Fireworks and an unexpected celebration of a bloke going to university

Lu Wen called me to say one of the bosses from yesterday's meal was inviting me for a meal tomorrow. Just when I thought such advance notice didn't happen suddenly it happened. But I'd promised A Wu I'd invite Baksec Zhai for a meal tomorrow (obviously I hadn't called him so much in advance) so said I'd probably not be able to make tomorrow. Ok then, it would be the next day according to Lu Wen. This I believe even less. Nobody seems to have the capacity to arrange things 48 hours in advance unless it involves plane tickets.

I skipped lunch but had tea at Waipo's, then a bit later as the kids were out with Chuan Chuan decided to go on a bike ride to see what that would bring me. I rode to a couple of places I wasn't too familiar with and then suddenly out of the blue there were fireworks nearby. When I found the source of the fireworks I found about 50 people, mostly shirtlesss blokes sitting around tables eating and drinking. I was interested in what the celebration may be and so I asked a couple of ladies sitting at one of the outside tables. Ah - it was the owner's son who was soon going to university - that was the reason for the massive fireworks display and feast. Suddenly I was bidden to have a bite to eat and have a drink with the father and had my hand held as I was brought into the mileu of blokes.

First I was made to sit at the table of the bloke who was going to university later that week. He seemed so pleased to see me, as were the others at the table, and of course I offered him a gan bei. Then they quickly latched on that I knew how to cai ma, which brough literal gasps of awe. So of course I had to prove this and immediately beat the first kid I played. This led them to break out into applause which of course I lapped up but worried about taking some of the limelight from university boy. I needn't have worried though - I cai ma'd him, then every bloke, then we broke into two teams around the table and I didn't drink a glass.

The best picture I could get of the kids' tables but about as accurate as it seemed

Moving on to the elders' table I felt a little more at home

But they the dad came again and it was decided I should now sit at the elders' table. Gosh they made the kids look sober, but I had a very fun time talking with them and also cai ma'ing for good measure. One bloke was wearing a buttoned up brown shirt with a collar and I reckoned he must have been the magic man for the evening. He was particularly drunk where you could tell his eyes were not focused, but he insisted in a couple of gan beis and cai ma too, despite being otherwise impossible to understand.

I did check the beer - it was "Suntory" - 7.5 degrees, or 3.1%, so not the weakest. The other day I took advantage of some time to myself and tried to sort out once and for all the relationship between "degrees" and percentage when it comes to beer. For wine and spirits it does seem to be a one-to-one relationship, but totally muddled for pijiu. I spent more time than is decent making notes of the degree/percent relationships from some of the beers on offer and found that even though Li Quan 7° is 3.1% and Snow 8° is 2.5%, at least within brands there was some consistency, i.e. a higher degree has not (so far) resulted in a lower percentage. I'll need to add to this spreadsheet but here is the first draft that one day I may show to a local to try to fathom some explanation.

Brand	7°	7.5°	8°	9°	9.7°	10°	11°	11.2°
Li Quan	3.10%					3.60%
Snow			2.50%	3.60%
Blue Riband						3.60%	4.30%
Qingdao			3.10%
Melchers Dutch								5%
Budweiser					3.60%
Suntory		3.10%

I spent a good hour there in every sense but made some child-related excuses and left around 9.30. As the kids weren't around I decided I'd have a quick drive to the bloke I'd met yesterday who brought beer to the bosses. He and his family-in-law were there and indeed drinking beer and I was welcomed in like a long-lost family member. The "father" had had a few clearly and was using his best English to try to communicate with me. They were listening to music and he put on his favourite "Yesterday Once More" by Carol Carpenter I believe. I noticed that my friend, who I now realised was Zhang Hua, was wearing a cool football top in a slightly darker that City blue (though hardly different from this season's abomination) and I told him I liked it. That was enough for him to start asking my size and favourite number. Ok I sort of knew I'd be offered one and I did my best to say I'd pay for it but they would hear nothing of it; it would be ready in a couple of days. At least that would mean I would have to go back, which I'm guessing is what they really wanted. After that and a couple more gan beis I called it a night.

Whoops - nearly another double date meal

I realised I didn't have much more time here so at 5pm made a spur of the moment decision to invite a couple of mates to go and eat at the Beihai seafood place. Normally such decisions work out well, and all was going well when I rang Uncle yellow, his mate the Cook, and Li Kun, and we all agreed to meet up there in 15 minutes. I swear nothing is planned more than a couple of hours away here. Organising a few beers in the pub for Thursday night on Monday would be frowned on here. But us dads in the UK need to sort out kiddy arrangements that somehow don't need to be sorted here.

As I was riding down to the seafood place I got a call from A Wu. I told him where I was going and he was invited too but he "reminded" me that Lu Wen had invited me to eat with him at A Ni's tonight. Oh shit. He quite probably had and it had escaped my mind. As it was only 5.30 and Uncle Yellow and the Cook had already turned up I thought it best to go ahead with this meal then turn up to Lu Wen's one - after all it wouldn't be the first time I'd had to do two meals in one evening. So we went upstairs to a private air-conditioned room as it was proper scorchio outside, and pierced our cling-film wrapped eating utensils as we waited for Li Kun to turn up. But I heard A Wu outside our room and went to tell him to come in. No, it had been decided that we would order some food here and take it to A Ni's to eat with Lu Wen. Actually that was a rather practical compromise.

So with significant help I ordered a few dishes and it came to 350 kuai. Not wishing to look cheap I then said "let's have two portions of..." and pointed to some shelled things. It came to 420 kuai and I only just had enough on me. A Wu was telling Beihai Huang's wife to round it to 400 but she is a born business woman and would have none of it and took the 420 from my hands. At least we arranged for it to be delivered for free. Uncle Yellow and Li Kun were coming, so at least I'd managed to get them an invitation in a roundabout way. The Cook said he would come a little later but sadly didn't turn up. Maybe he's not on A Wu's list of approved friends.

Good friends at a good meal - bonus that Li Kun and Uncle Yellow could make it

The meal was as good as it was predictable, with beers coming after the first twinges of appetites were sated. At least the addition of the seafood I'd ordered was broadly taken advantage of. I had to leave at one point for a breather so went downstairs and one of the mothers there was having trouble with her tiny daughter of six months. But as soon as I held her she just changed and hugged me like a baba. I held her for 10 minutes till she nearly fell asleep before giving her back as I could tell I was needed upstairs again.

