Unexpected Tiandong meal

Well, by 5.45pm I wasn't going to invite myself to Nong's husband's birthday meal, and I know from experience that such invitations made while drunk often don't materialise. So when Li Kun pinged me at that time to see if I wanted to go to eat snails in Tiandong I said I probably would, and he said to be outside his office at 6.40pm, and that we'd be back by 9pm. Hmm...it takes more than 30 minutes to get to Tiandong and I don't think a meal there will take under an hour. Whatever, I was in no rush to get back but just wondered in case that other invitation for tonight ever turned up.

I had nearly an hour to prepare and indeed I got there bang on 6.40pm. I thought I knew his office but it was closed so I called him and indeed he hadn't turned up yet. Two ladies sitting by a tiny fire cooking small sweet potatoes bade me sit down with them, as though standing up was a sin in the cold. It was an easier conversation than most with local people I didn't know. Another woman came to sit and I enjoyed the 10 minutes till Li Kun turned up in a red car I knew wasn't his.

There was another car with us and apparently seven of us were to drive up in the two cars. In the back of ours was a talkative woman who was Li Kun's colleague, and took fun in describing her name (唐海洋) and I realised I need to massively improve my writing and reading. One of the important milestones is to understand the radicals, as generally characters are made up of one or more of these. In this way when they describe a character using radicals from left to right you have a decent chance of being able to write it even if you don't know the meaning.

It shouldn't be so fun to see someone get out of the car to pay at toll...Lord knows I've done it enough in France with a RHD car

Li Kun said the car was electric and his friend's. But as we arrived at the place to pay for using the road he said he couldn't put down the window for some reason. I asked if it was locked and he sort of said yes but something to do with his friend. He used one of my favourite words "gan ga" - awkward, as he opened the driver's door and got out to receive a plastic ticket that we'd need to give back in Tiandong. And it turned out to be an hour's drive there so we only got there at 8pm...even later by the time we'd found the restaurant. So the only chance we'd have of getting home by 9pm was if we left immediately. But I'd predicted this and would never have planned being back in Pingguo before 10pm.

When we had nearly arrived at Tiandong Li Kun got out of the car again in order to pay. This time I decided I really needed to know what was going on. In fact it wasn't what I thought originally that the windows were locked and Li Kun didn't know how to open them. In fact I had to learn some new words as the owner of the car had recently added tinted windows and this was why we couldn't drop them down as they needed a few days to sort themselves out. It was a tiny victory but I was very glad to have sorted out this mystery.

There were a couple of blokes waiting for us in the outside eating area. I was worried about being cold as I'd had to wash my only jacket earlier in the day and would have washed my only hoodie as it had got slightly muddy from last night but it was the last thick thing I had to wear (together with a thin fleece and two tee-shirts). I was only nippy for a few minutes though as as soon as two tables were put together for the eight or so of us, we were indeed served snails and sausages. And the food just kept coming and coming. I'd had but a yoghurt all day so was more than ready for this and wolfed down the snails as much as you can wolf using a toothpick to gently prise out the flesh then pull off the crappy bit at the back you can't eat. The little spicy beef pieces were easier though, and then I had a bowl of fat noodles that really warmed me up.

What a lovely meal...it seems fine that a couple of blokes were watching their phones all the time..

Beer was served a few minutes later, and tea for the two drivers. Li Kun had a bad throat so wouldn't have drunk anyway. After a couple of ganbeis and introductions I suggested cai ma, but it turned out no-one knew how to play. At least they said they didn't. Teacher Li to my left then started, but I beat him pretty well. Then I played one of the women at 5, 15, 20, which is similar to cai ma except the only numbers you need to guess are 0, 5, 15, 20, which makes it a bit of a halfway house between cai ma and scissors, paper, stone. Then the louder woman who'd driven up with us said although she couldn't play cai ma, Li Kun could play for her and she'd drink. And I went on to beat him eight goes in a row before finally losing three in a row and saying "at last!". It was more fun that it sounds. I noted that it was Guangxi culture to be quite loud, as 海洋 shouted "he!!!" when I beat another woman.

We didn't leave the place till well gone 9.30pm, and as it was so late Li Kun drove slower, yet still always on the left hand side of the two-lane motorway. I told him this was only to be used for overtaking in the UK but he explained there were lorries on the slow lane and it would be inconvenient to keep moving over. Yes, but on the other hand there were much faster cars than us who had to move over to undertake, one of which nearly went into the back of a lorry we were overtaking at the time. Oh well, be predictable I suppose.

So we got back at getting on for 11pm and there was a bloke at Li Kun's table with an open can of beer, which is quite unusual as I've not seen people drinking beer alone before. What was more unusual was that the label on the beer can was upside-down, at least one of the labels was. We checked other cans and indeed they were all like that. I wondered if it was so they could stack them upside-down like I've seen before with soft drinks, but the others didn't think so and to be fair I don't think I've ever seen beer cans stacked even the right way up in a shop.

Some other bloke came and three of us had a couple of beers while Li Kun had pu er tea. One bloke was talking about some bloke who looked like a Hong Kong superstar singer, and showed me videos of them both. In fact he was a local lad, and apparently would be popping in. And a few minutes later he did indeed, in a bright white shirt and blazer. Ah yes, we'd met him earlier in the summer when going for snail noodles after a night out at 3am. He did indeed look very strikingly handsome, but was a very pleasant fellow (although I didn't deign to take a photo for fear of looking like a fan). He only drank warm water, and was doing those exercises actors do such as blowing raspberries as at 1.15am he was due to go out again to do another performance.

"Upside down beer?"

Li Kun said he would get 10000 kuai for 20 minutes' work, which I found slightly hard to believe. But his driver appeared and they left around 1.30am. I said he'd better make the most of it as he won't be that young for long, and that was agreed. We finished a last beer and I got home for what hoped would be a relatively early night but ended up chatting to Andge, Awl, and Mat and doing a quiz for old times' sake.

