Day R3: Takeout or Dine Out?

June 2, 2022

The theme for this recovery ride was to see how much the restaurant industry had taken a blow from this lockdown and how they were trying to claw back the business.

Commerce is the lifeblood of this city. There will be hell to pay for what the communist authorities have done. They literally decimated the food and entertainment industry. No doubt these pigs would thrive on locking us up forever in a room eating home cooked noodles and working online. But there's only so much you can take before the need to get out in this beautiful weather and eat on tables outside at a beloved restaurant of which there are normally thousands.

Still got that great weather. Two months of it was lost

Several restaurants were back in fits and starts with the new rules: takeout or outdoor seating. No indoor dining just yet. As with most places you need to scan a QR code that tracks your location and also requires a 72hr covid test. The queues for the tests were notably shorter today as observed on the bike ride.

Earlier I had done a medical checkup across the river, this was related to my earlier surgery. The doctor joked with me and said "So how was the last two months? Crazy right?" He also pointed out, correctly, that what Shanghai experienced is normal for the rest of China. We basically got the boot of Beijing on our necks and got to experience it firsthand. Clearly the boot was choking the life out extra hard on the bars and restaurants.

There were rumors of course of new covid cases and neighorhoods getting locked again, just literally two days after this so-called freedom. One of the neighborhoods happened to be where I was just tootling around on the bike. This was unbelievable, but actually not really. Not wanting them to track my location, I stuck to the bike and decided not to go into any stores or restaurants or scan any QR codes.

Instead, my friend happened to be out and about nearby and said "Why don't you bike on over and I'll bring you an iced coffee?" That was highly appreciated and we drank them sittting on the steps outside his apartment with masks off. Some locals passed by and gave snide remarks in Chinese that we weren't wearing masks, assuming that I couldn't understand.

I fired back at these assholes saying "Why don't you mind your own business and stand in the queue over there for a covid test?"

My friend and I enjoyed catching up and he said how grateful for this chance, I was the first human being to talk to face to face after all this. It wouldn't surprise me if we both looked like we had done prison time. We had.

After the temporary traffic surge on June 1 the streets went eerily quiet again the next day

Just lovely, they sealed this road as new cases were found in compounds on freedom day 2. I had cycled this exact road an hour before

Today's ride: 12 km (7 miles)
Total: 256 km (159 miles)

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