Some of the aftermath of the meal

For some reason I had no urge to go out after this meal and even left the dian dong che outside A Ni's

Another City win with meal at A Wu's

Due to eating late I didn't really fancy lunch but I did want to make up for the calorific intake of recent evenings, so after coming back from Waipo's I managed the first three "Seven Minute" exercises with significant rests between. I'd like to think that A Wu's call stopped me from doing any more but I'd sweat enough for one afternoon. He was calling to invite us to eat at A Ni's and asked me to call Tan. We got there around 5.30pm, which should have been plenty of time to eat before the footy at 7.30pm, but A Wu was in the process of cooking and that went on for nearly an hour. During this time Tan said her ibuprofen from earlier was wearing off so I had a great excuse to go home to get some, and also fetch my laptop. On the way back I saw a lovely rainbow and of course took a pic. A minute later in A Ni's shop I showed the pic and I was told to look in WeChat. Six people had already posted pics of the same rainbow...there's little point in taking photos of natural phenomena nowadays.

Handsome lads

Probably the last photo I'll ever take of a rainbow...

...as everyone else in Pingguo had already it seemed

The English teacher Yoyo and her husband also turned up to eat. It turns out they have their own tutoring place and employ a few other teachers too. The husband teaches Chinese, which means the language and the culture so I suppose he really meant Chinese Literature but it was a slightly tricky subject to get into detail about. For a refreshing change it was a beer-free meal, even though A Wu offered about halfway through. As Tan was not feeling great she left to get a rest and as the door closed behind her I jokingly cried out "Laopo zou le - kai pijiu!" (wife has gone - open the beer!) but although the humour wasn't lost on them it resulted in lots of beer being opened.

I got the impression the Chinese teacher was looking forward to it as he gan bei'd me immediately and a few times later as well. It was suddenly 7.30 so I got out the laptop and found a dreadful stream but it was just about better than nothing - and I was happy to get to halftime two nil up at Stoke. Then Yoyo left and the kids had too, so it was just us blokes and A Ni, who seems to like her beers at the moment, and I found a much better stream for the second half. It was nervy after Stoke got one back but we finished off with two late goals and more very enjoyable gan beis.

After the meal I dropped of the kids at Waipo's as Chuan Chuan was back in town and would take them out. Then we went to the bosses' offices to have more beer. I recognised the bloke who delivered the beer followed him downstairs to his small shop. His family-in-law, at least some blokes, were drinking in the back room. I said I'd only stay for two drinks but the elder of the blokes said I'd stay for one hour! I argued that there were people waiting for me upstairs but it didn't seem to matter. The bloke spoke a little English and was going to use it. In the end we compromised on 20 minutes with the proviso I come back another time soon.

I showed a photo from 2008 of the younger bloke with what I thought was his sister. But in fact he told me that was his ex-girlfriend. Ah...I know what I thought was their dad and assumed he was their natural father as they both insisted on calling him baba. One of the pitfalls I'm a little prone to here but at least it didn't cause a problem. Anyway his now wife is prettier in my opinion.

The guy on the right I've known since 2008 and I think his father-in-law is the second from left, who speaks a little English

Back upstairs I underwent some routine cai ma and gan bei'ing but made my excuses later as it was getting a little much. I should have gone straight home but went for a ride on the other side of town. Typically I somehow bumped into a few blokes eating outside and they bade me come and sit with them for a while. I know I'm sort of taking advantage of the colour of my skin and hair and eyes and the shape of my nose, it's almost like inside-out racism. But it is a two-way street. People do seem genuinely interested in the whys and whats and wherefores of Western places, and that's doubled by being able to actually communicate with them fairly proficiently. It does feel rather like paying for your food and beer by entertainment sometimes, except providing the entertainment is entertainment itself, plus I am most certainly being entertained by the people I meet.

Annoyingly these blokes were only drinking white alcohol, which actually means transparent alcohol made from rice and it's about the only thing I can't drink here. But astonishingly there was no beer even as a backup. I really didn't want to be rude so first asked to look at the spirit bottle. Ok, it was 22% rather than 56%, I would take one for the team, and I gulped a sip and failed to make it look like I enjoyed it. Bloody hell it was getting on for 2.30am. I made my excuses, and took another couple for the team and finally got home.

Eating and drinking at 2.30am just seems to make sense here

Quieter day at first at least

Bit of a quiet day for a change. I was told to take the kids to Waip's for tea but when we arrived we found there was none. As I hadn't taken them to A Ni's recently I decided to treat them to steak and chips and they ate most of both the portions. I'd had nothing to eat so had a little of their leftovers before taking them to table tennis. I'd rung Zhang Liangwen and agreed to pop over there in 15 minutes, and unlike most people I know around here he turned up bang on time as we did.

There are many tables here so the kids could play by themselves as I lost 4-1 in games after stupidly winning the first meaning Liangwen moved up a gear. But the kids started to get fractiously annoying, especially when some boys come around and one of them, younger than Leilei probably, started playing with me and it was clear he'd had a lot of practice. So I took them home to find there was no water in the house again. This isn't good news after a drenching session of ping pong but not worries we just went to Waip's again where we did have a shower. I left them there and brought a large bucket back to our building. I asked the security guards what the water problem was and they said it was to do with pressure, and would be ok tomorrow. I thought that might be the case and asked where I may fill up the bucket and one of the blokes did it for me in some room on the ground floor. I wanted to know at which floor the problem started but thought better of the potential conversation; Tan was waiting for the bucket of water as she had an upset stomach and toilets would need to be flushed.

In the lift I met some people going to the sixth floor, and asked them if their water was ok. Indeed it was, well at least I've narrowed down where the problem could start. As the kids would stay at Waip's and Tan was staying in, I met up with advertising friends from yesterday again. This time it was a bit earlier and four of us played cai ma and a brilliant dice game that has a hint of both cai ma and poker about it, not to mention throwing the dice in a loud manner seems to be part of the fun. Before I knew it it was 2am again so we said our goodbyes. Except there were two blokes at another table who wanted to have a couple of gan bei's so as I waved goodbye I sat down with them but kept it to a very reasonable 20 minutes.