Haiwei's friend Xiao Nong's birthday meal

Whiled away at home till 5.45pm when Haiwei called me to pick him up to go to his friend Xiao Nong's birthday meal. Blimey it was really pissing it down again and I was once again delayed while putting on the coverall. The traffic was like nothing I'd seen before in Pingguo, and Haiwei was commenting on how convenient it was to have a dian dong che to swerve through it all.

Nong's place was a rather small and dingy, next to the hospital I hoped I wouldn't need to visit again. But of course the hospitality was second to none and we had a great meal accompanied by a fair amount of cai ma. I decided to bring the two packs of Matchmakers plus a box of shortbread as a sort of present as it's generally considered polite to bring something when you turn up for a meal, and it looks like they were appreciated. Xiao Nong said that it was her husband's birthday tomorrow so she would invite me back then. But beer had been drunk and I knew not to trust too much in such invitations. Before midnight I took Haiwei back home before getting back to our place where I had a brief chat with Awl.

Yet another great meal

But somehow I got back in contact with Xiao Nong and she convinced me to go back to drink a little more. The bloke who had delivered the beer earlier was still there plus another bloke. A "little" more haha...I didn't get back till 4am! But it was an incredibly fun night saying good night at 3am.

Difficult English homework and more guitar

Happy Birthday Xixi! Oh my my beautiful baby daughter is now an adult and I'm not there for it...but we did talk about it and are in touch regularly.

I've been lucky with the weather here and indeed it's been highs of low 30s. But tomorrow it's due to be a high of 15° and a low of 11°. In anticipation of this, half the people are already in long sleeves and/or coats. Even in the mid-afternoon. Even I'm not that sensitive. But in my anticipation I put on my clothes to wash in the early afternoon in order to do what drying I could before the cold set in.

Haiwei called me at 3pm to see where I was and I was honest and said I was putting out the clothes to dry, and I'd come over in 5 minutes. That turned into 15 as I hadn't noticed it was now pissing down so I had to sort out the coverall for the bike while not getting soaked myself, so I ended up arriving at 3.30pm after another call to see where I was.

True to my word I spoke with his son for a while before looking at his English homework. Crikey, it looked pretty complex for a 13 year-old. One particular question asked to find the odd one out in terms of the sound of the final "s" in the following words: A. books, B. keys, C. oranges, D. pens. The son had left this one blank. I first thought it was pens, as the "s" sounded more like a "z", but then they all sounded zeddy except maybe for books. So I sent the pic to Mat and he reckoned it was oranges it it was more of a "z" sound and I was confused, as he saw a case for books too (a book case if you will). So if a professional English English teacher is not sure, how is a 13 year-old Chinese student expected to do? I hope I do find out the answer.

Question 17 was particularly hard

Anyway, bar the homework (he was doing complex maths too), we talked till the food was served shortly after 5pm. For once it was all lovely; cha shao and pork ribs, with cabbage and other greens, and lots of it. Sweet in more ways than one. After the statutory 10 minutes or so some cold beers were opened. The owner of the house then arrived to join us, followed soon after by another bloke and the woman who was there last week who was good at cai ma. Every hour or so the food was reheated on the hob as the beer continued to pour and the mas continued to be cai'd, until gone 10pm, when I explained I needed to be somewhere else. Indeed it was true as advertising friend Nong had invited me to eat and play guitar at some other place.

The pork was wonderful and went down quickly

More cai ma silliness at the meal

I had no inclination to eat or play guitar, but it was a reasonable excuse to not get any more bloated where I was, and got to the place at 10.30pm. It was a busy private room with about 20 people who all cheered as I entered as they'd been drinking for as long as me probably. I managed a few ganbeis while listening to the semi-professionals playing and singing, until I had a guitar thrust into my arms. Well...I was reluctant but I'd searched the words to a couple of S&G songs lest I forgot them, and did a rendition of Mrs Robinson, before a few more ganbeis and then the guitar came my way again and I finished off with The Boxer and Sound of Silence. Well maybe it's Sounds but I prefer the singular.

I made my excuses around midnight as I wanted to watch the Chelsea City game, and this time I managed to connect to the VPN no problem and got a cracking stream for a cracking game. Of course I'd have preferred Palmer to miss the last-minute penalty to draw 4-4 but for the neutral and the title race I suppose it was a great result.

Four evening dates

Woke up earlier than I ought to but navigated the morning via Spanish counting dreams until I got a message in the early afternoon from a friend asking me to do an evening meal. Well today is Saturday and I'm just too busy so I said sorry no can do. Again, had they arranged a couple of days ago it would probably have been ok.

Li Kun's mate Feng, who'd sorted out the football tickets and food on Sunday, had pinged me to go out with some of the football fans at 4pm. Given that I was due to eat with A Qiu at 6pm this seemed reasonable until he said they wouldn't be actually eating till gone 6pm. So I suggested I could come later and he thought that might work. But then of course I got another message telling he was on his way at 4.45pm so I said I'd grab a shower and meet him there, near Jiang Bing Lu.

Luckily I'd remembered to charge up the night before - the QR code has faded badly so I'm keeping this photo in case it becomes impossible to scan from the phone in the future

Also today, Lu zong (Waterman) had asked me to go out for the evening and I'd said I would, if only because it would give me a good excuse to leave the A Qiu meal. Tan had said she often will drink till the early hours then call her, so she didn't really want me going there, but I can look after myself.

So after a quick shower I got to the football place soon after 5pm. It was actually in a courtyard of a living quarter for workers of some sort. A couple of men were cooking, others laying out the already cooked food, and many others standing and sitting about, while another bloke was singing karaoke as you do. I got talking to the locals and they were saying this was a very typical Guangxi feast, explaining about the different types of fish (lo fei yu, which originally came from Africa hundreds of years ago, for example), and then suddenly at 5.30pm it was declared that food was being served so we all sat down. I'd not really expected to eat here as when you hear something will be served "after 6pm" it generally means much later than that.

