Goodbye London, Ni hao Pingguo (yet again)

I'd booked it over four months ago and didn't regret choosing the London to Guangzhou route as we had two years ago, especially as the wait would only be a couple of hours before going to Nanning.
I think I didn't sleep on the 12 hour flight to Guangzhou but I don't remember the end of "The Wolf of Wall Street" or any other film I started watching. The kids were pretty good except they needed someone to accompany them to the bog but this is acceptable. We were happy with an hour of lounge access in Guangzhou as for some reason Heathrow Terminal 4 doesn't have one. All the drinks on display were at room temperature and I didn't hold out much hope when I asked one of the women if they had a cold beer instead but surprisingly she went out back and brought me one that really hit the spot.

Really really really annoyingly I found my SIM card no longer worked. That meant the number I had nurtured for nearly three years had gone, despite my efforts last summer to ensure it wouldn't by explaining this exactly to the girls in the China Mobile shop at the bottom of our block. I'd even got people to top up our numbers. And strangely last year I didn't have this problem at all. I do need to nail down how to keep the number without leaving the SIM in China. Well the internet in the lounge was working, unlike in the rest of the airport, so I was able to contact Chuan Chuan via WeChat and she sorted us two SIM cards before she set off to Nanning to pick us up, so that was sorted relatively quickly but now I'd have to text all my friends my new number for the seventh time in 11 years.

Thankfully, although we had to do passport control at Guangzhou, we didn't have to collect our luggage, and they were fine with us bringing the duty free through security too. The flight to Nanning wasn't too bumpy either so all in all a good, relatively quick trip. A Heng and Chuan Chuan were waiting for us and we put the luggage in a rather large Japanese people carrier, and Tan and the kids and me got into a nice white BMW 525. As we got into Pingguo it really felt like coming home. Tan had been looking forward to going for a bbq but by the time we arrived she was tired and just showered the kids while I went to meet A Wu and grab a beer and bite to eat. It was as if we'd only left last week - Boss Liang was there too and we ate for a bit before I realised I was really tired as I was losing too much at cai ma, so I picked up some stuff for Tan (who'd said she was no longer hungry) and took it back home around 1am. She devoured every last bit as I put away my stuff and realised I had brought too many clothes again.

Our ride to Pingguo

Well it was a long long day