A semi-civilised journey to Pingguo - definitely back in the mainland

9.30am wake up wasn’t easy but I had no choice as I went downstairs to take and steal breakfast as per yesterday as Leilei showed no signs of stirring. But stir he had to soon after 10, as although the train to Guangzhou wasn’t until 12:51, we had been advised to get there at least an hour early for immigration. He wolfed down all the croissanty crap while I grabbed a shower. A few minutes later we were checked-out and in the 5 minute taxi ride to Kowloon West. Indeed the hour would have been necessary had there been more than a handful of people in the station. As it was it still took well over half an hour with the various immigration and security points, plus having to write our address in Chinese twice on the arrival cards for China as this immigration would only be done in Kowloon, a bit like the Eurostar.

One of the reasons for choosing the train was the convenience, and the ability to take liquid. I hadn’t counted on seven aerosol cans being found as indeed they were on the list of things you couldn’t bring. But they were pretty small presents for mates’ wives mainly, and I explained this and the lady kindly did not confiscate them. I did pick up a G at duty-free as it will probably be the last chance for five weeks unless this Vietnam project kicks off in the meantime.

Kowloon West station is very modern and clean

I was well peeved that the wifi on the train required that you download a train app that wanted permission to look at your photos and make phone calls. And then I found it would only work with a Chinese phone number to rub salt into the wounds. At least the journey was only one hour to Guangzhou. Leilei was less miffed than I was, perhaps because he’s always known being online and takes it for granted so not having it gives him the opportunity to do other stuff like look out of the window. I’m of the generation where we remember having a whiff of free wifi and making as much use of it as we could, such as reading the news. Anyway, it felt like the first step in China this year. The second was when we stopped at Shenzhen and the train went from 10% to 100% full and it was so loud, full of people shouting, and we immediately were reminded of one of the main differences between here and HK. Not to mention another was the SMS I received to tell me I’d used GBP5.99 of my data allowance. Oh shit I’d forgotten that Three works as per home in Hong Kong but there’s no such agreement with the mainland. I immediately switched off roaming but a few minutes later I got another text saying I’d spent another five quid - it’s bloody six quid a megabyte here….

I was a little confused as to which was the actual child size but needn't have worried as Leilei is about 1.8m

The third step was finding that we had to queue for half an hour in Guangzhou to pick up the tickets I’d booked and paid for over a month ago. It took all of thirty seconds to get my tickets after giving passport numbers - why couldn’t I do that at a machine? Maybe next year. During the queuing I’d looked in vain for wifi hotspots until I saw one with a couple of bars. It got me to a landing page that had a QR code on it and some instructions that I somewhat sheepishly had to paste into a translator in order to ascertain that the code needed to be scanned. But how to scan something that was on the screen you wanted to scan from? I thought of calling Leilei over to take a photo of my screen so I could scan that, but I reckoned there may be an easier way. I made a screenshot of the page with the QR code then opened WeChat and chose to scan QR code. That opened the camera, but I looked at the options and at the top right there were three little dots. Tapping on them revealed some other options including one to scan from album. This I did, and it worked. At least I got a step further as another page turned up, this time with another QR code. After a little translating it seemed I needed to scan this too, which got me to a new step where I had to “follow” some WeChat user and apparently respond to their greeting with the answer “256”. Then there were more taps to play a game and get shown adverts, but after about 15 minutes I was at least online on WeChat. But the reception was getting worse as I made my way down the queue, and I couldn’t lose my place there or I’d start worrying about being late for the train. I tried in vain to get the VPN to connect, with or without obfuscated servers, and I’m now in fear that this year they’ll somehow have managed to stop them, as it appears they have in HK 4G. At least I managed to get a message to Beihai Huang, to tell him when I was arriving, as he had voiced interest in picking us up, but I let him know we’d be offline for the rest of the journey.

By the time we’d got a bit of fodder for the journey we only had 45 mins till the train departed, and as we’d seen massive queues we went to gate A27 to find the train before us boarding, but not 20 minutes later it was our turn, and it was a good thing we were early on as we there was just enough space for our two large suitcases at the back of the train. I’m not sure what we got for our 120 kuai upgrades to First Class - probably just bigger seats. This time the noises came from mobile phones; many people watch programmes and play games without headphones, or the thought that that might bother others. We didn’t hear that once in HK. But it’s something we’ll adjust too - this is the first time we’ve spent time in HK before going to the mainland and I realise that other than visually, it’s a lot closer to the UK than I’d really appreciated.

I really needed a sleep but something wouldn’t let me - oh yes it was the bloke sitting across the aisle playing a stupid game on full volume on his phone - he spent half the journey asleep so I guess other noises don’t annoy him, as in fact they don’t with most mainlanders - noise is something they grow up with and therefore must learn to ignore when in need of shuteye. I need to evolve this ability soon.

The journey was otherwise stressless, and far more preferable than flying, not least because when we arrived in Pingguo 4h17m after setting off we were effectively home. There was no Huang to pick us up which was quite surprising, and I dismissed the taxi drivers trying to get us to spend money with them until we got down some steps and I realised we clearly needed help to get us home. So I said ok to a woman and she took us to her san lun che, probably the least practical vehicle with all our cases, but she insisted and helped shove them all in so we rested our legs on them and saw the funny side - we were certainly back in mainland China. It did take 10 minutes to get home after holding on to the suitcases going round corners, and although she said it would be 10 kuai I gave her 20 as it was still cheaper than a taxi and far more interesting.

Recently Tan had said the rules for driving a dian dong che had changed, and indeed we now needed to have a genuine number plate. But now you couldn’t have passengers above (yes, above) 10 years old on tow, and helmets were compulsory. But based on what we saw from the san lun che literally no-one was abiding by these new laws, other than the number plate and a couple of helmets, so Leilei and I smiled at each other, knowing we would probably be ok and not look out of place driving around as we normally do.

Back in Pingguo - first san lun che for years

Unlike literally every other year when we set foot in the house we were neither that tired or sweaty when we arrived (well ok I was tired but not 15 hours in aeroplanes tired). We took the first 2019 step into our flat, went to turn on the light and nothing. Oh no, hadn’t Lingming said he’d sorted the leccy? Phone torches were turned on and at least we could see that the place had been cleaned. I couldn’t even call Lingming, and the prospect of an AC-less dark night loomed. Then I remembered the mains board on the wall literally three feet away from my head, and saw that it was off - I flicked up the switch, took a breath, flicked up the light switched and beheld that there was light. Leilei and I high-fived, then held our breath again as we waited for the router to turn on - a double high-five met the fact we now had internet, and a minute later I performed an internal high-five as I got my VPN working. Result. We could now relax.

I'm so glad the soda siphon cap I bought fits - looking forward to fizzy drinks of my own choice again for the first time in a few years in Pingguo

I thought it said Squid Sick, but Leilei pointed out it was Squid Silk

I saw that Huang had left a message apologising but he was ill and couldn’t come to pick us up, so I let him know we were fine and told him to get better. Then I pinged Li Kun and he came over immediately to bring us to a guitar workshop where his friend was practising with another mate and a female singer. I had left Leilei at home where he wanted to be, online and chatting with Momo, so after staying there for half an hour, where I was told I would be able to buy a guitar very soon, we went to a pub/cafe that had a guitarist who was a tad too loud, but where we sat down to some beers and food. First just the two of us but over the next hour and a half it became closer to 10. But I realised I had to make it nine as I was flagging. The time had really caught up on me and I didn’t want to leave Leilei too long by himself, and Li Kun took no offence as he took me back home. And I took little time to sleep as it was already midnight.