Problems trying to register and problems down below

Blimmin' well woke up at 4.30am and fought against wakefullness without success. Well sleep's loss would be counterbalanced by fitness's gain, as at 6.30 I resolved to do a couple of laps of the guangchang. I downed an open can of sugary Vit C lemon drink that had lost its fizz and took just the dian dong che keys, the house keys, and my phone. Outside the building I couldn't see the dian dong che. Had I parked it by the wrong front door? I walked up and down the back of the building clicking the unlock button on the fob in vain hoping to hear the "wee wee" sound of it unlocking the alarm. Finally I accepted that it had probably been stolen - I've often been told to make sure I lock it by putting a metal thing throug the wheel but I've never bothered so it's only my own fault. What would I tell the kids? As I went back up the lift to put the keys away I traced my movements from yesterday...but I hardly moved yesterday...A Ni's place opposite, then a lift with Zhang to and from the table tennis place.

Runkeeper uses Google Maps so it doesn't look like anything, but one lap of the guangchang is almost exactly one mile

But then I had a spark of hope. How did I get the 50 yards from our door to A Ni's place across the road? I wouldn't have driven would I? As I approached the entrance I could see some cars parked outside her restaurant and had to walk for an agonizingly long time until I saw what I thought might be a wing mirror between the cars...oh yes it was my trusty steed and my relief was audible.

I found that the perimeter of the guangchang, or at least the perimeter that I jogged, was exactly one mile, and managed two of them, the second being considerably slower and hotter than the first due to the rising sun. A quick trip home to eat a cereal bar and pick up my bat, then went for an hour's ping pong at the old people's leisure centre to finish off and I felt I'd done a decent morning's workout, and one I can improve on.

I went for a quick trip on the dian dong che and knew one of the things I absolutely had to do was to register us with the local police. For once it only took me about 10 minutes to find the place as I knew the vicinity roughly. The bloke in the first office I went to told me to go to another office upstairs, where the girl told me I needed to go to a downstairs office. As I walked in this one I found myself behind the counter of a public office, but on the side with all the police people and the general public on the other side. I embarrassedly excused myself and found my way to the street entrance where I waited my turn and explained to the stern looking woman what I needed to do. She then told me to come to the back entrance again and then took my upstairs to the first place I'd been told to go to.

Apparently there was a new system in place, so now the girl from upstairs accompanied the stern uniformed woman and me back downstairs to the original place I'd stumbled upon on the police side of the counter. It would have been a bit unfair expecting them to know how to use a new system for something that happens pretty rarely in Pingguo. The girl used a horrifyingly easy username/password combination to log in (the same single letter for each), but couldn't see the screens she was after. She took a couple of photos of the screen with her phone and sent them to a colleague via WeChat. Eventually it transpired they were using the wrong credentials to log in (phew). Then she logged in with the number of the uniformed woman who by now appeared to be warming to me. We got as far as inputting most of my details before it became clear there was something wrong. It seemed that this login also had some issues - it was apparently associated with a different area or something.

Taking the practical screenshot option and sending over WeChat

The previously stern uniformed woman was now smiling about me being a Bangxu something-in-law and offered me grapes, which I took so as not to offend and because I was a little hungry now. I was careful not to eat the skin but not as skilled as the locals are at doing it and got juice down my hands.

Eventually the third login (still the same password) seemed to work and we put in all our details. I thought we were finished but they couldn't print it out because the system didn't understand the multiple entry visa (which is the only version these days anyway). But somehow, thankfully, this was resolved and finally I had three print-outs that I had to sign and date. I was actually quite glad they asked me to sign in Chinese, but have doubts as to its legal authenticity.

I wonder how official the signature is

On the way back home I picked up some more soda water at a different supermarket. I also spent longer than I would have in the UK searching for fabric conditioner after having realised that the "White Cat" branded one I bought a couple of days ago was actually detergent (I'm surprised Tan hasn't found that out yet). Why they hid it with the dishwashing stuff a couple of aisles away from the detergent aisle is beyond me but I'm guessing not that many people use the stuff so it doesn't really matter where it is.

Lunch was jiao zi again, but to take away. The woman didn't want me to pay as apparently I'd paid too much yesterday (I may have mistaken 4 for 10), but I insisted, and picked up a cold pack of Li Quan 3.1%ers as I thought one or two of those would hasten my descent into the sleep I now really required. And indeed two did, before 1.30 I was gone and only resurfaced at 3.30 for a minute before the next I knew it was 4.30. At this time I got myself up and drank two coffees and got on with a little work until teatime. At least today we seem to have had leccy all day.

I ended up going to A Ni's again for tea as the kids weren't here and if I rang up a friend it would probably involve alcohol and I didn't really want to imbibe as I had work to do. A Ni was working on pronouncing English translations of food - mostly what she sold in her place and I helped her as I ate my beef morsels wrapped in little leaves and deep fried. I specifically told her I wasn't going to drink beer and wanted to be healthy so she said she'd get the girls to make me some niuyouguozhi. Great, I was rather embarrassed to ask what it meant but it was healthy and it was juice, though internally I translated it as beef-oil-fruit-juice. Then the girl pulled out an avocado and the reality of the situation set in. I've never had one in my life so I should have said no I'd rather have watermelon juice instead, but I'd already said yes and some bloody British gene in me refused to let the words surface to my mouth. Or maybe it was my sense of adventure...trying something new. Maybe it would improve my ping pong skills.

I've only not tried avocado before as mum says she's allergic and therefore I may have inherited it. Plus it's one of those "false" fruits that I would re-classify as a vegetable as it's not sweet. Apparently peppers are fruits too - utter tosh. Tomatoes I can nearly understand, but not peppers. And avocados are only classed as fruits as someone deemed to call them "pears" because they're pear-shaped. By that logic an onion's a fruit as it's apple-shaped - that's bananas. Anyway, I forced myself to finish the "pear" juice after the nice wrapped beef, but it was not great - neither sweet nor savoury, neither liquid nor solid. I did make a point of telling A Ni that avocado in Chinese should be "e li", as that's what I knew it as (it's another word for it that Tan uses). If she'd said that in the first place I would have gracefully not accepted it.

I choose to blame the avocado for what happened when I got back, though it could of course have been the beef. Suffice to say that when A Wu rang me to go out to "drink red wine" my excuse wasn't that I was going to play ping pong (as was my plan) but rather that I couldn't move more than a few yards away from a toilet. He seemed to think this was very funny and to be fair if the pants were on another bum I'd probably have felt the same. But I'd succumbed to my first diarrhoea attack of the year and was staying put.

At least I managed to get my appraisal completed. I also got in contact with a Chinese colleague who was very keen for me to go to Beijing for my work week and help out the sales guys there. Something which is very unlikely unless they pay for it all. Bed was a reasonably early 12:30 but sleep certainly wasn't.