A380 for the main flight back...and a grateful pickup from LHR

After under four hours' sleep we got up at around 6am and brought our stuff to the reception. I paid the bill (not realising that the tonic was not included in the 26 kuai for my gins of the previous night and being slightly miffed at that). But not that miffed as after I paid up the bloke at the reception he gave me a big western style hug as though we were old friends, before the taxi turned up. Not only was it on time, and a friend of the hotel, it was only 300 kuai all in, which made it 100 kuai cheaper than the one that was arranged for us from the airport four days ago.

We were well in time for the flight, and spent a bit of time getting duty free before we needed to board. As I took a photo of Leilei in front of the plane I learnt that it was an Airbus 380, in other words the new, biggest passenger plane in the world as I understand it. Not that it made any obvious difference to me as we boarded as per a normal plane. We'd managed the middle four seats and thankfully the flight to Germany was fairly smooth and I did manage a little sleep. Using the kids I managed to bypass queues in Frankfurt or wherever we were and the kids slept on the flight to London as I wish I could have.

A handsome lad in front of our A380 to take us to Europe

Good old Awl had driven to Heathrow and met us there to drive us back, during which the kids slept all the time. I dreaded the night that was to come but in fact they did go to bed reasonably ok, allowing Awl and I to have a late nightcap. I hate getting back so much, but it is made easier by the prospect of seeing family and friends. One thing I have promised myself to not do though is moan about the temperature. I hate it when other people do that so must not do so myself. So what? You lived in a warmer country, it's not like you don't know what it's like in the UK. It's cold and wet - deal with it.

Once again we've had a lovely time in our home in China. It is good to be back in the UK again. Both are good, but I feel a bit out of it here now. Here's hoping that in ten months we'll get the chance to go back again. Gan bei!

Ah, so it wasn't G&T yesterday...anyway last night in Beijing and nice meal

Today was slightly more relaxed than Beijing has been so far. Slightly. Actually, that reminds me of part of "The Greatest Show on Earth", or maybe it was "The God Delusion". Well, it was one of Dawkins's recent works where he digresses when he mentions "Beijing", and asks why we don't call it "Peking" as other countries do. It's quite an interesting point. We don't call Paris "Paree", or Rome, "Roma". But it doesn't actually matter that much so Beijing it is.

Not sure if that was Xixi's writing but I love this way of practising just using water - safe!

After an enjoyable morning in the courtyard of the hotel after breakfast bought locally the previous night we went out to see Cao Lei again. This time we went to a beautiful park just north of the Forbidden City, affording great views of it. I really should remember this park's name. It was a hot day and we enjoyed some long walks to various pagodi before taking a nice boat ride to more serene places.

Tan can still get her arms around me but I need to remove some excess I put on in Pingguo

In front of the Forbidden City

They got a bit spoilt with a fan-cap for Xixi and a blue machine gun for Leilei...

We got back to our place in the late afternoon but I had arranged to meet the sister of an ex-colleague of mine from university ten years back, as I'd met them in London a few months back and said if I was ever in Beijing I'd call her and I was true to my word. Then we experienced a particularly frustrating part of Chinese life in big cities as I understand it. It was 6pm, and therefore all the cabbies were changing shifts, i.e. they were all going home and not taking new fares. I just can't believe that this would happen now. 6pm has to be the time when cabs are most in demand so surely those savvy drivers would ensure they were working at this time, no? It took more than fifteen minutes but I eventually flagged one down and had to wrestle away others to get my family into it. But we did it and got to a rather posh area of Beijing, on the waterfront, at not long before 7pm.

We met up with my ex-colleague's sister after Xixi had unintentionally given me a bloody nose by headbutting me while trying to kiss me. The poor girl was distraught when she saw she'd drawn blood and it was all I could do to tell her it was ok. Well, the meal was delicious, despite more than a dozen toilet breaks for the kids. It wasn't too pricy at around 300+ kuai so I didn't feel too bad about not paying for it. Afterwards at around 9.30pm getting a cab was nearly as bad as earlier, but miraculously two turned up at once and we nigh on jumped into them with barely a second to say our thank yous and goodbyes.