Piano and baby washing

I went for a ride in the morning and happened upon the "new" athletics/football stadium next to the basketball stadium. I'm used to it now but I still notice the state of disrepair that permeates through so much of this place, and to a great extent the mainland as a whole. Things get built quite nicely but maintenance doesn't seem to exist unless absolutely necessary, and look at the basketball stadium brought this back to me. To be fair, the Mingdien hotel that we used to go to frequently is now closed for redecoration so things may be changing. And also Zhuhai was heading in a better direction, though still noticeably less well-kept than Macau. The most common place you feel it is in the pavements - most of the paving slabs are broken and wobble underfoot, and I don't that these days it can be blamed on a lack of cash

It just looks so messy

As I was riding back from Waip's I noticed a car I recognised and followed it. It was indeed A Wu's old car that had taken us to Vietnam in 2009 - I'm surprised it's still going. As I'd got up reasonably early I decided to head for a massage where I might get a little kip too. I called A Wu to see if he wanted to go but he said we'd go later. I told him I wouldn't have time later and he asked where I was going. When I told him it was the one he had an account with he told me not to go there - "there are prostitutes there". That's the sort of thing people will say when they don't want you to go to a place for a different reason. I guess he no longer had an account there and I didn't want to question him. But I'd been there before and knew this was not a place of ill repute. And the massage was perfect - comfortable rather than overly pressurised as if to enforce the feeling that something was being done that was actually good for your body. And I managed 40 winks afterwards as well till gone 5pm when Waipo called me to eat.

It seems they maintain the cars better than the buildings

Later I had the urge to play the piano as it had been a good few days since the last time, and I turned up at the piano place near the market at well gone 8pm, knowing that they closed at 9. But I got a nice 10 minutes of practice in without others disturbing me, till A Wu called to ask where I was. When I mentioned it he decided to come over so the teacher explained where it was. Five minutes later he was there with his baby son and discussing, quite seriously, how much lessons would be. He's only one year old....

Then some other bloke teacher came along and played a little bit of music I recognised, before asking me to play some. So I played a few rags and they seemed to like it, and I saw I was being filmed too...oh dear my ragged rags would be on WeChat within seconds. The teacher then talked to me in broken English, and said the ragtime was Country Music. I wanted to argue but didn't have the vocabularly this subject would require so I acquiesed that it was "sort of".

Then A Wu and I went to the baby bath place at the bottom of our building and I spent some time chatting to some of the parents there. It was nice to see that not all were the mothers, and there were some grandparents too. But the main thing was seeing the babies held by inflatable rings around their necks leaving the rest of the body in the water - they all seemed to be loving it there.

Cute

We went back to A Ni's shop and then A Wu said he'd take his son home and to wait for me as we'd go somewhere. I had arranged to see a friend from the advertising shop later but certainly had some time now. The problem was A Wu didn't come back straightaway. Not that it mattered; I wasn't going to waste time waiting for him, but it did sort make it annoying not knowing how to pan out the rest of the evening. It was a good 90 minutes later at well gone 10pm when A Wu rang to say we would go to some place near the KTV place, and he'd call me in a bit. "A bit" would prove to be nearly an hour later, by which time I found myself having tea with a neighbouring shop. I think the daughter there has a bit of a thing for Western men as the other week when she saw me getting home she shouted out "hello!" and ran over to me. Almost instantly her mum or auntie also rushed out and said my wife was from Bangxu, before even I could say it. So tonight I made sure what looked like her dad was present so there would be no rumours about drinking tea together. A Wu finally called to say there was no-one there anymore, and we'd sort something tomorrow. This fitted perfectly as I was able to go to the advertising shop to catch up on an old friend.

Tan ordered a box of dragonfire fruit and even after giving half to Waipo we still had too many so I took a few over to A Ni's to be smoothied

It was getting on for 11.30 but all the advertising shop workers were eating and drinking outside the shop, though for no special reason it seemed. I sat down with them for a while and politely gan bei'd for a bit before three of us went to find a small bbq place that I'd not been to before and sat outside till 2am eating and drinking at a much more reasonable speed.

Headwash and getting fat

Managed to get up at 9.30 for some reason - I'd been quite good and only had two beers with the late night football. So after lunch at Waip's I left the kids swegging and popped home for a bit before deciding a post-prandial headwash was a good idea. And it was, though for some reason I let them do a facewash too which whipped the price up from 30 to 100 kuai but it's not something I can do every week so sod it.

I was in the middle one and surprised that the lady was nearly 40

Back at home I tuned up the guitar in order to have a bash before Yang Haiwei called me to come over to eat. I was sent another "location" dot on WeChat and thought "why not?". This time it was not quite as hard to find though was still a comedy of errors trying to get the exact building. I though house number 2302 was on the second floor but no of course it was the 23rd floor. By the time I got there the sky had darkened as a storm loomed up, and I wondered if I'd be trapped. Not that it would have mattered if I was; there were food and friends, well Haiwei's mate and his wife, and the Olympics were on the tv.

I needed to pop back though to get the kids as Tan was out, but I was told by Haiwei and his mate I definitely had to come back. The dian dong che was low on juice so I had to charge it and this time took the the kids on a san lun che for 10 kuai. I need to know if buying the dian dong che is justified on a purely economical basis. I estimate I average 10km a day, on about five journeys, each of which would probably be at least 5 kuai on a san lun che. So that would be roughly 25 kuai a day, or 175 a week. 3000÷175=just over 17 weeks and so far we've been here for about 11 of those weeks so if we can make it here again it will have paid for itself. Of course it was more than justified on the day I bought it in 2014 (except it was replaced by a newer, larger one last year) just as a huge convenience and giver of many memories to the kids. The problem is I've hardly walked anywhere so the only exercise I'm getting is the actual exercise I do rather than day-to-day stuff like walking to the train station. It's rather hot to be doing that a lot.

Waiting for the lift I saw these workers bringing down the scaffolding - how much is life insurance here?

Plus I was reading that the fruit we eat today almost certainly did not exist a few hundred years ago; then it was smaller and more bitter. But now we've evolved fruit to be luscious and sweet, which is all very well, especially the Tian Yang mangoes, but I think I'm seeing the effect on my belly. I guess eating five fruits a day is not necessarily that good for you if they are full of calories....

Anyway, back at Haiwei's mate's place there were a couple more mates who had arrived to join us with a couple of beers. I noticed that the home-owner had run out of Snowflake 2.5% and I thought that was rather strange. But of course his fridge was filled with another brand of beer that was actually bottled. I miss bottled beer - it used to be almost the only way of drinking 10 years ago but cans have massively taken over. Anyway, as I had the kids with me I couldn't stay too late and arrangements were made to take us home before midnight. It appeared that we were taking a taxi, though it was more likely to be a mate who just happened to be passing, as is how it normally works here.

