It's a good thing this wasn't a very long entry as the internet ate my post. More specifically, I had originally connected to the hotel's wifi (which it turns out isn't as fast as my phone) and like the proverbial niceguy who doesn't get it when you say "I'm not interested", the wifi decided that my computer would much rather be connected to it than to some tarty red cellphone.

I'm not sure exactly when I went to sleep last night. I know I was in bed with the lights out before 7pm but I don't know if I was actually asleep. More like hibernating meditation mode than actual sleep.

I woke up many times throughout the night. I woke up to pee. I woke up to half consciously nom snacks out of my handlebar bag and panniers (a task which involved unpacking both bags and strewing their contents around the room in search of calories). I woke up because my choice of a fancy sounding "Business Hotel" instead of the dumpy place I'd stayed last time (which I'd found!) was sure to be more comfortable than the dumpy place I'd stayed last time and I was wrong. (On the one hand in-room plumbing. On the other hand, the beds were way more comfortable last time.)

As the sun eventually crept its way far enough into the sky that light made it in through my window (which faces on to a cliff) I continued to wake up. I woke up to check the weather report on my phone. I woke up to see whether or not it was actually raining outside (it wasn't). I woke up to go back to sleep because there was literally no way I was going to successfully manage to get any of the work done which was due at 8pm if I also went riding.

When I finally got up and got conscious long enough to stay conscious, it was 1pm.

When I finally decided that even with demolishing most of the recent care package from the American Bakery, the food in the room just wasn't enough and that the chances weren't good for a) Pipa having delivery or b) my knowing where I was enough to get food delivered to my room, it was already 6pm.

I very briefly went in search of dinner. I remember there being more and more varied restaurants in Pipa six years ago. I actually ordered my food off of a printed menu. I know this. Not just because I remember doing it but because I wrote about doing it. I wrote about the conversation I had with the guy who insisted on paying for my dinner and how—as a functional illiterate in his native language—amazed he was at my casual ability to just walk into a restaurant and read the menu.

But that was when Pipa was still full of construction crews, construction crew foremen, and managers. Full of the people building the expressway and the people paving the road through Pipa and the people who, even four years after the Sichuan Earthquake, were still going around putting up safe modern buildings in this region (like that guy who bought my dinner). All that stuff has been built now and although Pipa may have an expressway exit and a bus that goes back and forth to the city, it doesn't have much in the way of people who don't live here.

Tonight, my choices for food include a Muslim noodle shop, a different Muslim noodle shop, the Muslim noodle shop across the street from them, and a noodle shop that is not specifically Muslim but which also does not have pork products on the menu. I'll order my noodles with extra meat and a hard boiled egg but, honestly, I was really hoping for a bit more in terms of proteins and fats and a bit less in terms of complex carbohydrates.

Then back to the room to finish up the last bit on the scheduled task and most of a new task for a different client.