Today is not an unspecial or uninteresting day in terms of things like scenery or rideability. It is, however, a moderately gray day that is matched in its unprettiness by a stomach that won't stop gurgling ominously but which also won't manage to expel whatever it is that's bothering me until late in the evening.

I imagine the Pepto (which I take at a substantially lower dose than suggested) may have contributed to my not managing to forcefully rid my digestive tract of the proximate cause of my discomfort in a bike short changing incident but it also manages to calm the bubbling down to a degree where I can at least tolerate doing things other than grimace.

Having stopped by the Xidesheng one last time to make coffee and to track down an errant bit of cruft that somehow got inside my new front tire and punctured my front tube between picking the bike up last night and now, I add an adorable yellow duck atop my headlight to the list of things they wouldn't let me pay for¹.

My only marked tourist site for the day is a large baijiu distillery that I hadn't particularly wanted to visit that much (other than because it was there) so while the "worsening epidemic situation²" annoys me as a reason for why their already not very open to the public announced as open to the public tours have been cancelled, I don't see any reason to do more than smile and nod.

There should have been a visit to a pagoda that wasn't marked as a detour but which is a National Heritage Site. Unfortunately, despite a prominent sign at the intersection, no distance is listed, no one local could give me a reasonable estimate beyond "oh, very far on a bicycle", it's not on any electronic maps, and the location as shown in online descriptions is clearly wrong³. 

It's pretty early when I get to town. Early enough that the police station is still officially open and lots of people are on duty to try to convince me that my statement of "your supervisors' making untenable rules that inconvenience me means that I'm perfectly happy to sit here wasting everyone's time in the hopes that generating paperwork will lead to change" has been listened to but I really can't go to the hotel I want to go to because reasons⁴.

So, sat in front of them, I book a room online (under the Chinese name Foreigner Friend) at the next closest hotel and force them to walk with me to the hotel and get me checked in.

Don't take a knife to a gun fight; don't gamble with a Sicilian when life is on the line; and don't be a Chinese police officer who is trying to convince me that I want to go to some other hotel.

On account of the stomach gurgles, I head out in search of a full body massage but the only place I find that isn't a foot spa is apparently booked solid. The foot spa I ended up at was then a place that would have been overpriced if not for the manager comping my massage in return for letting her and the masseuse take selfies with me.

¹ New tire, a replacement spoke on the rear wheel, and dinner.

² Although some areas in Guangdong had been listed as mid-risk, as of this morning, everything domestic has been upgraded back to low-risk.

³ I'm facing north and standing at an intersection where the sign points west. The internet says the pagoda is supposed to be in Huanjiazhuang Village, but Huanjiazhuang is in the town 15km to the north of me. Careful research come evening will let me know that it's actually in Huanzhuang (no "jia" in the middle of the name) Village.

⁴ Reasons which include housekeeping staff being middle aged women from the countryside who surely have never seen a foreigner before and the possibility that a pint sized juvenile delinquent who doesn't yet know right from wrong might take my bicycle from the lobby that I've already confirmed has reasonable bike parking.