Watching the Olympics on an HD tv that was actually HD

Swegways and late footy in gui jie

I slept in a little as I was hoping to catch City's Champions League qualifier against Steaua Bucharest that would take place at 2.45am, but the kids were keen to get to Waipo's because their swegways had arrived. So we got there about 11 and set upon opening the first box. As soon as we unfolded the first bit of cardboard a large jianglian (cockroach) jumped out and scuttled around. Leilei had been squatting and jumped back and hit his back against the table and A Heng stamped on the damn thing but it took a few goes before it was motionless. Had it been a less interesting present the kids would probably have been in tears but I managed to keep them focused on the task in hand and we pulled out the first one, which judging by its colour, was for Xixi.

We didn't expect them to be charged but Xixi's was and we set about trying to mount it first. Actually the kids got used to it pretty quickly, probably because the swegway itself is heavier relative to their weights, at least that's my excuse as I couldn't balance on it without holding the wall at first. But somehow I sort of got the knack, and was able to slowly roll from one side of the room to the other, spinning around to change direction in the process. It was only after I'd had enough that I realised I had no idea how to dismount, so I quickly put one foot behind me and the other went shooting off in front leaving the rest of my body to obey gravity and plummet to the ground. I banged my ankle and landed on my right wrist and back of my head. I think the fact it was all three places somewhat buffeted the fall a little, but I was in a bit of shock.

Leilei  getting better on the swegway

Xixi also gaining in confidence

So I popped back to the house, leaving them to happily practise. Today is gui jie, which translates as Ghost Festival, of which there is no equivalent in the UK, not even halloween, as I had been wrongly told before. The most important thing about it is that the family eat together, so I knew I'd be back soon. Yang Haiwei called me to eat later and of course I said I'd be at Waipo's but he asked me to call when I was finished there anyway. Fair enough.

On the way back to our house I couldn't help noticing this anti-Japanese sticker on a (Chinese brand) car - a sad reflection of how many still think

After Waipo's meal I duly called Haiwei around 6 and he sent me a WeChat location. I had to ride a couple of hundred yards in the wrong direction before I knew it was indeed the wrong direction as the blue dot that represented me was a fraction further away from the destination red dot. I realised I was not close, and spent a good 10 minutes finding my way to the west side of Pingguo and eventually his mum's house's complex. As I entered I heard the security guard shout at me and then realised it was my neighbour, who asked for my phone number so we could arrange to meet up soon. Then Haiwei rang to ask where I was and after a bit of fuss because the red dot wasn't exactly where he was, I found the place and was welcomed in to the family meal as if I was one of them.

The main reason for me coming was because Haiwei's first son was going back to school tomorrow. Even though it's in Pingguo he sleeps there except for the weekend. His English is relatively good and I had been drafted in to help him. It had actually improved significantly in the last two years, and he's quite a bright lad so it wasn't as boring as it might have been. We had semi-conversations about football and English culture, with frequent translation breaks for the rest of them.

Yang Haiwei's family meal: Haiwei, an uncle, a brother, Haiwe's actual brother, Haiwei's second son on a Waipo's knee, a Nai nai, and Haiwei's first son with whom I was speaking English

There had been no beer at Waipo's so it was fine to perform a few gan beis with the family. Even the resident Nainai gan beid with me a couple of times. These sorts of family meals are my favourite, as you know the blokes aren't going to get stupidly drunk as they have the womenfolk and babyfolk around. After a couple of hours though, it was declared that we were to go to bbq. We went to the place near our house, and another family turned up with their daughter, who could also speak some English, then another girl turned up who was a "sister" and spoke very good English, albeit with that American twang many speakers have. It transpired she'd lived or studied in the States for a few months.

One thing I've noticed is that there appears to be an inverse colleration between foreign language ability and good looks with women, and possibly men too (though I would be an obvious exception). I suspect this is quite natural, as those more favourable in the looks department don't need to make so much effort to find a bloke or work. It probably applies to other aspects of education too. Of course it's a sweeping generalisation but there's definitely something in it.

The English speakers then left and I was left with Haiwai and his second son as his wife took elder son back home. Haiwei was faltering and I left him to sleep in his chair as I went for a walk around the other bbq places with second son and we talked for a bit but he is only six and didn't understand about sometimes slowing down when using more complicated vocabulary. So we woke up his dad a few minutes later when wife was back, and she took them all home in their car, which meant I could go and find the kids who were still at Waipo's.

I dared not have another go on the swegways, despite their appeal after a couple of 2.5% Snowflake beers, so took them home for a shower instead. I still had well over two and a half hours before the footy but was managing so far. I took the bike out for a late night run and decided to see if Luwen was in. I couldn't be sure where his office was, but I happened upon three blokes drinking beer at a tea table. I asked them if Luwen's office was nearby and they looked at me as though to say "why the hell would we know who he is?" for a minute before inviting me to sit down for a beer. Oh well, why not?

An enjoyable hour or so with these guys

I probably spent an hour there chatting and sipping and sometimes gan bei'ing and sometimes cai ma'ing, as the blokes took photos of me with them and sent them to their social networks. It's like having your own personal CCTV service with you at all times - I've barely travelled a mile without someone taking a photo of me, and it's even more intense for the kids.

By the time I left it wasn't that far off 2am so I got home to catch up on the Olympics and some pre-match chat. This is one of the most important matches this season; lose this qualifier and that's it for the Champions League. And it's only the second game of the season, we have injuries, and the side is yet to gel. A big banana skin if ever there was one. But we played brilliantly, albeit partly because Steaua weren't really up to it, and the 5-0 away win with two missed penalties helped me easily to stay up till gone 4.30am.

We got one more later too - well worth staying up for

Back to Pingguo after annoying travel arrangements

The lazy boy didn't rouse till 11am but I understand growing kids need their growing sleep. I checked and found we needed to check out at midday so we didn't have too much time to waste before we would have three hours to waste. We checked out just before midday and walked towards the station. I'd made a deal with Leilei that we walk on the proviso that he could have a KFC if we came across one. Five minutes later we came across that horrible Colonel whatever face and indeed it was a genuine KFC. I let Leilei have a chicken burger with chips and a cola for 15 kuai but I didn't have anything despite not having had lunch yet. I checked the ctrip app I'd downloaded just to be sure how much time we had before the train and I saw that the my train tickets had been cancelled! Bollocks. I wanted to be double sure and checked me email and yes, at 2.30am I'd had an email saying the tickets were sold out - why the f did you sell them to me then you annoying bastards.

