I was 140 kilometres away from Weihai Port and was making a big push to catch a ferry to Seoul, South Korea sometime the following week. Thanks to an Irish man called Neil Timmins for his kind invitation for a place to stay in Seoul. He twisted my arm to stay a while.
I walked with Neils sister Lisa when I was walking in the Port Augusta region of Australia a couple of years ago.
Three big days have left me just 56 kilometres from Weihai Port. I made a massive push to get there for a Wednesday night's sailing to Incheon, South Korea. The next sailing after that Wednesday was on Saturday and I didn't want to wait around. As much as I love China, I'm fatigued and its time to move on to new unrestricted pastures.
Saturday I lashed out a 47-kilometre day and that was followed by a 49. So many days over the last year when I got close to the half-century distance that I stopped when I found a place to stay, such a soft wimp 
That second night it was late and as I couldn't be bothered pitching my tent I settled down in a car shelter which was in a state of disrepair. A barking dog got me going at 5 am and that was the foundation of my 53 kilometres from west of Taocun to the west of Muping.
Once again I had the 'sorry no accommodation for foreigners' hassle here and had four refusals. Regular readers know that this has been an occasional occurrence for me in China and it tends to come in spates and in the same town. The hotel owners are not to blame as they sometimes say they need to be registered. I'm sorry I know it's not their fault. It's a purely racist law. Can you imagine a hotel in Europe, Australia or the USA saying no foreigners or Chinese allowed? The Chinese would be the first to scream racist as they did recently when a Swedish television show picked up on the disgusting spitting and guttural clearing habits here. This is something I just can't get used to and its everywhere.
I mentioned in my last update about so many astonishing stacks of cheap beer outside grocery stores in this region of China and it's only this region. I gave a quick count of one stack which had twelve-packs of 600 ml bottles to be five high, 30 wide by 25 deep I would really know what they are doing with enough alcohol to fuel even a Glastonbury festival. Or even Father Jack, ( from the comedy Fr. Ted) drink drink, drink 
Or Shane McGowan at a stretch, lol there 
I don't see any serious alcohol abuse. I notice teenagers coming into stores and buying bales of milk or even Red Bull. Even at the low cost of 2 Yuans a bottle (roughly 7 Yuans to the $/€) that is a lot of valuable stock to have outside a store and to just pull a tarp over at night. No doubt the owners have the usual Chinese alarm system, a barking one. Still, in a state of shock at this, I was astonished when I noticed at the other side of the store another large stash, almost as large as that one!!! A sign in another store advertised a 12 pack of 600 ml bottles at 14 Yuans = two euro or Dollars!
That day en route to my 53 kilometres I was pretty weary as I had only about two hours sleep. My pulse had been racing as I settled down to sleep in that garage and it took about two hours to fall away into slumberland and then the barking alarm clock as previously mentioned. It was a hot and humid day and hot on my hands as I pushed Karma along route 204. I now wear gloves to protect my hands from the burning sun. I was weary, almost as though I was slugging it out in one of my ultrarunning races during my competitive career, yes, I'm working off that experience and coping strategists that I garnered all those years ago. Eventually, after the hotel refusals mentioned earlier I found a nice one and at a reasonable rate. It had a two euro buffet breakfast option also.
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