Preparing for the meal in the courtyard with the supporters and their families

A famous Bangxu fish dish Tan would be jealous to see

Another very typical Guangxi dish with pork, duck, chicken and more...

I'm not sure this translation is perfect...but I sort of get the gist

Now for one of the nicer problems I have had to deal with here: knowing how much to eat before leaving for another meal. I declined the rice but the duck and pork were gorgeous, heated up by dipping in the huo guo for a few seconds then in some soy sauce mix. Then some of the speciality fish came, which is normally eaten raw but in this case was cooked and mixed with crushed peanuts. Feng said to send a picture to Tan but I refrained as I thought she'd be genuinely jealous as it's a Bangxu speciality.

Of course A Qiu rang at 6pm to see where I was and I told her I'd be there soon. In the end we'd had to exchange Weixin so she could send me the address, and it was north of the guangchang so would take 10-15 minutes to get there depending on traffic lights. But this is Pingguo and you don't want to turn up too early. The beer had arrived shortly after the meal had started, and of course it is customary to do a few ganbeis first. I finally told Feng I'd better go at 6.15pm and he was fine (I'd been totally honest about the meal with A Qiu). So a last ganbei later and I was on my way, when of course I missed another call from A Qiu. I called her back to tell her I'd be 3 minutes but I hit two 90 second traffic lights which doubled the journey time.

She'd told me that a friend in black and white would meet me at the gate and indeed I heard "Peng Duoming!" as I pulled up. It was a bloke and he asked how come I'd driven when we were going to drink? I think he wasn't being 100% serious. We parked in the underground carpark and went up to the 5th floor in the lift, into a sumptuous apartment that the bloke and his wife told me they'd bought last year. Ah, so this wasn't A Qiu's place, but friends'. The bloke's wife was the English teacher, and indeed for about the first time here her English was pretty good, so I was happy to indulge her in it for a few minutes. Then A Qiu entered - apparently she'd been waiting at the other gate in case I'd entered from that side.

There was some food on the table but they were still making dumplings and asked if I wanted to help. It may have been a joke but of course I joined in and made three or four really badly shaped ones before giving it a rest. I had a couple of glasses of tea with the elder of the house before another three people turned up at 6.50pm. So much for a 6pm meal! Finally we sat down at 7pm and I was glad I hadn't over-indulged an hour previously, as it was another feast. The men started on the beer and A Qiu poured a whole bottle of wine into a bowl and started pouring largish spoonful's into the ladies' glasses. There was precious little space on the table anyway and it would have been easier to put the bottle there (not to mention less spilling), but hey ho I guess that's one way to air it.

Another cracking meal...

In typical fashion, after the first beer the men chain-smoked though the meal. About halfway through, A Qiu got in contact with Uncle Yellow and it seemed he was about so he popped in too. He'd already eaten but of course a bowl was thrust in front of him with three dumplings. A Qiu got the dumplings I'd made out of the freezer and much mirth was had at the poor quality, and I had to admit they looked pretty crap but I told them they'd taste better than the others.

Around 9pm I reminded them I had to be elsewhere. I'd spoken a fair amount of English to who I now knew was Mrs Huang, who had told me she had a higher IQ than her husband (I told him I wouldn't translate what she said but she did anyway). And to be fair, she'd not hogged the conversation in English and mostly spoke Mandarin so the others could join in. So the husband took Uncle Yellow and me back down to the carpark and we said our goodbyes and I was my way back to Jiang Bing Lu again.

It always takes a little time but I found Lu zong's place eventually and went to the private room where he was with a handful of other people. Again, there was much more than enough on the table and he immediately served me a bowl of what was mostly pig fat from what I could see. Definitely not what I needed. As per usual people popped in and out. At one stage a bloke dropped in and sat next to me and poured himself a glass of red wine and went to pour me one and I had to be quite insistent that he didn't, and instead ganbei'd him with beer. Over the next few minutes he continued to pour himself more glasses and down them in one, and I could barely keep up with beer. Of course he became very red, and talked faster and faster and I could make even less sense than before. But I nodded enough and repeated enough of the ends of his sentences and thankfully he left after another glass.

Then Lu zong's business partner (i.e. co-owner of this establishment) turned up with his friendly face and it was a much more relaxing half an hour or so catching up. Shortly after 11pm I said I'd better go soon, and it seemed the others had mostly had enough too. Outside of the private room a group of people at a table saw me and bade me sit with them for a photo-shoot and couple more ganbeis. Well...apparently they knew me or Tan or something.

Finally on the road back home, Li Kun pinged me to see where I was. "Outside" was my honest answer, and he invited me to go to Xiao Bai de Tian, where I'd gone on the first evening. Why not? I wasn't that tired and I was nearly there anyway. So I went to my fourth place of the evening and we just chatted with some people I didn't know (or remember) till about 1am.

First boss meal and mini-reunion

Getting up at 9am was probably not the right thing to do, except for visiting the toilet. So I tried my new-found Spanish counting trick and it bloody well worked again, but in shorter spurts than German did. So every 15 minutes or whatever, I'd start again until a dream happened. I once got up to 80 (ochenta), then try as I might, could not make it to 90 (noventa). Every time I'd restart from 80 I'd get no more than five numbers before I'd drop off. I wouldn't say it was the most refreshing sleep in the world, but it was way better than nothing, and I didn't get up properly till after 3pm.

I was still having serious issues getting the VPN to connect. I'd pretty much given up on the phone and the laptop could take dozens of attempts. Maybe the powers that be had finally found a way to block it off. It's ok as I can contact immediate family but imagine tourists coming here and being effectively offline for the duration of their stay. But I'm trying to be philosophical and become accepting that this might be the case in which case I'd be stuck a lot more to Chinese which at the very least should improve my Chinese in more ways than one. But also it would block off access to some learning I was hoping to do during this break. So I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for this worst case scenario.