I needed to take advantage of the free KFC wifi but it was broken, as were, annoyingly, all the other free wifi hotspots in the place. We were in a sort of eating hall and we ended up walking around finding new hotspots and failing to connect on a single one. But I absolutely had to sort out how to get back, so we took the bridge to the other side of this shopping complex and found a Pizza Hut with a working wifi hotspot. It look like getting a bus was the best option. Worst case scenario would be getting an expensive taxi that we'd somehow have to arrange sharing with others. It looks like Tan was right about so many people travelling for the summer but I don't remember it being this bad before. In fact we didn't have the high speed train before and it wasn't like this - maybe just more people are travelling full stop.

I remembered there was a coach stop that Leilei and I had gone to a couple of years ago when we had to come to Nanning to fetch our delayed luggage. But it was far away, a long bus journey and I had no idea which one. So I searched for all buses to Pingguo and thankfully ctrip's page showed this info albeit totally in Chinese and in a non-mobile-optimised site. But I had a lead. From the list there were plenty of buses but the source was not the same - I counted at least three different Nanning alighting points, so next had to find a map service that worked in China. Luckily Bing maps was just about up to the job though it couldn't place my location there. I worked out there was a west station, which we'd been to a couple of years ago, an east station that was miles in the wrong direction, and a south station about 4km from where we were in the centre. Ok, nothing was bookable online so we'd take a taxi there.

As we went to the street we found a taxi waiting for us with a female driver. Ah it was almost a pleasant drive, and certainly the best I've had in Nanning. I felt a bit sexist when I gave her 20 kuai and told her to keep the change (1 kuai), but I genuinely appreciated the care she took on the road. No jokes about women drivers here.

Then we saw the queues for buying tickets and my heart sank. We could be here some time, and would we get the next bus in 45 minutes at 14:10, or would we have to wait a couple of hours or even more? I almost felt like running back to the lady driver and asking how much to Pingguo but thought better of it. If queueing is good enough for the Chinese, it's good enough for us. Five minutes later though we were halfway through the queue when Tan texted to say we were having a family meal at 5pm and what time would I be back? Bugger, now I felt even more that we wouldn't be able to get tickets - that would be just typical and of course my fault. I thought it best not to reply until I knew the horrible details but it was with palpable relief that the ticket woman answered me "14:10" when I asked for the time of the next bus to Pingguo.

We had over half an hour so went to the "Kungfu" fast food place upstairs where I had an expensive ribs and rice at 28 kuai and both Leilei got a hit of wifi after registering my and Tan's numbers and getting Tan to WeChat me Leilei's code. We found door number 5 for our coach (there were about 30 in total) and found other people that were going to Pingguo so we knew we were on the right one, but somehow I managed to board the wrong bus still, but thanks to Leilei and about 30 others, I was told the error of my ways and made my way to next bus along. Jeepers another day, had I been alone, I could have ended up in Kunming.

Leilei taking some Zs on the bus

Despite only having woken up three hours previously after 10 hours sleep, Leilei found his Chinese genes and spent most of the journey asleep. It took longer than usual due to road works and it didn't help to have crappy radio blaring out over our heads. But we arrived about 4pm and got a 15 kuai san lun che back home where we first bunged a load of clothes in the wash before going to the supermarket to pick up some provisions. Tan had told us to get some grapes to bring to Waip's but as we were leaving the supermarket the heavens literally opened and we rushed to our bike as the grape-sized raindrops tried to usher us outside. But we were English (well 75%) and made of sterner stuff. We went into 3rd gear and got home before we were totally saturated. It was bucketing down beautifully, the sort of weather that needs to be appreciated by a vodka and tonic, and as the former was one of the things I'd bought from the supermarket I performed the appropriate operation and, assuming Tan would know that we were beached at home for a few minutes, observed and enjoyed the ensuing storm in a way that literally (in the proper, classic sense of the word) no other Chinese person in Pingguo would.

GuanPark supermarket has now taken over Nanfang Baihua as my favourite supermarket in Pingguo - I've not got a card with them too

As soon as it died down I called Tan to explain why we were a little late and said we'd now get some grapes. But my usual market stall, with the women I've known only a month less than Tan, only had some greeny ones. Apparently it was the time of year. I wasn't sure but as I looked around other stalls had the same. So I ended up buying the much nice longyan fruit that Tan had said not to buy. As we were arriving at Waip's I could feel the vibration of a telling-off call coming from Tan to my pocketed phone, so didn't reach to answer. Yes of course for whatever reason we were "late" and everyone was waiting for us even though everyone meant Waipo, Jiuma, Er Jie, and Tan and Xixi. Apparently Da Jie had left yesterday.

Afterwards I took the kids home and the storm started again, but more magnificently now that it was dark, and Xixi managed to get a decent shot of some lightning on her phone. When the rain abated we went out on a ride as is our wont. It's nothing amazing, just something that we can't do in the UK. I let the kids get a bottle each of red and green tea respectively, and we all appreciated the cigarette spinny thing on the side, though I suppose it could have been used to advertise anything that fitted on it, like condoms.

After the kids were asleep and I couldn't I went for a little walk as the dian dong che was chonging dian. I happened across Beihai Seafood Boss Huang, who was the soberer of three mates sitting at a table, and had a good chat and a couple of gan beis - so much the better for him being on the beer instead of anything stronger.

Boss Huang did insist on taking me home in his new BMW

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.

Macau and City's first of the season

Happy 43rd to Tan!

As it just rather overcast but not raining we got our passports and at around midday went to look for taxis to take us to Gongbei. We had been lucky on Friday that a London cab turned up when we were queueing in the taxi rank in Gongbei, but hailing a cab would prove to be more difficult. The first 10 or so that went passed were all full - then we saw people down the road before us hailing what we would have caught, so had to make our own way further down the road. I'm sure there is an Uber equivalent here but at this moment I had no data on my phone and even when I did it was only Edge (2.5G) so would have taken an age to download - and then what? I'd need some Chinese bank account or credit card probably. Momo, his mum, and Leilei then caught a cab and luckily a couple of minutes later Momo's brother and I got another.

I noticed that the taxi's odometer read 999999

We beat them to Gongbei somehow and when they arrived we decided it was best (cheapest) to eat here first, so went to a bustling Guangdong tea house, which really means a restaurant where they also serve tea. Of course we ordered too much but it was lovely food and we ended up da bao'ing what we couldn't finish. None of us really knew what to do to get to Macau - I'd not even bothered looking anything up online. So we entered some shopping area underground where we found signs to Aomen and eventually found ourselves in a queue. This lasted 15 minutes and we were relieved to see we'd kept our Chinese departure cards in our passports as we hadn't so much considered leaving China as much as entering Macau. Once our passports were stamped we thought that was it as we walked past a coach park and wondered where to go. But oh no, now there was the queue to get into Macau - about 20 minutes. I said "obrigado" to the customs bloke when I was let through and he just nodded at me in a queer manner as if I'd spoken gobbledigook.