We had done most of the packing this morning for tomorrow's journey, so had a relatively relaxed last couple of hours. I'd promised the kids some little presents so we stopped in a small knick-knack shop on our hotel's road and I got them some cheap crap that they liked. I also got a rather cool mini plunger - about 1.5" in length, which was designed to stick on the back of your smartphone to lean it up as you watched videos on it. Ingenious!

Sometimes it's just great with your kids

When the kids were finally asleep I took the laptop to the bar again for a G&T again and to print out the boarding passes, and to book a cab for tomorrow. I made a realisation that I really ought to have done this last night. The "0 Calorie" tonic water I'd chosen last night was not in fact tonic water but soda water. I still don't really know what that is but it's not much different from fizzy water. No wonder my G&T tasted so shit, as it was in fact G&SW, which doesn't even sound nice. So I sank two real G&Ts (fully calorific) for the first time in two months and properly enjoyed them this time. I even helped out some French tourists in French, as for some reason the Lufthansa website didn't seem to want to work with our Chinese connection. I ended up using logmein to connect to my UK laptop and downloaded the boarding passes from there and then emailing them to myself so I could get them in China and print them out. And people call that geeky...say that the next time you miss your plane in the Far East, suckers.

I did stay up rather late as I hoped that that would enable me to sleep on the next day's flight.

Great Wall (again for me with City top on)

Despite the smaller beds it was undeniable that this place was much nicer than the Forest Land Hotel. However, I did have to help out with the local Internet. The only wifi reception I could get was from the reception (no pun intended) even though there was an access point in the courtyard so I asked the receptionist if I could have a look at their setup. I noticed that their access point was unplugged in the central area. So I plugged it in and set it up in the comms room. To put it in a nutshell I solved their Internet issues in a few minutes and although they were grateful it wasn't half as much as I was. It enabled me to do a bit of geeking while the family slept and I finally got to sleep at oneish after a couple of beers.

We met Cao Lei again this morning. We were to go to the Great Wall, and she was to drive us. I had been there back in 2003 and it had changed. Not the wall itself, not even the shops selling touristy shite. But something less Chinese was there. Around 40% of people there were not Chinese and again it felt so different from 2003 with Venky. Plus this time we had blooming kids to deal with, neither of whom really wanted to go to the top (same as the ladies). So after ten minutes' climbing we went back down and had a meal of dumplings in a reasonably priced restaurant at the bottom. I've had difficulties paying Cao Lei for all she's done for us but finally managed to put a few hundred kuai in her hand today. On the way back I slightly geeked with my phone and played some Chinese songs over the FM radio much to the ladies' delight!

At the base of one of the entrances of the wall

About as far up as we got on the Great Wall

Leilei at the Great Wall

Xixi at the Great Wall

Leilei didn't really want to join in the cannon sitting

I wish the shirt was the only thing older in March 2003...

...than the wearer in 2011

Cao Lei had to go to pick up her kids in the afternoon so dropped us of on the north side of the Forbidden City at around 4pm. Unfortunately we found out that the north end was just the exit as we had planned on visiting this beautiful place that I'd been to eight years ago. Instead we got onto a crowded bus and went to Tiananmen Square and spent the rest of the daylight hours wearing out the kids before getting the tube back to our road. We had a relatively simple meal on the way back and this restaurant only had one other table of foreigners.

Xixi looking quite the traveller at Tiananmen

Totem polling by Tiananmen

Although tired I fancied a walk as the kids were falling asleep in the hotel and did so at around 8pm. I noticed that there was a table outside the hotel and some people doing some bbq. After a relatively boring twenty minutes' walk I came back and by now there seemed to be a bit of a party outside the hotel. The receptionist was there and bade me sit down and have a beer and a bbq'd prawn. How could I refuse? The majority of people were foreign guests at the hotel and the staff were very keen to communicate in English with them, hence I was pleased when they conversed with me in Mandarin.

The cook was already particularly drunk and kept telling me to call him the next day and he'd make me a special meal. But the main conversation of the evening was with a fifty-something German with his Chinese girlfriend not too much his junior. I dare say he'd had a few beers already but was in stitches when I talked to his girlfriend in Mandarin - almost in disbelief. Strange, as he was talking to me in English, which I presume is foreign to him....