Haiwei had called me around 2pm but I'd not answered, so I got back to him at 3.15pm and he was asking if I could come to speak to his son in English tomorrow or Sunday. I said I was pretty busy tomorrow (at least three people had invited me out) so we pencilled in Sunday at 3pm. Then he left another message to see if I could go for a drink and bite to eat this evening but I said I'd rebooked with a friend this evening so probably not. However, at 6.30pm it transpired that this friend was busy (would have been nice to be told about it earlier...hmmm), so I told Haiwei I was no longer busy and he got back to me to go to his boss's place which is one floor lower than A Wu's in the same building as we went to copious times in the summer.

Well that was dinner sorted then. And I was pretty hungry too, so took the bike there for 7pm where I met up with a number of new bosses, and one I did know but can never remember his name. There wasn't even a single token woman this time, and the food was not quite as brilliant as usual. I had mainly raw fish dipped in oil but I'd added too much of something or other and it was overly spicy. So most of what I had by volume was the lamb soup which was bloody delicious. Unfortunately though, as per usual, my first serving of it was accompanied by large bits of bone and it was quite hard to hold them up with chopsticks and of course once I dropped one while trying to nibble bits of skin off and got splashback. But once I'd removed the solids, the rest was mint (not literally).

Almost nothing to nibble on the solids in the soup...luckily the liquid was delicious

Fishy meal with Bud

Predictably, the beer was flowing...this time "Budweiser" but brewed in Guangxi so as local as Li Quan. As I didn't most of about eight of the bosses I had to do a bit more ganbeing than usual, and even Haiwei remarked that at 3.6% this was significantly stronger than the 2.8% we're used to. Finally something we both agree about (about 29% stronger actually but I didn't mention this to him). He reckoned he could only drink four cans of such beer but he'd definitely had more than that by the time we decided to leave.

I would have been happy to go home but he got on my dian dong che (as he didn't want to drive his car after a few drinks) and directed me to a place I think I went to with him in the summer. It was just a shop front, but apparently some sort of reunion with ex-schoolmates. There were a couple of people there drinking white alcohol but there was plenty of beer available too. And of course some food...tiny fried prawns that were delicious and some sort of spicy root that I believe is related to bamboo but they kept telling me it was something else.

Haiwei's mini reunion

More people turned up and they all seemed to drink pretty quickly, so at one point I said I needed to go for a walk and spent 10 minutes walking round the block having a chat with Andge. Finally at gone 11pm Haiwei agreed that we had had enough, and got me to drop him off back at his office where he promptly got in his car to drive home.

Back home myself I realised I was still hungry, and found the bag of la tiao I'd bought the other day. Well they filled a hole despite being most unhealthy in terms of sugar and carbs but hey ho it's not every night. Although past 4am going to sleep is becoming so.

First ping pong and ultra-late massage

I remember being up till 6am again despite having no interest in the football (although Man U losing to Copenhagen in the manor they did was rather amusing). 

The really weird thing was how after about 10am I was really annoyed and tried in vain to count to 100 in German. And it worked to some extent...I fell into dreams, but not for long. And I knew I was awake even if my watch didn't.

By midday I reasoned I still needed more sleep, so changed tack and started to count in Spanish. Although this should have been easier for me it had the opposite effect and sent me into some strange dreams...not even dreams at first but visualisations of the numbers, or speakulisations (which is definitely not a word). But mostly, before any visual dream would come, the words would form themselves in some way then an English version (not necessarily a translation) would come. When this happened I'd coolly start again until a (short) dream happened.

A bit more refreshed after a couple of hours' sleep I decided to take a walk to find somewhere to clean my trainers that were new when we came here in the summer and to get myself a bedside light. It proved to be very easy as there was a shoe place near the Guanmart and of course a place by the market selling electrical things. I could hear the sound of some stringed instrument being played as I looked among the shelves until the bloke noticed me and asked what I was looking for. I thought "deng" was "light" but when I said I wanted a small one he showed me a lightbulb (which I thought was "dengpao" (well it is)), so I had to explain the structure of what I meant. Well I could have looked up "standard lamp" but not only would it have been cheating it would have been wrong, as I've since looked it up and it appears to be a tall, standing lamp rather than a bedside one. Well I spotted a small box and it appeared to be perfect; rechargeable and three brightness settings, although no USB charging as it said on the box. I experienced my first anti-haggle as the bloke suggested 15 kuai instead of the 18 written on the box. And luckily he checked the charging cable as it didn't fit so he found one that did. And the short experience was worth much more than the cost of the light.

It was fitting that I didn't feel like going out as I hadn't been invited anyway so I had some convenient noodles and just chilled for a while. Then, at getting on for 8pm, despite not feeling 100% I decided it would be the right thing to do to go to the old people's leisure centre for some exercise at the ping pong table. Despite being dressed and ready to go I procrastinated for 20 minutes before simply using logic to get my arse out of the house and onto the bike.

Oh and it was worth it of course. I saw a few old faces (literally and figuratively) and was invited to play by a few of them. I warmed up with one bloke who was leagues above me in quality, but seemed generally impressed with some of my backhand smashes. I only lost 3-2 in games to the second bloke, then got into a smashing rally (in both senses) with an old women who didn't look like she should be as nimble as she was. I made my excuses after 70 minutes at 9.45pm as I wanted to grab a shower and get to the supermarket before it closed at 10.30pm. And promised to come back some time soon.

Newly-provisioned after the supermarket trip, I had a refreshing beer I'd just bought from a six-pack that still cost 9.90. Just over a quid for six beers can't be sniffed at. Then advertising friend Nong asked if I wanted to go for ye xiao. Why not? I'd done some exercise and was feeling the better for it, and when she sent the location I saw it was next to where I went the first evening I arrived.

