Back to Pingguo after annoying travel arrangements

The lazy boy didn't rouse till 11am but I understand growing kids need their growing sleep. I checked and found we needed to check out at midday so we didn't have too much time to waste before we would have three hours to waste. We checked out just before midday and walked towards the station. I'd made a deal with Leilei that we walk on the proviso that he could have a KFC if we came across one. Five minutes later we came across that horrible Colonel whatever face and indeed it was a genuine KFC. I let Leilei have a chicken burger with chips and a cola for 15 kuai but I didn't have anything despite not having had lunch yet. I checked the ctrip app I'd downloaded just to be sure how much time we had before the train and I saw that the my train tickets had been cancelled! Bollocks. I wanted to be double sure and checked me email and yes, at 2.30am I'd had an email saying the tickets were sold out - why the f did you sell them to me then you annoying bastards.

I needed to take advantage of the free KFC wifi but it was broken, as were, annoyingly, all the other free wifi hotspots in the place. We were in a sort of eating hall and we ended up walking around finding new hotspots and failing to connect on a single one. But I absolutely had to sort out how to get back, so we took the bridge to the other side of this shopping complex and found a Pizza Hut with a working wifi hotspot. It look like getting a bus was the best option. Worst case scenario would be getting an expensive taxi that we'd somehow have to arrange sharing with others. It looks like Tan was right about so many people travelling for the summer but I don't remember it being this bad before. In fact we didn't have the high speed train before and it wasn't like this - maybe just more people are travelling full stop.

I remembered there was a coach stop that Leilei and I had gone to a couple of years ago when we had to come to Nanning to fetch our delayed luggage. But it was far away, a long bus journey and I had no idea which one. So I searched for all buses to Pingguo and thankfully ctrip's page showed this info albeit totally in Chinese and in a non-mobile-optimised site. But I had a lead. From the list there were plenty of buses but the source was not the same - I counted at least three different Nanning alighting points, so next had to find a map service that worked in China. Luckily Bing maps was just about up to the job though it couldn't place my location there. I worked out there was a west station, which we'd been to a couple of years ago, an east station that was miles in the wrong direction, and a south station about 4km from where we were in the centre. Ok, nothing was bookable online so we'd take a taxi there.

As we went to the street we found a taxi waiting for us with a female driver. Ah it was almost a pleasant drive, and certainly the best I've had in Nanning. I felt a bit sexist when I gave her 20 kuai and told her to keep the change (1 kuai), but I genuinely appreciated the care she took on the road. No jokes about women drivers here.

Then we saw the queues for buying tickets and my heart sank. We could be here some time, and would we get the next bus in 45 minutes at 14:10, or would we have to wait a couple of hours or even more? I almost felt like running back to the lady driver and asking how much to Pingguo but thought better of it. If queueing is good enough for the Chinese, it's good enough for us. Five minutes later though we were halfway through the queue when Tan texted to say we were having a family meal at 5pm and what time would I be back? Bugger, now I felt even more that we wouldn't be able to get tickets - that would be just typical and of course my fault. I thought it best not to reply until I knew the horrible details but it was with palpable relief that the ticket woman answered me "14:10" when I asked for the time of the next bus to Pingguo.

We had over half an hour so went to the "Kungfu" fast food place upstairs where I had an expensive ribs and rice at 28 kuai and both Leilei got a hit of wifi after registering my and Tan's numbers and getting Tan to WeChat me Leilei's code. We found door number 5 for our coach (there were about 30 in total) and found other people that were going to Pingguo so we knew we were on the right one, but somehow I managed to board the wrong bus still, but thanks to Leilei and about 30 others, I was told the error of my ways and made my way to next bus along. Jeepers another day, had I been alone, I could have ended up in Kunming.

Leilei taking some Zs on the bus

Despite only having woken up three hours previously after 10 hours sleep, Leilei found his Chinese genes and spent most of the journey asleep. It took longer than usual due to road works and it didn't help to have crappy radio blaring out over our heads. But we arrived about 4pm and got a 15 kuai san lun che back home where we first bunged a load of clothes in the wash before going to the supermarket to pick up some provisions. Tan had told us to get some grapes to bring to Waip's but as we were leaving the supermarket the heavens literally opened and we rushed to our bike as the grape-sized raindrops tried to usher us outside. But we were English (well 75%) and made of sterner stuff. We went into 3rd gear and got home before we were totally saturated. It was bucketing down beautifully, the sort of weather that needs to be appreciated by a vodka and tonic, and as the former was one of the things I'd bought from the supermarket I performed the appropriate operation and, assuming Tan would know that we were beached at home for a few minutes, observed and enjoyed the ensuing storm in a way that literally (in the proper, classic sense of the word) no other Chinese person in Pingguo would.

GuanPark supermarket has now taken over Nanfang Baihua as my favourite supermarket in Pingguo - I've not got a card with them too

As soon as it died down I called Tan to explain why we were a little late and said we'd now get some grapes. But my usual market stall, with the women I've known only a month less than Tan, only had some greeny ones. Apparently it was the time of year. I wasn't sure but as I looked around other stalls had the same. So I ended up buying the much nice longyan fruit that Tan had said not to buy. As we were arriving at Waip's I could feel the vibration of a telling-off call coming from Tan to my pocketed phone, so didn't reach to answer. Yes of course for whatever reason we were "late" and everyone was waiting for us even though everyone meant Waipo, Jiuma, Er Jie, and Tan and Xixi. Apparently Da Jie had left yesterday.

Afterwards I took the kids home and the storm started again, but more magnificently now that it was dark, and Xixi managed to get a decent shot of some lightning on her phone. When the rain abated we went out on a ride as is our wont. It's nothing amazing, just something that we can't do in the UK. I let the kids get a bottle each of red and green tea respectively, and we all appreciated the cigarette spinny thing on the side, though I suppose it could have been used to advertise anything that fitted on it, like condoms.

After the kids were asleep and I couldn't I went for a little walk as the dian dong che was chonging dian. I happened across Beihai Seafood Boss Huang, who was the soberer of three mates sitting at a table, and had a good chat and a couple of gan beis - so much the better for him being on the beer instead of anything stronger.

Boss Huang did insist on taking me home in his new BMW