Makkou!

I had been bloody annoyed to find out I had a five hour layover in T2 because my card only allows me access to (six) lounges in T1 as I found out on the way over. Had I checked that at time of booking I may well have chosen differently. I was even more annoyed as after going past duty free and through immigration, everyone had to stop in some large area. A large sign in the hall said “San Francisco” and I knew I didn’t want to go there (nothing against the place). I asked the woman and she said I had to wait for the sign saying “Toronto” to turn up. But I told her I’d just come from Toronto and she responded with some rather quick words I didn’t quite understand, but there was no way I was going to admit that, so I thanked her and sat down, hoping I wasn’t doing anything stupid. I worked out the city names must mean where you’ve come from, and that somehow they were limiting the number of people going through customs and security, but had it not been for my pride I would have been in greater comfort during the wait.

Indeed 20 minutes later “Toronto” turned up and there was a big rush for customs. I laughed internally (well I had over four hours till my connection) and let them queue, while catching up with stuff on the phone. Annoyingly, when we landed I was not able to get a data signal, so had to wait till inside the terminal, but was bloody glad I had a Chinese SIM in order to receive the wifi code. But by the time I put my head up again the queue had vanished literally. I went up to where it had started and there was a woman with a kid arguing about going through but her arrival flight hadn’t been called yet, even though her connection was in 50 minutes. I felt a bit sheepish when I was let through because I’d come from Toronto, and wanted to let her take my place.

But my biggest moment of chagrin came during security. The woman in front of me had a duty free bag laden with liquids of all sizes and had no problem going through security. Hang about. Wasn’t it just three weeks ago we came in to the same airport with duty free and were told to check it in? I suppose the main difference was that this time for some reason my bag was going straight to Nanning rather than us picking it up. But still, I had had to put back two bottles of booze plus some perfume I’d got for Tan’s birthday in the duty free in Toronto because the woman there had said they don’t have an agreement with Guangzhou. Poppycock! It’s not like security were checking where you were from and selectively allowing liquids (in a sealed bag too) according to that. Bloody hell I could have got some from the duty free half an hour ago if I’d known. If I’d have been more awake I may have said something but I sithed inside for longer than is healthy.

Usefully, the board showing departures told you to the nearest 10 metres how far away your gate was, so I worked out that in order to get to gate B267 for a boarding time of 9.30 I would have to walk the 870 metres at about ¼ kph, or about ⅙ mph. But I also realised with my heavy backpack with two laptops and a change of clothes I’d be better off doing normal speed. There were not even people waiting for the previous flight by the time I got there so I ate a breakfast of a sandwich taken from the previous flight before calculating I’d need something more substantial very soon. So it was off to one of the various modern establishments where I had a very agreeable bowl of wonton soup with a brown boiled egg and “Chinese Medicine Tea” (she seemed surprised at my choice, but otherwise it was sugarful cola or orange juice).

Second breakfast

But there were still two hours to go. Funnily Andge had woken up at 1.45am his time after dreaming he was half cockroach, half woman, and had to kill the bad women. Luckily (not for her) he managed to kill the bad women, before a woman in a red dress turned him off with a switch in his neck (even though I don’t think he’s watched Humans). Awl had awoken during this time and we got into a chat which, maybe unbeknownst to them got me through a decent half-hour chunk of waiting, during which Awl reminded me of the forks I’d used to gouge his eyes out years ago, and then Andge left us on a precipice by linking the forks to Derby before going offline. The fear is he’ll never remember why and we’ll all live in ignorance.

Despite trying to quell any existing fear of flying by watching the planes take off every 30 seconds or so, the hard seat I was at was not doing my back any good, as pretty much since I’d got to Guangzhou it was seizing up and really giving me gripe. I walked about for a bit and saw a load of those massage chairs. These were a little smaller than what you normally see, and didn’t have the large armrests. If only for the softness I sat myself down and it was somewhat more comfortable than than the previous alternative, even if the USB charger didn’t work. There was an English-speaking Chinese mum and her daughter trying out various ones but not able to get them to work. Each chair had a QR code on it and I supposed you needed to use some app to pay to get it working. A few minutes later another Chinese woman in another massage chair psst’d me and it took a while before I realised she was psst’ing in my direction. I couldn’t make out what she was saying so walked over, where I saw she was actually using the machine. She told me you got eight minutes for free if you scanned it with WeChat. Ok, let’s give it a go. I chose the chair next to her in case of problem and found the “Scan QR Code” part of the app. I had to install some internal 3rd party app inside WeChat but a few seconds later something started moving behind me. It moved up a few inches then moved down and then stopped. I could see a counter in the app counting down from 8 minutes but bugger me if I could get it working again, and that would have used up my free trial.

Disappointed, I found another chair but this time after scanning the QR code there was a message on the phone to the effect that it was broken. Destined to a non-massage I went back to the original chair I had sat in and with no expectation scanned it, only to find that this time the eight minute timer was back and it started! Wow, it was really strong and absolutely worked like a charm, almost as if it was responding to all the parts I wanted worked on (well, I didn’t get too imaginative). From the base of the back, all up and down the spine, pulling out and pushing in, up to the neck, oh the neck, squeezing then pushing up as though to alleviate all the pressure in the vertebrae.

After the eight minutes I almost needed a break, but cheekily thought to try it again. No way, it somehow must have known that the previous time was a false start. But I hit upon a good idea; I took a photo of the QR code and sent it to Xixi, asking her to get mama or Leilei to scan it on their WeChat. I knew Xixi was up as I’d already been chatting with her (luckily they are no longer going to bed post-midnight). Pretty much as soon as I received the IM saying mama had done it it snapped into action again. This time I just closed my eyes oblivious to the fact that anyone in the airport could have taken my hand luggage without me being any the wiser.