I turned up around 11pm and there were already a few people there. The muscley boss turned up who I think is Nong's business partner (or maybe other sort of partner as they are always together). Then two ladies turned up, one of whom had the most extreme make-up on and lavish fingernails with diamond-like stones encrusted in them. You could tell she was a lot older than she was trying to look, and she may well have had surgery to make her eyes and nose bigger. She sat next to me and despite her appearance talked fairly normally. Unsurprisingly, she asked if she could take a selfie with me and I said yes, as long as she didn't share with the public (she would no-doubt share with her friend groups). A few photos later, she spent the next 20 minutes touching them up to make herself look even more like a doll.

Another feast by the guangchang with Nong and friends

Then she told me the other lady who turned up was her sister and asked me to guess who was the older one. I told her that that was an unfair question as I could only really be wrong. But she insisted no offence would be taken so I said I thought she was the older one (I didn't tell her it was because she had all the make-up on and her sister had little to none). I was right of course, and then she dived into her photos to show me a picture of her 18 year-old daughter, who looked well on the way to becoming her mum.

Nong suggested I get up on the raised area to play the guitar and sing some songs. Err...no. Some of Li Kun's friends were there and one or two of them were up there singing. But we were in a nice public courtyard and I was just too sober to countenance it. Then, a lady who I think runs the place got up and sang a traditional song that all the others joined in with, and a few minutes later she came around with a kettle of white alcohol to ganbei with us. I apologised, saying I couldn't drink the stuff but she said it was only as strong as beer so I said I'd better try then. It had a sort of mother-of-pearl hue to it (so literally white alcohol rather than transparent) and was quite sweet, not very off-putting at all. So she poured me a glass and as I ganbei'd with her I suddenly remembered Andrew's experience with a white liquid all those years ago where he had a nasty reaction and started hallucinating. I sure hoped that wouldn't happen to me as last time I was there to protect him and bring him home but this time I was alone.

Luckily nothing untoward happened, and I was quite grateful to see Li Kun's friends packing up the guitar and speaker around midnight. Muscle boss then told me we could go for a massage after 1am and would I like to go? From experience I know that these places generally close around midnight so I suggested that places open at that time would offer more than just a massage. Although I applied a jokey tone, he responded in all seriousness that no this was pukka place, all above board, so I said I'd see in a bit. I'd told Nong I'd only be there a short while due to my lack of sleep (4h30) and I'd been there an hour already.

The beer and the food kept coming. The beers were a new Li Quan variety that were 4.1%! And the bloke who ordered them said they were 28 kuai each. Oysters were also ordered and although I'm not really partial to them I had three extracted from their shells (luckily they were "shou" - cooked) and put in my bowl. Bbq came too but I was too stuffed to indulge myself, though the lady next to me put a skewer in my hand so I couldn't really refuse. 

At 1am they brought out the you cha, which seems to be a new tradition (if that is not an oxymoron) to drink after drinking. It's some relation to tea, into which you put nuts and stuff, and in some way it feels a bit like a breakfast drink. Fair enough, the beers had been going down quickly.

Then, around 1.30am, muscle boss said he'd take me for the massage. So he really had been serious. I should have been tired but maybe the tea had had caffeine in it and I really had to experience it, especially as I've not indulged in a massage yet (nor even in the summer that I can remember). He suggested taking his nice white saloon car, but I said I'd arrived on my dian dong che and could follow him. So we all finished for the night (leaving too much good food on the table) and I followed muscle boss to the hotel near A Wu's house that has a KTV at the bottom. So it seemed indeed it would be legitimate.

Shortly later we were greeted outside the lift on the 5th floor and given a pair of slippers each to put on. Then to our room where we changed into massage clothes and two lovely ladies in a purple uniform came in with pots of hot water we dutifully put our feet into. Gosh, it was 2am and we were just starting a great body massage that must have lasted well over an hour. Even the water wasn't boiling so there was nothing to complain about. Well, until towards the end when she started scrubbing my feet. She first put some sort of sucker on my right foot by applying a flame to the inside of some hollow cylinder and using the natural vacuum to stick it to my sole. It pinched quite a bit. Then she scrubbed my left foot for a few minutes before reversing the procedure. At least you can tell them if there is too much pressure.

A slightly painful suction thing applied to my foot - I have yet to discover the benefits

Afterwards we just walked out after putting back on the clothes and shoes, and shared the lift down with the masseuses who were finishing their shift for the night. I asked muscle boss about payment (I wanted to) and he just said something along the lines of him having an arrangement with the boss, which I found very believable. Although I could have slept during the massage, it would have been rather a waste of that time. But getting back at 3.45am made sleep come easier than previous nights.

A third Huang meal in a row - too much

Having gone to sleep at soon after 6am I would have expected to be awake around lunchtime but gosh no...it wasn't even 9am. I wouldn't have minded quite so much had I had something decent to eat in the house but I only had another boiled egg. Well I suppose that's breakfast. Eventually the VPN on the laptop connected again and I dozed a little to a science podcast. It's days like these I feel I'm not really making the most of being here. But trying to meet up with a mate for lunch would have been a jar feeling so tired.

Tan pinged me to say A Qiu had made a present for her that she hadn't finished when we were here in the summer, so she gave her my number as she wisely thought I wouldn't want her Weixin. In the afternoon A Qiu called to say she was by the main entrance, and luckily I guessed which one. She handed over a box that Tan had said may be too big to bring back but after having disposed of all the medicine Tan had got me to bring over I should have plenty of space. It's actually quite a nice tapestry-like thing but I didn't want to open it all out. A Qiu then invited me to tea at 6pm on Saturday and said an English teacher friend would be there and it would be good to communicate with her. I'm not sure why we said "communicate" instead of talk, similarly to when Haiwei wants me to "communicate" with his son. I guess it's one of those nuances that I'm hoping to pick up on more on this trip. The fact that both examples involved me speaking English to a non-native speaker is probably a clue as to why the emphasis was on communication rather than talking itself.

