Leaving Zhuhai and arriving Nanning

The flight was due to leave at 7.50pm, but due to my past experiences with getting to airports with the locals I did not want to leave after 4pm. Momo's mum compromised and said 4.30 would be ok to get a taxi, and concurred that it would be nearly an hour. So we had some time and decided to take the bus to the beach, but I was not leaving our stuff in the house so packed up and brought my two-laptop backpack and single hand-luggage with mostly dirty clothes.

We first ate of course, at a fast food place but this didn't mean McDonald's - I had rice with duck and pork. Then as we were about to leave it bucketed down for 10 minutes. Being pessimistic I wondered what the most negative outcome could be - not being able to find a taxi, delayed plane, turbulence? But it stopped as soon as it started and we walked to the beach. Due to the humidity I could feel myself getting more moist (in the non-interesting sense) with every step. Eventually we realised we were walking to somewhere that we should really be on wheels to get to so we took a bus to an area of the beach that was designated for swimming. Thankfully we didn't swim, but the kids played football on the beach and I had to look after them trying my best not to sweat more in my long trousers, with socked shoes. Eventually it was 3.45 and I got the kids to get back and wash the sand off their feet but Momo's mum said we still had time so they went down to the water to build sand castles. Eventually at 4.10 I said it was enough and we got the kids desanded again and walked to a hotel where apparently we could get a taxi.

Except when we got there the reception rang for one but there was no answer. It was too early to panic, so I didn't, but noticed some people turn up in a taxi just as the reception had made contact with a taxi company. Not wishing to be rude, I apologised as I asked the taxi driver if he could go to the airport. He could and we bade a rather quick and thankful farewell to Momo, his brother, and his mother. I was concerned that it would take 90 minutes as we'd gone east to the beach and the airport was west, but in fact with all the weaving through the traffic it only took 50 minutes and it wasn't that long after 5pm that we arrived. But that was ok, we had lounge access, and the app said I'd be able to grab a couple of beers.

Check-in was straightforward and we got in the VIP queue for security and found the lounge just after. But it was rank. Dirty and full of empty Sprite cans - only a single fridge with crappy sugary drinks and the food was non-existant except for crappy salty biscuits. At least there was coffee (instant). I suppose I'm a bit spoilt but it actually seemed that outside the lounge in the main airport was more lounge-like than inside. When I asked the woman for a glass of wine she told me they didn't have any alcohol and I internally fumed. I would have bloody got a flight from Guangzhou instead if I'd known about this! I went for a walkabout in the airport and nowhere sold even a can of beer, except for the restaurant, which had cans for 20 kuai and I didn't want beer anyway. I seriously thought about getting a meal in the restaurant to get a glass of wine but they only did bottles for 198 kuai. Actually we had time and I really could have done with a couple, but I was with my son and I decided to be appropriate. I didn't need alcohol - I just wanted it to make what would be a turbulent flight less turbulent, but more important was being a proper parent and I knew with Leilei even if it was turbulent I wouldn't show it.

We left the lounge early as there was no advantage being there. I'd checked the status of the flight - it was coming from Xiamen and stopping off at Zhuhai for just an hour, and had arrived 6 minutes early. So we got in the queue before asked to, thinking we were being intelligent. But a tad later we were told the flight was delayed. What? We could see the blimmin thing sitting there waiting for us to get on. I searched online and found it was quite stormy in Nanning and judged that must be the reason for the delay. Then I realised we'd not get back to Pingguo tonight so I'd better sort a hotel. I could easily have rung a few friends and sorted out staying at someone's or even getting a lift, but I wanted to do this by ourselves.

