Second first night in Pingguo 2023

I think 12.06pm was a reasonable time to book the train from Kowloon West to Guangzhou South. I had planned on getting a bus then a short walk but after last night I decided to cave in and get another cab, which would give me a precious few more minutes in the hotel re-packing stuff that really wasn't well packed in the first place. At least both bottles of wine were still intact. That will cover a couple of presents. Unfortunately most of the Lego boxes were quite bruised, and my tub of Coffee-Mate had somehow leaked powder over my clothes, which meant more rearranging. And of course the pair of jeans I'd worn for 24 hours was to go in the main luggage and I put on my lightest pair of long trousers for the day ahead's travel.

I barely thought to look out of the window at the view...not that I had time

But both pieces of luggage zipped up and I found for the first time that my laptop bag had a strap at the bag whose function I now realised was to attach to the extended arms of carry-on luggage (and the one Tan had bought a few weeks ago had good wheels). So actually moving about was nothing like as sweat-inducing as it could have been. I didn't even think about using my free drinks vouchers as 1) it was 10.30am and 2) shit it was 90 minutes till my train and I'd have to do immigration and security etc. Luckily a taxi was just dropping some people off so I got the bloke to understand where I was going despite his lack of Mandarin. We managed a semi-conversation which contained too much Cantonese for me but we got to the station about 15 minutes later.

It was busier than 2019 but that was mostly for domestic trains I guess so as when I got to security it was merely a matter of putting all three bags through the conveyor and none of the members of staff batted an eyelid despite having four bottles of alcohol and at least one aerosol can. Then came duty free and I needed to pick up some cigarettes for a friend who wanted "as long as it's fine, anything mild will do". I've shown the original Chinese to two other Chinese people, neither of whom understood what was meant. And neither again did the lady who worked in the shop, who suggested sending pictures of the brands, which I did but of course got no response so I ended up getting a 10 pack of Esse. Ah, and a litre of export strength gin as I had more paper HKD due to last night and wanted to get rid of it.

No 1st class this year, out of choice...I was optimistic there would be space as I think Kowloon West was the starting station. Indeed there was and once safely seated I tried to change my SIM card to the one I used in the summer. At least that was the plan but although China Mobile was asking me to top up, it wouldn't let me online in order to do so. All three payment options entailed going via a link which timed out presumably down to my lack of credit. I tried Weixin with similar results; it would allow me to navigate to the bit where you choose your credit but not actually apply the credit and I know I had enough on the phone. Then back to the China Mobile landing page again I noticed it had a different phone number, and that it was Leilei's from this summer. Somehow I'd saved his SIM in my wallet instead of mine which was the "main" card. But luckily I found it by rummaging in the tiny top pocket of my laptop bag where I keep little accoutrements such as ancient SIMs that will never work again.

By now we were well and truly in the mainland, past Shenzhen, so I had no chance of using my English SIM for data without using it all up in seconds. I really needed my old SIM from the summer to work, but although the China Mobile landing screen recognised the number I had similar results trying to top up. At least I'd messaged Li Kun from HK to say I was on my way.

As I was giving up hope on the train to Pingguo Li Kun called me! Then I saw messages. I had connectivity! Li Kun must have helped me top up. What a difference that made to the 4h45 journey. I set up the laptop and got PureVPN working and was in my element. Li Kun said to meet up at 8.30pm, which was fine by me as I was due to arrive in Pingguo at 6.40pm. And of course it was bang on schedule and I emerged from the train feeling as close as it is possible for a human to make the transition from a caterpillar to a butterfly in a little over four and a half hours (my cocoon being the D3858 from Guangzhou South).

I was walking down the platform feeling strangely proud and happy when suddenly my right foot stopped. It transpired that my shoelace had got trapped in one of the wheels of my large suitcase, which was now a lot heavier than the 23kg it was when I took my flights, due to duty-free and more clothes. And it literally stopped me in my stride, not to mention a load of other people who had got off the same train. Had I had my wits about me I would have taken off my shoe and moved to the side to fix matters, but my wits had been left in Hong Kong, so I lay down the suitcase on its side and casually worked out the wrapped-around shoelace from its wheel, while others made their way around me nonplussed. Had it been in the UK I'd have been very embarrassed but I thought sod it and half a minute later I was back on my way.

And like earlier this year I shunned the didi che drivers for a smaller san lun che. Although it was more of an agricultural vehicle and I could barely fit my suitcases in. But we did of course and I held on as we drove through the streets of Pingguo to Chenglong road again. So much for getting a shower in the 90 minutes I had to myself. I had barely sorted out my clothes when Li Kun called again to say someone would pick me up from the bank by the entry to Yu Jing Hua Ting. This was a better way of describing the entrance as last time I regularly made mistakes as to which entrance to meet at but I knew only one of them had a bank. And when I got there a few minutes later some bloke on a dian dong che shouted on the phone that he had seen me and whisked me off to a new bar by the KTV place next to the guangchang.

There were a couple of nice cold ones waiting for me when I got home

It was a cosy place named Xiao Bai de Tian, named after the owner's wife (it literally means Bai's sky) and apparently he dotes after her. We were the only people for a short while until a couple of ladies turned up and then the owner turned off the music and started playing a couple of songs on the guitar. Li Kun suggested I should get up and do so too as has happened before but I was awake and sober enough to decline, and just enjoyed being there for a while. The owner sat with us but didn't take a beer as he was on a diet, as was his wife Xiao Bai. Then Li Kun called A Wu who turned up a bit later and in many ways it was like old times again...old times old friends....

A cosy Xiao Bai de Tian

We didn't stay particularly late, and A Wu dropped me off home soon after midnight. And I remembered a very important thing - to charge up the dian dong che. Tan hadn't done it and I knew if you didn't use the batteries they would die so they'd probably already lost a significant percentage over the last three months but I didn't want them to lose any more. And tomorrow I'd need to register myself and that is a few km away from home.