Chicken and Venky non-arrival

I got up before midday after a reasonable amount of sleep and found Andge also up. We needed to go to Nanning again for Venky this time, and A Wu once again offered to help out. This time, as is usual, he also had some business in Nanning. A Wu sounded a bit disappointed when he heard Awl wasn't going to come with us and instead sleep/read and generally do the relaxing things you're supposed to do on holiday and not work. But it made so much sense as his X6 is small inside and an English-sized adult cannot sit in the middle back seat without bending over. Not to mention it would have been four in the back seat.

A Wu's X6 is very nice but that's a Pingguo roller in the background

Filling up for the journey to Nanning

The furniture shop was in an industrial estate that catered for furniture shops exclusively. After going in and looking at the expensive tables and desks that weren't even hand carved we made some pleasantries with the boss who was quite pretty and had a nice smile and asked us to help her find an English man before Andge and I set off in search of adventure. By adventure I mean something other than furniture and also we were both rather peckish. It took a few minutes, and a passing of a couple of people on a rather practical-looking mini-Segways called something like "robocop", but eventually we got out of the furniture estate and happened upon a little hut that sold food. We got a couple of mini packs of dried squid that was delicious but rather spicy so we used that as an excuse to buy a couple of cans of beer. The fish and beer was going down very well when the inevitable call from si ji came and they picked us up outside the estate after having ordered a couple of book cases and a desk.

We drove to some building that looked like a modern office block and were greeted by some bloke in a fraying tee-shirt and shorts, and a few grey hairs. He happened to be another of A Wu's reasons for being in Nanning and A Wu seemed to be his inferior judging by their body language. But Andge's and my body language suggested we needed to go to the loo so we were pointed at an exit at the end of the building which also doubled as an entrance to one of those very modern shopping centres. We could have been in The Glades in Bromley except it was cleaner and there were fewer people. Andge wanted to know how much the prices were at Gant but by the time I got back from the loo he'd been accosted by four female shop assistants and had forgotten what he went in there for.

We got the expected phone call to hurry up and go and within minutes we had driven to a place to eat that for once did not appear to be very posh. A Wu seemed to know the manager, who was rather pretty with a mole on the bottom right of her chin that somehow stopped you admiring the rest of her face. We ordered four buckets of the speciality chicken but only three arrived with the fourth 25 minutes away which we cancelled when it became apparent that two would have been enough. The chicken was ok, but pretty much a whole one per bucket and not amazingly tasty though would be good for the Atkins diet. However the greens were very good and the only thing that spoilt the meal was seeing a Westerner upstairs while going for a wee.

We left and I checked Venky's flight on my phone and no delay was reported so as we were in good time we stopped off to take a wee and to get some cold beers as Venky had requested by text message earlier. The cheap eatery we got the beers from charged us 40 kuai for the case of nine beers which is a little more than I am used to, but £4 for over nine pints is not to be sniffed at. I noticed a group of schoolboys drinking and eating at a table outside and said "hello" and immediately was brought a stool and before I knew it was gan bei'ing and cai ma'ing. Andge joined in too but si ji didn't know what to make of it and bade us go back into the car to continue to the airport. Ok we did but after a couple more gan bei's.

Only when we were arriving at the airport did I get a call from Venky saying he'd been taken to a hotel in Shenzhen as his plane had been delayed something like three hours. Various text messages after that both confirmed and then denied that information and it was only at the airport we found that he wouldn't be here before 2am. So we went to an aiport hotel and were just about to book him a cheap room for £24 when we found it was likely he wouldn't arrive till 5am. We checked taxis and they wanted to charge 600 kuai for the journey to Pingguo so in the end we just left if for Venky to do as he saw fit. The only thing we knew was that his plane was currently still in Nanning, and it was gone midnight and we were all tired. So I left him a text and we left Nanning for home and another late night as we met Awl at 1.30am and didn't get to bed till 3am.