It's customary here to use hot tea or water to wash the bowls and chopsticks you are about to use first - you have to make sure not to drink it as it comes out of a teapot the same shape as the tea teapot

Finally we were in, but like an ignorant Brexiteer, we realised we had no plan on what to do when we had reached our goal. We'd heard about free shuttle buses to get to casinos but that wasn't exactly what we wanted to do, so we found an underground bus stop and went inside the first bus that came and asked the driver which bus would take us to the centre. He didn't really know what we were on about. Macau is about the size of Lewisham and it's pretty much walkable from north to south in 45 minutes. So he advised the number 3 and straight away the number 3 came. We weren't the only people wanting the number 3 though, and there was not enough space to get on. But actually this was good news. We'd all connected to wifi here and found suddenly we could connect to Google!

The boys were totally transfixed on their phones as they checked their youtube messages and instagram this and that. To be honest I also managed to download an offline map of Macau from Google, as long as I missed out most of the mainland which was not downloadable. This would prove to be handy. But it was like oxygen had been injected into the air and we breathed deeply until the next bus came.

We got off 20 minutes later in a bustling part of town and spent the next half an hour walking around the charming windy streets. Macau had resembled Hong Kong until we reached this area, but now had a touch of Lisbon's Alfama district about it. It was pretty touristy though, and we saw a fair few westerners. Every sign and nearly every shop was written in Portuguese and Traditional Chinese characters, which I've heard mainlanders express a preference for. Certainly they are more intricate and I suppose prettier, but they were simplified in the mainland to help the less educated learn to read and write. I can't say whether this is a good or bad thing, though for me it hasn't been a bad thing from a learning perspective.

Momo and Leilei were adamant that they wanted zhenzhu naicha, pearl tea, or "bubble tea" as it's often translated. We happened upon a Taiwanese tea shop that served exactly that and rested in the freezing air-conditioned premises where I chose a more mature lemon tea with only a tad of sugar and the boys paid a little extra for extra pearls in their tea. We decided when we left we would head in the direction of Da San Ba, whatever that was. Then I found out why the young boys wanted the pearl tea - they'd finished the drink and were left with the soft, sugary pearls, which they were sucking up then firing pea-shooter style at various (non-human) targets. I really felt I should tell them off but I equally wanted to do the same thing. I compromised by telling them not to aim in any vicinity of people which they mostly did.

The boys in one of Macau's more bustling thin streets

Da San Ba was apparently the Chinese pronunciation of Saint Paul's Cathedral - I suppose from the Portuguese, which sort of makes sense as Saint Paul would be São Paulo. I gather it was built soon after the Portuguese arrived some 400 years ago but all that remains is the front wall and a few other bits. It was sprawling with tourists and not massively interesting to be fair, so a bit later we walked through another thin street known for food, where loads of bits of jerky and little cakes were being given out as samples. Of course the boys took advantage of this and by the time we'd walked the length of the street were pretty much stuffed.

Outside Da San Ba

As we were in the gambling capital of Asia, we thought we should at least pay a visit to one of the many casinos, so went to the Hotel Lisboa in new Pujing the "Pu" is the first syllable of Putaoya (Portugal) and the "jing" is the last syllable of Beijing (Beijing) but I'm not sure what the significance of that is, other than it is the main gambling area. Unfortunately or not, the casinos were strictly over-21, and although either of us over-21s could have stayed with the kids and let the other gamble, it wasn't really in the spirit of the outing, and I had no problems with not losing money.

Feet were getting tired, so we walked back and tried to get a bus from the other side of the road from whence we came, but found out we actually needed to be on the other side for some strange reason. At least crossing the road here is easier as they drive on the left with right-hand drive cars as per Hong Kong. Although we'd changed 500 kuai into HK dollars, we weren't sure we'd have enough to buy a meal here; we'd both bought some massage medicine for our respective Waipo's at 78 kuai each, plus the pearl tea, so thought it best to go back to the mainland for tea.

Back at the underground bus stop again we got a quick 5 minute fix of Google and other mainland-blocked-related services before finding our way to leave Macau again. It was a longer queue this time I suppose as it was evening. Despite reading loads of Portuguese all afternoon I was a little sad I'd not heard a single word the whole time, not even from the officials. A pity as it's pretty much going to be a dead language here soon at this rate. Of course we had to re-write landing cards to get back into the mainland, which meant writing Waipo's address in characters again. And the queue was a good half an hour this time in the "Foreigners" channel, which we all had to take. But the customs official was very friendly and commented very positively on my scrawl of our address. After he stamped me back in, I noticed that Momo's mum had written their address in pinyin and I guess I could have done the same if I only knew what the pinyin was.

The mainland did feel like home though, and we got a late bite to eat as it was getting on for 10pm after the near hour it took from the 300 metres from the bus stop back to Gongbei. We found a Guilin noodles place where Momo's mum could have her motherland food and I could have rice and a nice cold beer. Yet another 20 minute queue for the taxis and we were home not that long before midnight. The City game was to start at 12.30 and I'd got a couple of beers for the occasion. We had been due to stay in a hotel tonight but Momo's mum's younger brother had decided to delay coming to Zhuhai by a day to allow us to stay here an extra night. Of course I tried to change this and in fact had been secretly looking forward to a hotel where I might have more chance of watching the match, but the decision had been made and that was it.

Guilin noodles that make you sneeze

The wifi in Momo's house only works when the computer is on, as it has the only Internet connection and shares it via its wifi. I thought this would be well annoying but on the first night I'd looked around at other SSIDs for the first I tried the usual passwords: 888888888, 12345678, and 123456789, with no joy, then I tried the second, 88888888 - no, 12345678 - bingo! I had connected and had decent Internet and a fairly strong signal. I'd even used that last night to dial into a meeting. So tonight after searching in vain for a tv channel that would show the match, I found a dodgy stream just in time for the kickoff. It was a bit stuttery but yes, we got a penalty in the fourth minute that Aguero converted! Oh I was looking forward to the next 85 minutes. But bollocks, suddenly the wifi went. I tried resetting the adapter but nothing. I tried my work laptop and phones but it was down! Of course the computer was turned off now and people were going to bed. So I found all the SSIDs I could and tried the various passwords but none worked. I was gutted. All I could do in the end was use my work SIM roam. I didn't want to take the micky so I used UC Browser which is good at filtering images and adverts and focusing on text, and followed the match via a forum, which I find is more up-to-date and informative than sports websites like the BBC. Damn, Sunderland of course scored despite our 75% possession - will nothing change? But with 3 minutes to go we went ahead thanks to an ex-Man U defender heading in a Navas cross to his own goal and we managed to defend our lead till the end. I'll take the three points but this was a shaky start. Sleep came soon after the 2.30 finish.

