D38: 太平 → 吴店

July 13, 2022

On the one hand, this stub of City Walls is in terrible condition. On the other hand, they've used my favorite "preservation instead of reconstruction" methodology in making a park of it

The Ben Franklin effect is a proposed psychological phenomenon wherein a person who has already performed a favor for another person is more likely to do another favor for the other than if they had received a favor from that person.

Explained away by people reasoning against their internal cognitive dissonance that they must have helped you because they like you (even if they do not), there's a truism that you can get other people to like you not by being likeable but by asking a small favor of them.

Of all the possible themes to "catch on" for Beautiful Countryside wall paintings, I wouldn't have thought surreal trompe l'oeil would be one of them

From the kitten materializing out of the bottom of the TV set to the news banner about a 300 year old bridge on an image of a modern highway bridge, it just gets weirder the longer you look

It's one of the reasons why I do things like allow myself to need help getting a lobby door open. The awkward dance of them getting in my way in order to help me is a like a bonus roll in D&D for whether or not tonight's check in shall go smoothly.

Particularly as things were already primed to go smoothly, I do not especially recommend gagging on your water and throwing up as a method of needing to be let into the hotel room now.

However, the sudden need to vomit while being shown the first of the available rooms, and the time spent while Owner Mom patted me on the back and told me I was going to be okay, meant that even though I was supposed to be yellow coded as a secondary contact with a Covid positive individual, and even though the broken for non-Hubei resident foreigners Hubei Health Code for Foreigners is gray and will remain gray for the rest of my time in Hubei, there were basically no issues with getting myself a room.

And the award for strangest hotel lobby goes to .....

For a Grain Co-op owned property, last night's hotel was lush

Even though this is another town where they aren't yet requiring computer registrations for all guests at check-in, it isn't actually that small a town. On the basis of the posters in the lobby, and a general impression gotten during the interactions that took place when I wasn't burning my throat with a combination of stomach acid and half digested chicken, they seemed to be quite competent and law abiding sorts so I suppose my information was transmitted to the police and epidemic prevention and control the way it was supposed to be.

However, after a day that involved nothing but head winds and major roads and which ended on a high note of this caliber, all I cared about was how cold the air conditioning, how hot the shower, and how dark the room was with the blackout curtains pulled.

Massive trench running down the center of the road

Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 2,253 km (1,399 miles)

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