Tan also chastised me for wearing a football badge that said to "beat them up". Hang on, no I wasn't was I? I checked a new version of the badge I was wearing. The font was particularly hard for me to decipher but after some work with Pleco I managed to establish that it said:

平果哈嘹

无名球迷something

古跌

Which I translated to:

Pingguo Haliao

Nameless football fans

Ancient Times

Apparently the bottom two characters mean "beat them up"

Ah, but of course 古跌 is local dialect for "beat them up". Well, as if it actually meant that. There was also a large flag draped down saying "Welcome to Hell" - did they mean that?

A friend had messaged to go to dinner tonight but I didn't really fancy that. Also, Huang Zhongxing had said yesterday that we'd be eating at one of his friend's, which again I had no desire to attend this time.

Awl called late afternoon and we agreed I should not feel obliged to go to either evening meal so I postponed the one with the friend and told Huang I may not be able to make it. With weights off my shoulder I made a quick dash to Guanmart to get some provisions and knew I'd be safe for a while.

That while lasted till nearly 5.30pm when Huang sent a picture of the food that had been prepared for this evening. I felt bad but told him honestly that my stomach wasn't comfortable and if I could I'd pop over later. To which he replied "ok" and then sent me the location. A couple of hours later he called me again, so this time I called him back and thought I'd at least make an effort and show my face. So I had a couple of small beers and found the place on the other side of town.

Of course it was another sausagefest, and again I wasn't really in the mood. And Huang was in a worse state than I've seen him in before. But the owner of the shop we were eating at the back of was there, and he seemed to be a cool character. He was one of the few on the beer, and he wasn't feeling very well so it was pretty easy to keep the pace down. Huang had challenged another bloke to drink a can of beer to his glass of white alcohol, and in the end was rather red-faced. He even covered his glass when someone tried to top him up, suggesting he knew he was beyond his limits.

He said I could give him a lift back, and got up and walked into the front of the shop, well with the help of the wall he got there anyway. I told the boss I wouldn't take him on the bike as he would just fall off, and he agreed and booked a didi che. Huang staggered back to the back of the shop and the boss just told me it would be fine to leave, so I did, within an hour of having arrived, almost totally sober.

At getting on for midnight Li Kun pinged me to see if I wanted to go for a drink and I answered honestly that I wanted to but was suffering too much from jetlag. However, I still couldn't sleep till well into the early hours.

Another meal with Huang Zhongxing after finally registering, and a very late night watching City

I should have been knackered but was up early again. And I felt pretty crap after last night. At 10.30am I got a phone call but as usual in this room in the house I couldn't connect to the person who called me. I guessed it was from the police station and this was confirmed a couple of minutes later by a Weixin message telling me my passport was ready and I responded gratefully saying I'd be there to pick it up later in the day.

I wasted the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon before forcing myself to grab a shower and some nuts and an egg I found in the fridge that I must have bought three months ago. That kept me going for a while and enabled me to walk down to Jiang Bing Lu where I'd left the dian dong che last night. I might over-indulge now and again but I'm getting a lot better at knowing my limits when it comes to driving powered vehicles. The walk was slightly surreal though. It was not warm but not cold, but I broke into a slight sweat despite my rolled up shirt sleeves.

It was that time of day where you sort of see what normal people do when they are not asleep due to the heat. Still so many young people making earphone sets I can only assume are for aeroplanes even though I've not had a set in the last 10 years or so. But anyway I picked up the bike and somehow found my way to the police station. Well in fact it should have been easier but all my VPN apps on the phone have stopped working so Google Maps didn't want to show me how to get to this place that I'd saved in the summer. However, it did show me relatively where it was so I had a good clue and made it in 15 minutes. So again I was finally official in Pingguo! I felt like celebrating but couldn't really justify it so went home to pick up my shopping bag to go to the supermarket instead.

I'm not sure how official or acceptable it is to sign with my Chinese name - probably neither

Li Kun pinged me to see where I was and invite me to drink tea, so I told him I'd pop round after shopping. Then the bloke from yesterday pinged me to see if I was about but I ignored him until he called me, at which time I said I'd call him back a bit later if that was ok. Tea at Li Kun's really was tea and we had another reasonable chat. I let him have a look at my passport and he rifled through it and seemed genuinely impressed about the number of stamps there, and countries I'd visited, but I had to explain that since Brexit now all European countries stamp me in and out but nonetheless due to work in the last few years I guess mine is a lot more worn than most. Shortly later the bloke I ate with yesterday called me again to go to eat, and I said ok, and Li Kun invited me to go back to drink tea later in the evening. I have since found out he is called Huang Zhongxing (the other bloke, not Li Kun).

Well the place to eat was within Yu Jing Hua Ting so it was pretty easy for me to pop round after picking up a 12 pack of beer first. I was about the 10th person to arrive but by no means the last. Unfortunately the food had quite a lot of skin to deal with, and by now my teeth are starting to suffer from the tough meat that is preferred here. But I soldiered though until cai ma started and a couple of other blokes moved to the beer too. One of the blokes beat me pretty badly. But one of his fingers was more of a one inch stub and it was really hard to tell if it was "out" or not, so I had to go by others' expressions as to whether I won or lost. It seems like a bit of an unfair advantage but I wasn't going to complain (or maim myself to have the same advantage). By about 9pm I'd had enough, and made my semi-genuine excuse of jetlag and they were ok to let me leave.

On the way home, which lasted all of one minute, Beihai Huang video-called me to go over and have a drink. As I was full I wasn't massively in the mood but said I'd go over later. And about 40 mins later I walked out of Yi Jing Hua Ting and immediately two of the blokes I'd recently been eating and drinking with drunkenly called over to me "Yingguo lao!". I felt rather guilty about using my jetlag excuse to leave them earlier as I was clearly going out again, but they were drunk enough not to remember and I left them with a smile.

