Dom, Tan, Leilei, and Xixi in China: Trip to Tian Yang stonery and Ling Ming's birthday meal

Had a bit of lie-in until A Wu called around 11.30 to ask if I wanted to go to Tian Yang. My reaction was to answer in the negative but had I done this I would have spent the next couple of hours lolling around and maybe getting some jiao zi for lunch, as Tan and the kids were already out. I had been invited to a meal with Boss Hu in the evening, which meant in about six hour's time, so I said I'd go as at least it wouldn't be that long. Then Tan called a minute later to say we were having a family meal with Da Jie this evening around 5.30pm, so I had to call A Wu to tell him I couldn't do Boss Hu's meal due to family commitments, which apparently was fine.

A Wu sent his driver to fetch me immediately even though I insisted on getting a shower first. I'd asked A Wu whether I should wear long trousers and he said I should, but with short sleeves, so I wondered if we were expected to attend a meal as Tian Yang is only about an hour away and it could still be lunchtime. In fact we drove two minutes to a place that does great fried food where we met A Wu just starting on a meal. This is a fairly cheap place that is on a corner and doesn't have any walls, so relies on big fans to cool the customers. Once full of beef, pork, greens and rice we got into the car and drove off.

We didn't take the road I expected, which was the quicker toll road, so I asked where we were going. "Tian Yang", was the response. Five minutes later we arrived at A Wu's work where we stopped for a few minutes. I got out to have a look around as is my wont when otherwise I'd be stuck in a car. I noticed that they'd blown away more of the mountainside and funnily there was a huge, three story high very roughly spherical rock that had come apart from the mountain and landed right in the area where the lorries go to pick up the smaller rocks to be crushed in the crusher. I would have loved to be there to see that come away from the mountain - I bet they were shitting themselves wondering how far it would go before it stopped - another 50 yards and it could have been end of business.

The huge rock that had displaced itself onto A Wu's work area

I was shouted at to come back to the car and found it had two more occupants. I couldn't decipher exactly where we were going in Tian Yang but I suspected it was something to do with mangoes as per the other times I've been there. In Pingguo, A Wu's driver had told me it would take an hour to get to Tian Yang, so I was hoping (not expecting) to arrive at 1.30pm. After taking country roads for half an hour we finally got onto the toll road, wasting about 30 minutes I reckon. Instead of paying at the tollgate, Driver just looked at the woman there and she let us go. A Wu has done this before and despite asking, I've never quite understood why they get through free as if he was China's answer to Derren Brown.

We finally got to Tian Yang but didn't exit there, waiting for the exit after. There we stopped behind a black pickup and one of my fellow back seat passengers got out and started talking to the driver. Then he got in the rear seats of the pickup. It felt like some dodgy drug deal, and then to make matters worse the other bloke sitting next to me still said we had another 20km to go. I'd been checking where we were all the journey on my phone thanks to the downloaded maps and GPS. The only road looked like a very minor one and 20km would take some time. In fact it was not just a minor road but one that was in the process of being turned into not so minor, which meant it was being built and there were plenty of road works to delay us further. At 2.15 I asked when we'd be there, wherever "there" was, and I was told 2.30. I might as well have asked at what time GB would win their first gold medal. Indeed at 2.30 we were still meandering through roadworks, although it was quite beautiful scenery, except for an old ex-village whose inhabitants had probably been forced to depart due to the large rocks that had tumbled down the mountains unwelcomed into their houses rendering them derelict.

What is now a ghost village due to gravity and rocks

Finally at 3.15pm we got to a part of the road that A Wu's Toyota Camry could not navigate, so we pulled over and noticed that there was nearly no petrol in it. Driver was told to go and get some, and that the nearest pump was 30km away, before we all got into the pickup. There wasn't enough room for my backseat fellow passenger so he did some pickup surfing on the back. I was a bit jealous until I saw the state of the road and became worried that we were going too fast and would skid off and that would be the end. But we managed the next 1 or 2 km until reaching a stone works similar to A Wu's. The blokes spent the next half an hour chatting and taking some photos, while I took in some of the lovely scenery before succumbing to my male desire to throw rocks down the steep mountainside, which kept me more than amused until it was time to go back.

