负义¹。

面对这三件事，再加上大媒体客户端那位负责人， 她每年都听我说“别让假期影响我的工作”，却在我假时基本不给我安排工作。她知道我的骑行结束，且合适天气的换洗衣物所剩无几²，而且我清楚自己真的需要喝足咖啡，坐下来对着M博士的书，花一周时间翻译打字，种种因素加在一起，我买了明晚的火车票。

I'll have time to join Joy and her mother-in-law at the traditional "I'm in Shijiazhuang" visit to a western restaurant where I'll be pleasantly surprised to discover that the city has finally internationalized to the point that I like the western food, to go to the surprisingly good³ Revolutionary History Museum that the old train station has been turned into, to walk along the pedestrianized shopping street that used to be grubby wholesalers and is now chic restaurants, but that's about it.

Do I regret not going to the Provincial Museum? Regret not visiting the other people I know I'm Shijiazhuang? Regret not staying long enough that people I know who are away on various things have gotten back?

我会有时间和明以及她婆婆一起，按“来石家庄必做”的传统去趟西餐厅。到时可能会惊喜地发现，这座城市终于国际化到能让我喜欢上这里的西餐了，也会去看看老火车站改造的革命历史博物馆，没想到还挺不错³，还会去逛逛那条步行街，以前是乱糟糟的批发市场，现在成了时髦的餐厅聚集地，但也就这些了。

没去河北省博物馆，我会感到遗憾吗？没去见石家庄其他认识的人、没待到那些外出办事的熟人回来，会遗憾吗？

Of course I do. 

But it's Shijiazhuang and I'll probably be back next year or no later than the year after that, and I'm cold, and Hainan is warm, and the idea of a night in my own bed⁴ is calling to me...

当然会。

但这里是石家庄，我明年或许就会再来，最迟后年也会。而且我现在很冷，海南很暖和，一想到能在自己的床上睡一晚⁴，就格外向往……

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¹ Letting them know that they are mentioned in this journal and hoping that they read this far is sufficiently indirect.

¹ 让他们知道自己被写进了这篇日记，且希望他们能读到这里，这样已经够委婉了。

² Even if I do my laundry, it will mean having to do my laundry again the next day

² 因为已不骑行就算我洗了衣服，第二天也还得再洗一次。

³ I will never not be astonished at the ability of most Chinese museum designers to make World War II boring 

³ 中国很多博物馆设计师居然能把二战展览做得这么无聊，我真是服了！

⁴ Or, even better, a night in Chinese Boyfriend's bed

⁴ 或者，更妙的是，能在中国男友的床上睡一晚。