Finally, a sort of normal day

Finally, finally, I slept more than 10 hours till nearly 1pm. Yes I may have taken one or more alprazolam but bloody hell it seemed justified. No more waking up at 6am not knowing how the day would pan out. I had no deeds to do and no promises to keep (thanks Paul Simon) and was dappled (but not drowsy or ready to sleep). I probably should have gone out to get some jiaozi but just made some pao mian at home instead. I decided I'd go for a walk in a bit but boringly had to do some paperwork for my dad's house; apparently the survey had shown there was moisture getting in so the buyers were lowering their offer. Fair enough, I've been in the same position before, and rather than argue just accepted it on his behalf and hoped he'd be ok.

I saw that I had an email confirming my train ticket to Nanning on Sunday. Wow, I must have been on auto-pilot when I booked that, but I'm glad I have. Now I only have to decide whether to book a hotel in central Nanning or by the airport. That will depend on what I hope to do in Nanning, and more than likely booking one at the airport will be the sensible choice. But I rarely do sensible here. I'm really not looking forward to an 8.20am flight though. It's literally 5 years since I took such an early flight but I booked it so last-minute I didn't really care. And quite frankly up to now I have no regrets.

So at 4.30pm I set off for what may well be my last Pingguo walk this year. I will never take this for granted. It's not even special...but yet again every turn greeted me with a potential new experience...seeing workers building new roads, seeing people making earphones for aeroplanes etc. It's times like these where Tan won't understand, although maybe the kids will. Just being in a different place justifies the effort in getting here. And more important than that is the ability to understand (mostly) the language. That is literally the most important thing, along with the justification of being the husband of a local. The former has been my effort, and the latter, well just the way it is but I always hope that I paint Tan in a nice way. I mean I joke about Guangxi women being 厉害 but it's always taken in a way that means respect.

A minor detail maybe, but it's a lot easier to scan these QR codes now to charge up the dian dong che

Well I'd made nearly 5km so I headed for racist Huang's place as I'd not properly seen him this time. It was gone 6pm and I'd done my 5km so arrived while his daughter was playing in his car with his worker's son. His wife was there and bade me speak a bit of English with their younger daughter and indeed she could speak quite well for a five-year-old. And with that I was invited to eat with them. Perfect, I had no other plans so they brought out a chicken soup and a couple of blokes joined us though didn't eat. Huang is now off the booze due (I think) to physical issues, but he ordered a large bottle of beer for me. The soup was fantastic and so was the accompanying fish we had. All in all it was a great meal and I didn't miss the drunken Huang of years past.

Huang's wife and Huang...he's not drinking anymore for a good reason I guess...still a lovely meal

But Li Kun had pinged me to say that Xixi's clothes had arrived, so around 8pm I made my excuses and left to go home to pick up the dian dong che, and drove over to his studio. But this time I made a point of first going to Guanmart to pick up three more portions of pickles, as I wanted to get one for each member of the family; I already had baba, so I picked up mama, and two babies (male and female) and 12 beers to bring over.

Xixi's ware arrived...she is happy

I also stopped off at a place I saw was selling kao ya, but it seemed they had closed. But on looking inside I saw all the ladies (yes they were all ladies) eating and asked what they had left. They were more than happy to jump up from the table and show some kao ya and some pork stuff which they cut and heated up and it only came to 40 kuai. Such a tiny thing to do but I got quite a buzz out of it. It just seems that such transactions make me the winner.

I got to Li Kun's and he was the only one there. That was a bit surprising but it wasn't to last. I brought out my food and of course it was appreciated, as was the beer, but we drank tea for the next 20 minutes until other people arrived. He thought my idea of getting free bowls was a bit weird, but not as weird as a few years ago when he didn't know me as well. I was grateful for him receiving Xixi's clothes and sent her a pic and she was very very happy. Now at least I think I've justified being here, about to bring back many clothes for the women in my life.

Maybe last time this year with such good friends

I think he sort of understood why I'd got the bowls too, and even Xixi sent a nice message saying she'd use hers every day. Hmm... Anyway more and more people turned up and it was a typically lovely evening, the sort of which I'm here for. I'm not special, I'm just a normal bloke with these people, and that means more to me than when I was the "foreign guy". That now to me is the most important thing...just being a normal bloke.