Huang had had some of the brown alcohol I can sometimes stomach but had no intention of tonight, so a couple of beers were cracked open and we had a relatively (for Huang) sober chat, without him giving me those annoying hand shakes with the middle knuckle pressed in. And it was cool to see his younger daughter and wife again. But I really was flagging now, so for a second time tonight made my excuses and went home.

I was in bed by midnight, and normally would have been asleep very soon after, based on my good schedule since arriving in a time zone eight hours ahead of what my body was used to. But jetlag decided this would be the time to introduce itself this visit. However, this time I had a little bit of a plan to take advantage of it. The Man City v Young Boys Champions League game was to be on at 4am, and if I couldn't sleep I had that to look forward to. Knowing my luck I'd probably fall asleep bang on 4am, but in fact I was still awake and the VPN was holding up, so I found a pretty good stream to watch it with. It seemed that the jetlag was coming for me from the other direction, i.e. barely letting me sleep. I've done this in the past when having to wake up an hour after the match to take one or both the kids to school but felt so tired I couldn't see it happening. Then it was 2am, and I wondered if it was too early or too late to have a beer.

Andrew said "neither" (as in too early or too late) so I thought my usual Chinese thought of "sod it" and cracked one open as the match started. And tamely made the one can last most of the first half. Most of 45 minutes is 30 minutes and one second though, so I was on my second well before half time. But I appreciated Foden's beautifully and deftly crafted goal just before half time with a whelp I wouldn't have been able to give at 4.45am back in the UK.

Somehow I managed till 6.07 till I crashed out.

Only beer drinker at meal with mate

Oh dear...I have some memory of playing the guitar last night. In a way I wish I had no memory, or at least something clearer. Lots of beer was consumed. But this morning I continued my claim to defeating jetlag as I got up at a reasonable 8am again, though tried in vain to sleep a bit more as the festivities of last night should have made me do. But hey ho it didn't happen and at 11am A Wu pinged me to go and eat. Well why not? It was the same duck place as the summer and despite being 10 degrees cooler it was still a hot prospect. I turned up. We ate. Then he said he was going to Nanning this afternoon again for a few days for business matters. And that was it. I wanted to pay but the woman with the cash register just said something like she'd seen me at the football and to prove it showed me a douyin video of myself. I think literally everyone who knows me - and many who don't - know more of what I got up to last night than I do.

Later, at 4.30pm I remembered to go to the police place to do passport but Xiao Mong, the lady who does the registering, wasn't there but they took my passport anyway and said they'd call me tomorrow, so at least I'd done my bit.

Then soon after 6pm I went to see a bloke I'd not met in the summer but said I would. I have little to no recollection how I'd met him but had apologised and said I'd meet him this time. He sent a picture of a hotel not far from our place and when I got to the hotel the woman there said it was somewhere nearby. So more phone calls ensued and in typical Pingguo style we met up across the road and went to buy some beers as everyone else was drinking white alcohol.

The bloke on the left invited me - I need to find out his name

It was quite a typical evening and quite enjoyable although I could barely keep up with their drinking. At least there was a woman and a child there so it could have been worse.

And then another friend IM'd to say to meet in Jiang Bing Lu, so I used that as an excuse to leave the meal around 9.30pm and got to some salon where they were drinking some kind of berry alcohol. It was actually quite nice. Too nice in fact as when they had to shut up shop at 10.50pm I realised it would be safer to leave the dian dong che parked up and get back under my own steam.

Final footy match of the season

At 8am I was awake. At 9am I was still awake. At 10am I was awake but thinking I wouldn't make it for the footy, but Lu Feng had pinged me to say to meet up at 1.30pm for the match due to start at 2.30pm. At 11am finally I connected to the VPN and "watched" a podcast of Sean Carroll talking to David Deutsch about quantum such and such and really didn't understand much but I thought it would make me sleep. It didn't, so eventually at 12.39pm I gave up and poured myself a gin and 0% sugar drink I bought last night. I wasn't really in the mood but I was going to watch a football match and knew it might require some Dutch (rather than Deutsch) courage.

I left at 1.30pm and stopped off to get some jiaozi at my local place. Of course the boss lady was not in any way nonplussed to see me (does that mean she was plussed?), and served me as though I'd been there every day for the last 20 years. But in a way that is what I love about this place. Ok, it's only been about 10 years but I like to feel I'm a bit of a local at this place. And it was a blinding portion as usual - which I shared with Leilei and Nezha by means of a photo.

Then it was off to the stadium to meet Lu Feng (I think he's generally known as Feng ge - big brother Feng - but in my case I should probably call him Feng di). Thanks to Weixin and phones in general we met up and he handed me a loudspeaker and I had to shout out something...well I did my best to copy the others and it was something like "la la la la la la la la Guangxi dui!" Guangxi team! This went on for a few minutes after which he handed me a strip of 6 tablets saying they were medicine for the throat for shouting/cheering so much. This was thinking-in-advance the likes of which I'm not used to here. Also, Feng di gave me a bottle of water and said to put it in my pocket in order to get past security, and it worked.

Having to help with the cheerleading pre-match

It was a decent match, coming back to win with two second half goals, unfortunately at the other end of the stadium from where we were. Other than the "ultras" areas, the stadium was not full to the rafters, unlike in the summer, but it was quite a hot afternoon and not much more to play for other than pride and 4th place. But still, a pretty good achievement after we were pretty close to going down last year. Only two places off promotion to the top tier!

If Scott Joplin only knew his ghost would still live on in Southern China...

Feng di had said something about drinking and eating after the match, but first the team did a tour of the stadium to give respect to the crowd. We appeared to be the last ones and for some reason we all threw down a load of broad-rimmed farming hats as if it was some tradition here. It was also very decent of the home supporters to cheer the opposition and this was reciprocated too.