It was nice to have a chat over a couple of beers, but as the "party" petered out and because the family were asleep I fancied a bit of a geek so got my laptop and for the first time went to the bar. Aahh, it was actually nice to be in a smoky bar even not smoking. They had gin, and even cans of tonic. I hadn't had tonic water for two months so was quite excited at the prospect. It was "Watsons" brand, but I didn't care. And then I noticed a "0 Calorie" version so I opted for that. Gosh, it was really poor tonic - no flavour but still it made a change from the sweet Pingguo shui bi lemonade. Well, I had a second one just to make sure, before bed soon after midnight.

Multicultural Beijing

We woke up with the knowledge that we would certainly be changing hotels within a couple of hours. What transpired was sort of typically Chinese. We checked out as Tan had found a place nearby that was cleaner, if a little "cosier" and more expensive. Not as much as I had originally planned on paying though. We'd got all our suitcases outside in the warm morning and paid for our solitary evening in the Forest Land Hotel. Then awaited two taxis to arrive to take us to our new place. They did arrive within half an hour but then refused to take us to our new hotel because...oh well I tried to get the answer but it was something to do with it being a special day and they couldn't drive there. Poppycock, it was just that it was the wrong way down a one-way street and they could have easily gone the long way round. As it was I did not understand this so we had to pay each driver the minimum 11 kuai or whatever.

After a long time on the phone a couple of blokes from the new place came to help us. It transpired that the new hotel was but a couple of hundred yards away so we set in that direction through the hu taos, passing blokes drinking beer in the late morning and many others eating, until we arrived at the Beijing Xiao Zhan Hotel/Hostel and it was immediately more welcoming than yesterday's attempt. The reception was clean, as was our room - if somewhat smaller than last night. But I could cope with a couple of one-and-a-half beds as I'd be with Xixi and Tan with Leilei. There was also a lovely courtyard that most of the rooms opened out to.

Once we'd paid our deposit and dumped our stuff Tan got in contact with her friend Cao Lei, who was a good friend for a few years while she and her family lived in the UK, until moving back to China a few years ago for better work prospects. Cao Lei and her husband and two daughters (born in the UK) came around later in the morning to pick us up and take us for lunch. As this was Beijing they left their car parked by the hotel and we got a couple of taxis to take us. We went to a charming place, and because it was around 1pm by now it was not too busy. We had some of the local specialities and a couple of glasses of beer, and it was nice for the ladies to chat in the same room rather than by QQ 5000 miles apart. Cao Lei's husband also mainly spoke to me in Chinese, which I took as a compliment.

Cao Lei's daughters are obviously a lot older than I remember them, but they were great company for Leilei and Xixi, and even me. After lunch we went to visit some ancient places that I now find interesting. I was struck by how many foreigners there were. Not just whiteys but people in Muslim garb and some Blacks too. I felt like I had just arrived from a foreign country and in some respects I had. Beijing has obviously become very multicultural in the eight and a half years since I was here last.

Meeting up with Cao Lei and family in Beijing

Tan and I at a Confucius place in Beijing

Tan and I in front of a lovers' tree apparently

All in all the day was enjoyable as we caught up with old friends and saw some lovely sights. But at the end I couldn't help really missing Pingguo. Here was if anything closer to London than to back home. I was tired, but forced myself to go for a little walk along the hu tao but still couldn't really feel as if I was here.

Last day in Pingguo 2011 and another temporary blackout

Normally this day is a panic-stricken few hours of getting our stuff sorted and leaving an almighty mess before getting a lift to Nanning airport. This year was a bit of an exception. The kids had slept at Waipo's place so Tan and I were able to get up a little later than normal, justified by the fact that we'd been up late last night after the karaoke packing bags. But it makes it so much nicer when you know that if you're leaving stuff behind it's in your own house rather than a relative's. I left a few more clothes and some toiletries that would have taken up some weight and will be of more value waiting for the next time we come. The same went for some of the kids' toys and even Tan's stuff. I did take a picture of some of my toiletries though, so I know what not to bring next time. Unfortunately, when it comes to clothes I've left the same ones there for a few years now and although they only get worn for a few weeks a year my photographs would lead people to believe I haven't refreshed my wardrobe much since coming to Pingguo.