Rainy and language-bullying and no train tickets back to Pingguo

Momo's mum and Waipo were moaning about how hot it was in Zhuhai, and how Guiyang was much more liang kuai. Leilei and I didn't know what she meant as liang kuai to us was 2 kuai, or about 23p. It transpires that it means "pleasantly cool". Well today we were going to go to the park as compared to yesterday it was liang kuai. But what we didn't notice from up on the 21st floor of Momo's building was that it was actually still raining, so when we got to the bottom it was decided we wouldn't go out after all and Momo's brother went to get some jiaozi that we'd eat at home for lunch.

The kids had wanted to go swimming, so I suggested as it was raining wouldn't it be a good idea to do that in the complex's outdoor pool. It was decided that that was a good idea, but that we'd play ping pong first to have some sweat to wash off. There are a few outside tables with metal nets, but the only table tennis set they had was a really cheap one with bats with short handles designed to be held in the spoon fashion, and balls that were quite clearly not round. But it didn't matter that much; the table had pools on it that affected the bounce so I had my first not-very-competitive game of the year in China, and played some basketball with a football too.

I was surprised that it appeared to cost 100 kuai for the four of us to use the pool. Ok, it had an attendant but I would have thought some sort of monthly cost would have paid for this. And even if it didn't it was more expensive than when the four of us go in London. But it was quite good fun and one of the older blokes in the pool saw me swim and said "good swimming!" This is a far more educated place than somewhere like Pingguo - not just because it has good schools and universities, but it has some sort of "special economic region" label attached to it. I understand as Shenzhen is to Hong Kong, so Zhuhai is to Macau. It's also a damn sight cleaner than any other mainland city I've been to. And the infrastructe is noticeably better, and better looked after.

Ah Macao - I'd never considered going there before but thought given we had no option but to buy bloody expensive two-year multi-entry visas, why not? Momo's mum was interested too, as they all have the same type of visa, so we said we'd look at going tomorrow if the weather was clement.

The weather didn't change all day so we decided to have tea at home too - Momo's Waipo cooked rice and his mum ordered meat to be delivered. Unfortunately each portion of "meat" was a whole meal, i.e. loads of rice and a little meat, and Momo's mum realised how different ordering food can be between different cities. It didn't matter one jot about the weather - Momo and Leilei were having a great time together so I didn't matter when I had to disappear for a couple of hours to work. In the evening I nipped out for a quick walk on my own and happened upon the Chinese equivalent of a mini Tesco. I sneaked a small bottle of Lemon-vodka as I was hoping to watch the first day of the Premier League tomorrow, or Ying Chao as it is known here. Annoyingly, the cashier spoke to me in English and said I needed ID. I told him in Chinese if he wanted it he'd have to wait for me to go home and get my passport. Then I realised I was taking part in language-bullying.

Language-bullying is something I've been a victim of more times than most. It really should be some sort of crime. If someone speaks to you in one language, it should be a common courtesy to reply to them in the same one if you are able. I know I prefer it when people do that to me in a foreign language. But I'd replied to him in Mandarin and immediately felt guilty, so I made up some conversation just to speak to the shopkeeper bloke in English to make him feel better. He seemed to appreciate that and then said it was ok I didn't need to go and get my ID. He asked if I was an English teacher and we had a mini conversation so we both won - he got his little English hit and I saved time getting my passport. So many times in France and Portugal, not to mention the UK, I've been language-bullied - the person hears that you have an accent and responds to you in English, basically saying "my English is better than your French/Portuguese". Yeah maybe that's true but then everyone learns English, it's on the tv and so many day-to-day objects, and you need it to have just about any professional job - yet you call us lazy for not learning other languages? What chance do you give us when we make such an effort to communicate with you in your country in your language and you respond to us in ours, when we've not had your language osmosified into us from a very early age? But not the Spanish though, in general I've found them to be more than happy to respond in their own language. And the Chinese in general.

Outside the supermarket there were some signs showing good values we should all seek to instill - friendship, hard work, honesty, democracy...what? Democracy? Where was I? Was there corruption happening in Zhuhai? Was Zhuhai really so different from the rest of China - a stepping stone from mainland to Macau? I'd love to know how that sign got there but feel I never will.

Even the characters read minzhu - democracy - the first such "sign" in the mainland?

It dawned on me that the train was rather full on the way to Guangzhou, and maybe I should look at ordering tickets for the return journey. To my considerable annoyance I found they were all sold out till Tuesday, and even Tuesday only had standing tickets - for 5h14m I don't think so. We couldn't really stay later than Monday as there would be family meals etc., so I thought about the coach - but 12 hours on a stinky coach was one journey I'd made before in 2008 and wasn't going to do again in a hurry, especially with Leilei. So I looked at dreaded flights. It was going to be about £130 to fly to Nanning from Guangzhou, so was just about to click to buy when I thought I'd check if there was a Zhuhai airport. Indeed there was, and it was a few quid cheaper, not to mention we wouldn't have to get a train to Guangzhou, then spend another hour and a half getting to the airport. So I booked it for Sunday evening (checking there was lounge access first) - Leilei was only 380 kuai with no tax and I was more than double - had it been a European flight he'd have been nearly the same cost. We had planned to go Monday afternoon but it made sense to go Sunday; we might not be able to get back to Pingguo Sunday anyway. And it saved a night in a hotel in Zhuhai; we were only going to stay the first two nights at Momo's as his mum's brother and family were coming back Saturday.

Off to Zhuhai

I woke up at 7 after only two hours of fractured sleep. I had set the alarm for 7.15 but decided to use the time to get a shower even though I had done so not six hours previously. I remembered I'd put the dian dong che to charge last night so didn't want to leave it there tethered for the next few days, so when we should have been leaving I popped down to move it. To my embarrassment the alarm was going off again and I guessed it must be the same problem as before. I noticed the security guard hadn't seen me and didn't seem to notice when I turned off the alarm. I quietly moved the bike from its charging place and moved it along in the basement before shooting back into the lift - I think he didn't see me.