Then I got a little greedy. Although Tan had said she could pay directly from her WeChat account I thought we might as well use up the trials. So next was Leilei to scan the code and I got another eight minutes. By this time there were a few other people sitting on the seats, mostly foreigners, and they must have been wondering how come I was getting so much. Well it was getting close to 9.30 so I sent the QR pic to Leilei and got Xixi to scan it for one last decadent octaminute. By the 26th minute I’d had enough and it was getting painful but stupidly I sat it out till the end of the 32nd minute. At least with a human you can tell them the amount of pressure you prefer.

The QR code I used four times - anyone with WeChat could scan it and cause it to start working which could be interesting if someone was sitting in it and not expecting it....almost worth creating a new WeChat account for if at the airport with some time to spare

The time to board had eventually come but the plane to board clearly had not. Although there was no mention of any delay it was patently clear there would be. After all that massaging I was starting to drop off in the chair, so much so that I’d put an alarm for 9.25 just in case. But 10.10 came around and still no sign of any official delay. By this time I was getting a little annoyed. My body clock was 10pm and I was tired. I made what was maybe not a great decision and bought some dried fish and a can of Heineken as the flight would be my only chance to sleep before getting to Nanning and Pingguo. I chugged it in the loo in about four minutes and it was actually very refreshing, and I came out slightly less annoyed about the delay. Until that was I got to B267 to find no-one there. In the 12 minutes I’d been away surely the plane had not arrived and deplaned the passengers, taken the new ones, and gone. Even Easyjet can’t turn it around that quickly. The sign was for another flight in an hour, with no mention of Nanning, and I started to wonder if I too was in a bit of a dream. I walked around various other gates until I realised that with the hundreds of gates in the airport there was not a great chance I’d find Nanning, until I happened upon a departure board I’d not noticed before. “B62 - 南宁 - Gate Closed”. Shit. Could it really be? The logical side of my brain said “no” but the tired and ever-so-slightly tipsy side said “could be” so I hustled along to find B62 downstairs almost exactly below B267, and with people in full swing of boarding..

All in all it was thankfully one of the most nondescript flights I’ve taken; I didn’t even go to the loo. And although didn’t exactly manage to sleep I arrived at the edge of nodding offness by German counting, which I never made into double figures before dissolving into parallel worlds and voices in my head.

Based on the fact we arrived 70 minutes late, I was probably right not to have booked a train to Pingguo. Although in retrospect I might as well have booked four afternoon trains just in order to get one as when I got to the train station, tired, sweaty und indubitably smelly, the ticket machine wouldn’t let me buy a ticket. Annoyingly it confirmed that there was one place left, but I think because I didn’t have a Chinese ID card it probably didn’t want to play ball. Having said that I asked a local and they couldn’t see what the issue was with the machine. It meant I’d have to try the dreaded queues and probably miss my place.

It was all the more frustrating as I couldn’t get online on my phone for more than a minute and when I did ctrip was saying the train was sold out but the sign above the queue didn’t, even though it did for other trains. So I didn’t even know if it was worth queueing. Indeed it was bloody sold out when I finally got to the end of the queue, and the next one wasn’t till around 6pm so I bought the ticket anyway as if to justify having queued for it. But I had four hours to wait so I decided to go to the underground station to cool down. Then I happened upon a reasonable idea - why not try the coach station? Online was giving me all sorts of inconsistent information regarding times so I thought I’d just turn up. This is something I wouldn’t have done with my suitcase a year or more ago where it would take an hour to get there in an unairconditioned bus, but now I was in the underground station so I could get there in seven stops in the cool cool air.

Twenty minutes later I was walking into Xixiangtang bus station to find that the next bus to Pingguo was in nearly an hour. Well, not perfect but it justified coming here. There wasn’t much to do while lugging around a suitcase so I walked outside and perched on a wall next to two of those ubiquitous shops selling food. I caved in and got a slightly chilled Li Quan but it was most refreshing. As was the second.

Back in the station some bloke came up to me and asked if I was “Makkou”. I thought for a bit told him I was sorry but I didn’t think I was. So he said “ah” then started looking at his phone, and a few seconds later he showed me a picture of myself with some mates in Pingguo from a year or so back. Then he mentioned A Wu and I suddenly remembered him having said “Makkou!” to the great amusement of his friends at the time. I hadn’t realised it was a reference to me, and it’s not a word in Mandarin, so must have been the local language. Anyway we had a brief chat and I tried to pretend that I remembered having had a drink with him but it was another less than honest utterance. But I did need a wee so changed the subject to that and we found the loo somewhat further away than I would have expected for a bus station and went in together, which I found a bit weird.

I was secretly rather glad he didn’t insist on talking to me for the journey, and tried some shuteye after still not having any internet. As we got out 90 minutes later in Pingguo the bloke told me to wait as another mate was coming to pick us up. So I got an appreciated and unexpected lift in the mate’s tiny car, whom I recognised. They told me to eat with them at Boss Zhou’s so after a necessary shower I grabbed the diandongche and got there mid meal to great smiles and laughter and “Makkou!”.

I did need to get the kids so picked them up from A Xia’s shop then took them to Boss Zhou’s while I finished my conversation and meals, before focusing back on parenting duties and taking the kids back home to wash and bed and I was in bed myself by 10.45pm for the first time in this country in a long time.