A reminder of my toiletries

I actually had to pop into the local supermarket and took a pic of the booze section in case Awl or another friend might be interested

Well something typical had to happen on our last day, and it duly did. Although we have now been moved to "City Electricity" as opposed to "Country Electricity", the effect of a tropical storm this morning had some unwelcome effects on our plans. My first task was to take back the flat screen telly to Waipo's house, where we borrowed it from seven weeks ago. This would have been easy had it not been pissing down by the time I got onto the electric bike. I decided to wrap the tv in a couple of supermarket bags and it seemed to managed the journey to Waipo's even though I got soaked to the bone in lovely warm rain. I didn't stay long enough to actually test the tv, but this was my last time with Waipo so I gave her a genuinely loving hug. Although she is mostly skin and bones, she is now a bit used to this Westernism; she actually put her arms out to hug me before I did so to her. That is actually quite a profound change. I do think she likes me now.

So much for the tv. I had to drop some stuff off at A Hua's then get back via the market. But as soon as I arrived at the market the heavens truly opened and it was all I could do to find refuge by one of the market sellers and manage to keep a tiny amount of dryness on my tee-shirt. I knew it wasn't even midday, and we didn't have to leave till 3pm, so I just sat there chatting with the market seller, and realised that this was another of the things I love about being here. I was no longer just a white bloke, we were just talking about the seasonal variations of fruit, and how it affected business etc. It took nearly half an hour for the rain to die down but when it did I drove to A Hua's again since the rain had aborted my previous attempt. There I left my trusty electric steed, and said my goodbyes to A Hua and a couple of other lovely ladies.

Stuck in the rain but happy to be in the market place!

For the last time in 2011 I took a san lun che to get back home. I knew that we'd pretty much packed up all we needed.
I pressed the button on the lift to get me up to our 14th floor (13th in English) and promptly found out that the recent storm had screwed the electricity. Bugger. There was nothing for it; in the 30+ degree heat I walked up to our place and grabbed the heaviest bag (as Tan was taking a shower). It might have taken half an hour but I got the bugger down after losing two pints of sweat. By this time Lin Hong and her husband had arrived to help us. I explained about the lack of electricity so her husband A Zheng walked up with me to get the rest. Somehow, while I was upstairs the electricity came back on. That should have been great news except for the fact that I had started taking the second heaviest bag downstairs. I finally noticed that the electricity was back when I was on the eigtht floor, and gladly took the lift for the remainder of the trip...but I could have been told earlier I'm sure...

Finally the dreaded hour of departure arrived, and Lin Hong and her husband took us to Waipo's house where the kids were ready to go. I don't want to dwell on the journey but it was as it has been since 2003, with the "Don't drive tired" road signs on the way to the airport. And the airport was the same, with our best friends staying until we got past the security point. Really sad, as they are not just friends but actual relatives.

The flight to Beijing was on time and thankfully not too turbulent. I'd already ordered a taxi (at 40 quid I thought it was extortionate but a sign of the times), and we got to our shitty Beijing hotel (Forest Land hotel) around midnight. Unfortunately it was quite a dirty place, but after a long day we just slept (I would have preferred the advertised wifi). Not a great welcome to the capital city.

Last, lovely, family meal

I think this is just about the first weekday that the kids haven't gone to school. But of course they had other places to go to. So I was allowed some time to mull. I have been reading some rather worrying articles about world population recently, and how although it is possible to manage to feed everyone (through non-organic farming means), it isn't going to be tenable going forward. At least that's my understanding. It's one of the reasons I don't generally buy organic food, as it seems to be encouraging a market that, if it was the only way of producing food, would only be able to feed about half of the world's current population. If that is anything near the truth then I am justified in my avoidance of organic. Having said that, it may be that most of what I eat here is organic. If so that's great as it feeds the local population and we don't ship it half way across the world. Plus, here we have a policy that limits population.

