Reminiscing market stalls and mountain views

I needed more sleep than the kids appreciated as they kept running into my study where I'd chosen to retire from 9am onwards. After two hours of this I gave up trying to fight it and got up and showered at 11am. Chuan Chuan had bought some breakfast for the kids and as always got too much. But this was to my advantage as I had a couple of fried dumplings and some fried sweetish long stuff that you're supposed to dip into hot soya bean milk.

Andge got up a tad later and we both took the kids out to eat some jiao zi and bao zi at the local place. Everyone I take here really likes the simple fare the woman here produces, even the kids. Lunch done, Andge kindly took the kids out for a walk to the market and beyond, allowing me to get back into my proper bed and extend my sleeping time by a couple of hours. Really annoyingly we had no water this morning. Apparently a pipe had burst below and it would take a couple of hours to fix. I was counting on that as I needed a shower but Andge had cleverly taken one at 3am. Instead, Andge and I took down a couple of empty buckets and filled them up at a tap on the ground floor so that at least Tan would be able to wash somewhat.

Feeling refreshed by the sleep and the fact it was bucketing down outside and therefore cooler, we dumped the kids and went off to walk to Horse Head Mountain. I remembered that I'd made a 10"x8" print of a photo I took in 2003 of a couple of market stall holders. I'd made this because they still remember me and keep asking for a photo. I'd promised for a long time but it was time to deliver, and I even managed to frame it. So I brought it out with us wrapped in a plastic bag to save it from the rain. We barely got to the jiao zi place before we realised the single umbrella we had was not going to be enough for our broad western shoulders (not to mention tummies), so I bought a new blue umbrella for 17 kuai at the place next door in the most manly colour I could find of dark blue tartan. The woman asked where we were going and she looked at us as though we were bonkers when I mentioned the mountain. She couldn't help but blurt the obvious fact that it was pouring with rain but I countered by showing her the wispy clouds yonder on the mountain and said we would walk above the clouds to where it wasn't raining. She looked at me and said "how will that stop it raining?". I didn't answer as I didn't know if she was taking me seriously or not.

Andge modelling a particularly fetching dark blue tartan brolly - very Pingguo 2013

The shopkeeper at one of my local stores who likes me but thinks I am a little insane

We did stop at the market on the way and I presented the framed photo from ten years ago to the market stall woman and her colleague. They were as pleased as punch to have this little memento and forced a few pounds of dragon eye fruit and three fire dragon fruits upon us. We were grateful and asked if they wouldn't mind looking after them for us while we went to the mountain. This time I didn't say we were going to walk higher than the clouds.

The original Nov 2003 pic I blew up to 10"x8" and framed for the women directly to my left and right 

The "reunion" nearly 10 years later with stripy being the one on my left before and light green being the one on my right before - the taller woman from 10 years ago now lives in Liuzhou and the woman in the white here is new I think. Andge has just been stabbed by a light saber unfortunately

I haven't done Horse Head Mountain since the last time Andge was here in 2009 and embarrassingly couldn't find where you start the trek. We bought four cold bottles of water and I asked the shopkeeper how to get to the mountain and she told her young son to take us. I expected him to take us to the end of the road but it was a good five minute walk away during which we had a bit of a chat. When he showed us the entrance we were grateful and offered him a few kuai but he would hear nothing of it and waved away our gesture with a smile. It's a majorly relaxing thing about being here that you never have to fear about being ripped off or giving the right tip. There just does not seem to be that culture here. But it seems to extend even further the other way; I've lost count of the times I've bought something in a shop and the shopkeeper has reduced the price for me even though I had no intention of bargaining.

We did actually come across two people descending the mountain steps in the first few minutes but that was the total of our human encounters. The rain continued plopping down and we produced our own moisture as we mounted the mountain and our clothes became sodden from the inside rather than out. But the effort was worth it and we achieved not only calorific reduction but quite nice views of Pingguo, which I look forward to comparing with photos of nearly 10 years ago. I did have an old photo in my phone but it was unrecognisable from what we were looking at now, except for some mountains in the distance.

View from mountain in Jan 2004 - no guangchang then

View from mountain in Aug 2013 - I struggle to recognise much more than the mountains

We had to make a bit of a move as Tan had told us we needed to be at Waipo's house for 5pm for a family meal as it was gui jie, the time of year when you remember the dead by offering up food and alcohol and burning fake money. So we moved on to the pagoda and took a few more snaps before descending in the incessent rain. Andge managed to take a few more snaps of birds and we got home very soon after 5pm to find there was still no water, or at least there was but with very little pressure. At least it meant we could wash and brush teeth. Tan and the kids had showered at Waipo's and I was considering that but realised Awl and Venky had perfectly suitable showers in their rooms so after the family meal we traipsed off there with a perfectly good excuse for not lingering around longer.

Before the family meal for gui jie

We regrouped when clean and discussed arranging a trip for the four of us to the seaside town of Beihai. We could bus and train it but in order to save time we thought it would be more practical, and not that much more pricey, to take a taxi for around 1300 kuai. But before anything could be arranged we got a call from A Wu to go to a KTV place. Except this time it wasn't really KTV but we had a few social drinks before heading back to the hotel for some more arranging over western drinks. We arranged for the receptionist to call Venky at midday (as 11am was too early on the assumption he'd be up late due to waking up mid-afternoon), and the plan was to leave at 1pm.

At least we weren't leaving at the crack of dawn, so Andge and I went back some time after midnight and before I knew it it was gone 3am and City's first match of the season was under way. I found a pretty good stream and also found we were 1-0 up by that time. We watched the first half together but went our separate ways at half time. I never expected to stay up to watch the whole of the game but we were playing so fluently in a manner similar to the best we played under Mancini, that I watched the second half with a weak beer and enjoyed the 4-0 drubbing of Newcastle immensely.