I used ctrip.com to find hotels in Nanning but on my laptop it only returned one result. Hmm...I didn't want to worry, but I realised we really should sort something out so I tried tripadvisor.com but wasn't too confident in their results either. Then for some reason I tried ctrip again but this time on the phone instead of the laptop. Thank goodness for excellent portable chargers. By this time both our phones would have been dead normally (although my Samsung Note 4 has a changeable battery), but my Anker charger quickly brought both our phones back up to a decent charge. Anyway, ctrip.com showed far more hotels than I got on the main website, and we found what looked like a nice one not too far from the train station. It was only 170 kuai but by the time I chose it I found that the actual room we'd need had two beds and was 269 kuai plus 30 kuai booking fee. Still, not too bad. But just as I was about to click "Book", I noticed that the "Waiting" status for our flight changed to "Delay". I could not be sure that "Delay" wouldn't change to "Canceled" with one "l" as another had already, so I waited.

Thankfully it was only a delay of one hour, during which I downloaded the ctrip app. They are quite aware about apps in China; normally in the UK they would direct you to the Google Play "shop" but here they just get you to download the .apk file (for Android at least) and you have to set your phone to accept installations from anywhere. But I did and it worked. I got back to my near-reservation and only when we were boarding did I book it. The flight was every one of its 70 minutes long, and Leilei enjoyed watching the thunderstorms that we were trying to avoid, and I pretended to enjoy it too. I nearly regretted not getting the 198 kuai bottle of wine but manned-up. Bloody hell if everyone else on the flight wasn't having kittens about turbulence why should I? Also, I noticed the plane was totally full - gosh we might have been quite lucky to get the tickets we did.

Well we landed ok at 10pm and were out of the airport 15 minutes later. We bought bus tickets to the train station as that's where the buses go - there was no shuttle to our hotel. Hopefully soon there will be a train from the airport to the centre of Nanning as the bus took a good 45 minutes and Leilei and I were split up for the trip. I noticed that the woman sitting next to Leilei was talking to him quite a lot, and he was nodding and saying some words in response. It may not seem like much but this is very important for me. He was out of my earshot but communicating with a local and I'm sure helps his communication skills much more than just speaking Mandarin with mama.

Finally at the train station at gone 11pm, we found a san lun che, or rather the driver found us, and suggested we take a ride. I'd considered walking the 1.5km to the hotel but decided a san lun che was the better idea, so took him up on his suggestion and we endured a 10 minute ride that felt top-heavy as we careered round the broken pavements of Nanning to the hotel. Once checked in we spent a bit of time looking for the room. I thought 2612 would be on the second floor but the first "2" meant the building and the "6" meant the floor. Obviously. But Leilei liked the business room we had so I left him there and went out to grab some food.

It was well gone 11.30 and I really wanted to watch the second half of Arsenal-Liverpool that had started at 11pm, so I was looking for the nearest place that sold food. Luckily I didn't have to walk more than 5 minutes before I happened upon Zhong Shan Lu! The famous food street of Nanning where Venky was sick on er gou tou 10 years ago! Normally I would have walked the length and breadth of the place having fun but I had an 11 year old in the hotel who needed sustenance so I bought a portion of fried potatoes, a portion of tofu with flavour, and two portions of bbq pork (five with chilli, five without) for a total of 40 kuai. On the way back to the hotel I bought a six-pack of Li Quan pi jiu from a local shop at an exorbitant 30 kuai - the shopkeeper tried to get me to buy Budweiser before he heard me speak but I told him "Li Quan pijiu shi Guangxi zui hao he de!" and that put him in his place. I also bought a couple of unnecessary bottles of water - unnecessary because as soon as I got back to the hotel Leilei found two free bottles thereof.

But at least he ate some of the bbq and the potatoes. And I got him to wash and brush soon after midnight and he fell asleep to the most exciting game of the Ying Chao this year - Arsenal nearly came back from 1-4 down at home but Liverpool saw them out. This could be an interesting season! I enjoyed a couple of beers that I couldn't enjoy earlier, but felt quite good that I could take an evening flight without liquid crutches

For some reason I checked the Nanning to Pingguo train and from being sold out the other day suddenly there were some seats available on the 15:45 so I snapped them up immediately at a total cost of 120 kuai including booking before sleep crept up and did its job.