What a sore point. Almost as a reaction I was against this. But being aware of, and living in two very different cultures, I have to at least analyse things I would otherwise dismiss out of hand. The one child policy is rather severe, but was probably born (no pun) out of a perceived necessity. I am now of the opinion that regulating population is a necessity. It is a hard thing to say, but now that we are aware of the impacts of what we do we have a responsibility to not totally screw things up for our future generations. If people really agree (as it seems they do) that fossil fuel pollution and other such man-made planet-endangering things are bad then it makes sense to not have as many people who are doing this to the planet. Although I recognise this as being a completely different reason from the Chinese policy, I have been thinking about what might be the best way. I don't want to have a blanket "one-child-unless-you-live-in-the-countryside-and-your-first-child-is-a-girl-or-disfigured" approach, but I'm thinking something more like "two-children-unless-both-are-the-same-sex-in-which-case-you-can-have-more-until-you-have-both-genders". I love having two kids and I know so very very well I'm lucky to have one of each. Just about every Chinese parent I know has said such nice things about us having had a boy and a girl, with no remorse about only having had one kid. I feel almost embarrassed. But I think my horrible algorithmic way of population control would be a good thing. I just can't stand the way that certain cultures (more like religions) emphasise the importance of breeding just so they can have more than the others.

For the evening meal we kept it a family affair. Waipo and Jiuma, having spent so much time with the kids outside of school (and allowing Tan and I to have our own lives with our own friends, and our own marital time together) were to make a rare venture out, along with Lin Hong and her daughter Tian Tian. A Heng and Ling Ming also came and us blokes shared a couple of beers and some nice food, and we had a genuinely nice family meal. Our last such for a long time.

Last family meal
Rather than be sad for the rest of the waking day, A Hua invited us to karaoke for a final time. Though it was a mainly girls' night out there were a couple of blokes so I managed a few last ganbei's of the year. But knowing that you're leaving the next day somewhat sobers you up and I got Tan home around 1amish. "Home" - I don't take that for granted here as it is more our own place than our abode in London.

KTV on last night in Pingguo 2011

Water scrolls as presents

We're leaving on Saturday so I needed to do some stuff. As I was coming back from taking the kids to school I remembered the local shop I like that sells sporting goods, toys and knick-knacks. I was particularly keen on getting some interesting scrolls that were designed to allow you to practise writing your characters. I had been surprised to see the shop owner writing with black ink on such a scroll with apparent disregard for where spillages might occur. Until, that was, I realised he was dipping his brush in water and it was the scroll itself that was displaying the characters in black. Not rocket science, but a great design anyway; the characters would fade away after a minute or two as the water dried up. I thought it would be an interesting and rather unique present to bring back (quite rare to find such a thing here) so I ended up buying ten of them at 15 kuai each. Until the shop owner bargained me down to 12 kuai a piece. Only in Pingguo have I ever encountered anti-bartering. Well, maybe it wasn't as I also bought ten calligraphy brushes at 4 to 6 kuai a piece.

Though I felt I should be in a rush to do things during my last 48 hours I didn't rush. I rather boringly chilled out and just lived. I picked up the kids at the usual time but it had changed - there were only a handful of kids there as most were now back in normal school. In fact I'd been told not to take them tomorrow as they'd be practically the only kids there. So I brought some cash and paid the teacher the princely sum of 1250 kuai or thereabouts for all the time Leilei and Xixi had been there. About 120 quid for the best part of two months - bargain!

I did make the effort to go to Ma Laoban's computer shop for a last time to say goodbye for another year. I was glad I did as I met a couple of other mates there, one of whom, Li Yi, brought me a thoughtful present of home made moon cakes. Unfortunately, moon cakes are rather heavy, so not good for travelling with - but they do make great presents for other Chinese.

Later on I went to the bbq by the guang chang to meet up with Yang Haiwei and his wife and friends. But it wasn't as fun as normal. He was rather the worse for wear again, and there was just this overhanging awareness that we were leaving soon. I bade my goodbyes around midnight, hoping earnestly that I would see them within ten or so months.