Beyond Tian Yang to view another stoneworks

This time I joined my back seat passenger on the back of the pickup and enjoyed surfing it back more than I should have. We got a couple of bottles of green tea and cans of Red Bull and set off back in A Wu's Toyota again as it was nearly 4pm and I needed to be back before 6. We seemed to take an even slower way back than the way to get here, and stopped off for petrol too, meaning I must have misunderstood Driver's instructions to pick some up, or he misunderstood their directions.

Yet more setbacks on the road - this time I was unable to help

On the way back A Wu passed me a showroom brochure for a Porsche Cayenne - a top of the range beauty, of which I've already spied a good two or three this year in Pingguo (to add to the couple of Porsche Panameras I saw last year). Then, to my surprise, he pulled out a receipt and said he'd bought one. I didn't know whether to believe him or not, but it looked genuine, with a price of 1,390,000 kuai for the car, bumped up to over 1,550,000 with all the extras - a full 530 times more expensive than our car, not that they compare in any way beyond having four wheels. Well, selling stones does seem to be good business (if you're the boss).

A receipt for a GBP160k Porsche Cayenne?

We got home just after 6, with every other passenger having slept most of the way, probably not helped by having drunk my first Red Bull for over 10 years. I freshened up and drove to the restaurant near Waipo's house. Luckily I wasn't the last to arrive, and there was an amazing array of food for such a relatively small table seating no more than 12. There was a lovely hot pot of frogs and cauliflower, my favourite dark eggs, a great choice of meat and vege dishes and two delicacies I hadn't yet had in China (or anywhere else): goat testicles and cow spinal cords. The goat testicles were sliced, and rather nice. The spinal cord tasted and had the texture of pig brain to my uneducated palette, and left a little to be desired. Both were supposed to be very healthy for you, and in an infantilely simple way the testicles were supposed to be good for "men's health" and the spinal cord good for keeping your back healthy. I asked why they had ordered the balls when other than Ling Ming and me everyone else was female. I got a half-arsed answer that tailed away and I didn't push for fear of bullying in what was a very enjoyable encounter with so many family members.

Er Jie came a bit later and said "Happy Birthday" to Ling Ming. Of course, it was his birthday today, so I ordered a couple of beers and had a couple of gan bei's with him, and sips with Xiao Nong and Tan. Although the frog dish was barely half eaten, Er Jie took it away and plonked a different huo guo pot onto the table above the gas fire in the centre of the table. This time there was a spicy section and a non-spicy section, and when it was hot enough we proceeded to cook lots more meat and veg. Honestly, that hot pot alone could have fed everyone and I was aghast to see that waiting on the side was yet another hot pot of cows ribs. Chuan Chuan explained that she had to go to work. It's funny as last week I asked if she was working and she said "no", but it transpires she is now working in a clothes shop "run" by Lin Xue, who I remember from Bangxu back in 2003. She's 18 now (and Chuan Chuan is 20), but it still seems rather young to be running your own shop.

Clockwise from left: Chuan Chuan, Er Jie, Jiuma, Waipo, Da Jie, Xiao Nong, Ling Ming, Tan

I took the kids back after a bit as they were getting restless after having eaten already. A Da then rang me to ask where Leilei was as apparently he was close to our house. So we trundled to what looked like a furnishing shop by the guangchang to see him and his parents A Wu and A Ni. Naturally, we drank tea while sitting on a plush sofa with the boss of the place. Thankfully there were some kids bikes and stuff to keep Leilei and Xixi amused with A Da and some other kids outside so I was able to drink some tea in reasonable peace.

When the kids got restless I took them for a ride to get some pearly milk tea. The place was opposite A Xia's shop and a couple of doors away from where Chuan Chuan was working, so we popped in to say hello. The kids insisted in having some jelly crap in their milk tea, and we went back home to give A Da his portion and eventually get to bed.