We had planned to get a san lun che at 8am as A Xia had told us we should be at the train station with half an hour to spare but it was closer to 8.15 in the end. We hailed a san lun che and the bloke told us it would be 16 kuai. 16 kuai? I asked, just to confirm, and he said 6 kuai, showing six fingers. Gosh that was cheaper than years ago. But just as I got in I found I'd forgotten my work phone. As unlikely as it was for someone to call me on it I knew if there was a single call it would be vitally important so I asked him to wait a min and rushed back to get it. Tan reprimanded me as I grabbed the phone and said I'd be late. I didn't answer and rushed back, as much as you can while waiting for a lift to arise or descent 14 floors.

The san lun che driver mentioned when I got back that it would now be 7 kuai and I said fine. I had been expecting to pay more than twice that but I didn't tell him that. I particularly liked the fact that his san lun che was battery powered, and therefore relatively quiet. Plus he made the sensible route that I would have too. We arrived within 10 minutes and I gave him 10 kuai and told him to keep the change. San lun che drivers are some of the few people that will do this.

Leilei and I went through security without a hitch, thanks to the fact that only our surnames were on the tickets, otherwise I dread to think. And when we were in the waiting area, so much bigger and modern than just a couple of years ago, I realised there were absolutely no shops, even though Tan had told me we could expect to pay 10 kuai for a bottle of water. So I told Leilei to wait a couple of mins while I got a bit more water to supplement the provisions we'd bought yesterday.

It was fine to leave via security again, and I bought a couple of bottles of water plus a sports drink for a total of 8 kuai, but as soon as I'd paid I heard a loudspeaker message and I saw people running to the security entrance. I hastened my pace a little, but was aware there were still 12 minutes to go, but there was now a little queue outside security and I didn't want Leilei worrying. As it was, they remembered me for some reason though still frisked me. I found Leilei deep into some silly game on his phone, oblivious to the fact that had I been a few minutes later we might have missed the train. But we got to the platform with minutes to spare. In the old days we would have probably walked over the tracks, but now we had to go under them, then stand at the appropriate place where our carriage (5) would stop. It was all rather more organised that I expected.

The bullet train looked faster than it was

We found our seat ok but before we set off I heard a "hello!" and some bloke stood over me and spent the next half an hour speaking to me in fractured English. I normally wouldn't mind, but I couldn't really be bothered. He seemed a nice enough bloke, he had a kid, wife too old for another now that it is allowed. He told me he would have preferred a foreign wife, which was a bit more than I cared to know, but didn't make a meal of. He had an annoying habit of semi-dribbling, semi-spitting certain words and I felt the moisture land on my wrist twice. All I could think about was wiping it off but I didn't want to offend him so waited the whole half hour until he decided he'd better get ready to get off in Nanning, where he would wait two hours for the half hour train to his home town.

Leilei getting some sleep

I'd really looked forward to this five hour journey direct from Pingguo to Guangzhou, but it stopped every half an hour or so, and although Leilei and I were next to each other there was the corridor between us. Plus we were next to the buffet car so there was a constant stream of people moving between us. Plus, due to some amazing efficiency on the part of the rail company there was always someone sitting next to us so we couldn't sit properly next to each other. Leilei managed a little sleep under his eye protectors, but despite a lunchtime tipple I found anything hard to come by, and only managed a couple of minutes while listening to Magnetic Rag on my laptop.

We reached Guangzhou on time but I was glad I'd booked the next train for 50 minutes later; the next one 24 minutes later we'd have missed due to a mix of security and queueing for the next area. It was rather like an airport. Leilei and I both noted that in the toilet there was a bloke whose sole purpose in life appeared to be to tell others to stop smoking. There were many one-toked cigarettes on the floor there. By the time we got to the Guangzhou-Zhuhai train it was nearly ready to leave. So much for first class for 20 kuai each more; the only difference seemed that there were 2x2 seats instead of 2x3 and more fierce air conditioning.

A little more than an hour later we met Momo and his mum at Zhuhai station. From there we could see Macau, but we got in a cab straightaway to go to where they were staying at Momo's mum's younger brother's place. And it was a very nice apartment indeed. The whole place was clean, and had proper security. Pingguo immediately felt dirty and loud in comparison. When we'd dumped off our stuff we went for a walk with Momo's mum, elder brother, and Waipo, and found a place to eat 15 minutes away. It was a typical Guangdong eatery and we had some great goose and chicken among other healthy stuff. Even Leilei ate pretty well. I enjoyed it and didn't even order a beer even though I thought I deserved one. Then I felt my insides grumbling a bit and thought we'd better get back soon.

We were lucky to get a "London Cab" that could take all five of us to the apartment

But they wanted to take a late evening walk, and who was I to stop them? We walked to the local sports stadium and watched people playing football and basketball. I just wanted to get back but then we lost the boys, then Waipo. Eventually all was cool but I was bursting for a poo and we only got home at well after 11pm. So annoyingly I found I couldn't go then - it was like being in Bangxu in 2003 except this time I didn't have to crouch. Oh well, at least I got a shower, and we all had a reasonably early pre-midnight night.

Work and too late funfair

Well I think I've found out what the snake was that scared us a few days ago. It took a few minutes but when I saw this pic of the Red-necked Keelback I reckon this was the fellow that we'd annoyed. Apparently only the back teeth are venemous, meaning of relatively little risk to humans, but at the time you just react. Luckily we had no time to react and the little chap just disappeared into the grass.

Apparently it was a Red-Necked Keelbaaack

Otherwise today was mostly work. Getting to test integration with REST Web Services was rather more interesting than it should have been for someone who is meant to be not that technical.

After a good day's work I took the kids out on a long dian dong che ride. We'd seen what looked like a ferris wheel some distance away so decided to head in that direction as part of a magical mystery tour. Unfortunately just as we arrived there the big wheel (yes it was that) illuminations were turned off. But we'd found a Pingguo funfair. That meant we could come back here for an afternoon or something. The rollercoasters were kid-sized so I might even have a go.

The dian in the dian dong che was running out but we managed to get nearly home before I called Tan to find she and A Xia were enjoying bbq at Tian Yang Po's. Finally we would get the chance to see her new place and indeed it was nice; a proper indoor eating area and plenty of pink outdoor chairs if you fancy eating outside, as only Tan and A Xia appeared to be doing.

They ordered far more than was necessary, and althought the kids ate a half decent amount it was way past even their Pingguo bedtime given they'd been up since quite early and Leilei would be up soon after seven. So I took them back at 11.30 to be showered and although the kids went to sleep for some reason I couldn't till 3am.