Today I learned that, if I leave the peanut butter within reach before going to sleep, I wake up substantially later than I might otherwise (in this case 3pm) and with far less peanut butter than I had when I went to sleep.

I have no recollection of ever opening the peanut butter jar, of closing it, or of eating either with fingers or tools. The bed is free of the peanut butter smears I would have expected to be there if I'd been using my fingers but I suppose I could have sucked it all off.

I think I'll wait to do it for the upcoming Interlude "Margaret's Birthday" but it looks like I'm going to need more peanut butter. This time though, since I'll be buying it rather than getting it as a gift, I'll be able to get the properly crunchy kind.

The renovated part of Shangjin is short and not especially interesting but it's getting there. It's just that there isn't enough ordinary interesting stuff outside the old streets to support interesting stuff existing on the old street.

The not yet renovated stuff inside the city walls is better. There's a Catholic church and a grain depot with some slogans about building a moderately prosperous society in all respects¹. I also notice that many of the bricks in the City Gates (at least the three I visit) are stamped with a makers mark which is just too damn cool.

I wander around for a bit over an hour, fail to find massage either inside or outside the Walls, get a hair wash, eat some lackluster dumplings and some amazing roujiamou² that are absolutely perfect in terms of greasiness and protein and salt and carbs as well as probably actually being cooked by someone who knew what he was doing.

Then back to my room for more sleep.

¹ I swear, the shorter a "set phrase" is in Chinese, the longer it is in English. 建设小康社会

² I'm very close to Xi'an