Around 5pm we moved from our seats around to the north side of the stadium where the No Name bar is situated. I think that one of the "ultras" is named the 无名球迷 (No Name Football Fans) after the bar situated there, and that this time we were actually sitting in the opposite side with a different group of "ultras". So it seems that there is no fierce rivalry between them, or I have completely misunderstood. Tables were being wheeled onto the running track behind the goal and I offered to help but Feng di took me to the stands, where a few fans were gathered around 安永佳 (who is the main star of the team) for a drone-led photoshoot. He is technically from Hong Kong but one of his parents is from New Zealand. It was a short, refreshing, change to be out of the focal point for a while, and I declined Feng di's suggestion to ask him for his autograph as security ushered him away. A while later I told Chuan Chuan I'd been next to 安永佳 and she said she wished she'd asked me for his autograph...ah well maybe next time....

As the food was being prepared I had to play a few rounds of cai ma with some of the locals, which was duly filmed I found out later as multiple people sent me what they'd seen on douyin. There were about 15 round tables in a row, and of course the meal was as good as the company. I didn't know more than one person on my table but half way through the meal I knew them all, plus the two surrounding tables.

Getting ready to eat with a young friend who was asking me all about the UK

This time unfortunately losing a round of cai ma

Another fine meal already

As is becoming more and more normal now, a guitar and speakers were brought out a bit later so we had live music for the latter part of the meal. But I guess by this stage the jetlag was setting in as memories after 10pm are rather hazy.

Lunch and tea with Li Kun, dinner with Haiwei - just a normal day

Seemingly every time I get to Pingguo I have this false dawn of waking up in the morning and thinking I've conquered jetlag. And indeed I thought the same this morning. So as normal I forewent breakfast as Li Kun had invited me for lunch at the stadium, and I took the fully charged dian dong che there at 1.30pm and was very happy to meet him and his wife and younger two children. Gosh it reminded me of how hard it could be with young'uns screaming and running around but here it's accepted a bit more than other places...his 2.75 year old son went a bit ballistic but few brows were furrowed. We simply ate and had a nice chat and then Li Kun went back to his office to drink tea.

I was to meet him there too, but thought I'd better try to register myself first although Li Kun doubted the police place would be open on Saturday. Well he was right and wrong as the police place itself was open, but the office I needed wasn't, and the bloke at reception told me to come back anytime on Monday, so fair enough, I was to go to Li Kun's office to tell him he was sort of right.

I did the usual and drove past his office till I hit the small supermarket that sells cold non-sugar drinks, and bought a single bottle of 0 sugar cola as I feared I would be flagging soon. I took a large gulp before I heard a young girl shout at me and I recognised her as Li Kun's second daughter I'd just had lunch with. Somehow she had recognised me and took it upon herself to lead me to his office (getting a lift on the dian dong che) which was indeed only 30 yards away.

And indeed at 3.00pm it was just tea we drank (not that beer wouldn't have been an option had anyone wanted it). The daughter and son noticed my cola so I poured them a glass. The daughter let the son have a small sip and it must have been his first time as his eyes lit up and he slowly beamed a massive smile that was infectious to all in the room. I asked if it was ok for a not-yet three year-old to have cola and Li Kun said it was fine, so within the next few minutes the bottle was emptied, but I suspect the tea we drank had enough caffeine to fill in what I missed from the cola. I mentioned to Li Kun about the possibility of watching the last match of the season tomorrow and one of his mates Lu Feng said he could sort that no problem - we exchanged numbers and Weixin and he said we'd meet tomorrow lunchtime before the kick-off. Well that was efficient.

I've just had my first sip of cola!

Yang Haiwei had got in contact to tell me to meet up with him at 5pm to talk to his younger son in English, and then to eat, and I was more than happy with that. So around that time I drove over there to whichever place he was living in at the time and spent a good hour chatting with his son and some of his mates before food was served. They'd pretty much cooked half a pig, and that meant all the bits inside plus the skin. Haiwei used his chopsticks to put a full pig's foot in my bowl of rice and unlike former years I wasn't annoyed and actually quite enjoyed it. I think we ate with the owner of the house and his wife and son, and another woman I don't know who was annoyingly good at cai ma.

Dinner with Haiwei and friends

Eventually it got to 10pm and although the beer was flowing I made the jetlag excuse of needing to get home and all were ok with it. Of course it took 10 minutes of exchanging glasses of beer to finish off but I was back before 11pm as I wanted to watch the City match. But bloody hell my VPN wasn't working. Not one of the three I'd paid for, and I tried for ages. I had to settle for a dodgy stream that was very stop-and-start. So although I didn't get to see it in all its glory I sort of witnessed a lovely 6-1 win for us over Bournemouth (Doku looking a great buy) before being dragged to sleep.

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.

Arrival in Beijing and Hong Kong

Although Hong Kong is considered to be part of China, in a very real way it isn't as I don't need a visa to go there, and as I was in the international section of the Beijing's second airport I didn't need to do security. At least that's what I thought. But then I saw it and feared the worst for my two bottles of duty-free. At least I would have, had I remembered that I'd put them in my larger carry-on luggage that I'd just appropriated from Tan yesterday. And indeed it got put aside but luckily when I explained it was duty-free (mian shui) they had no problem with it - maybe because the bag was sealed. But as it was over a four hour wait it wasn't a problem. Neither was finding the "Pay Lounge", which thankfully was covered by Priority Pass. I'm not sure why, but it was nearly empty, and the booze selection wasn't great, comprising cans of 3.9% beer and a bottle of white and a bottle of rouge. Well, I'd recently had nearly three weeks off the sauce, and it was 4.30pm, and even just one of those excuses justified pouring a decent-sized glass of the rouge...probably the last chance I'll have of the stuff for a month (apart from the next four glasses).

Crappy selection of instant noodles but I spied a decent bottle of red on the right

They actually served hot food after 5pm...not bad

Bored Apes in HK?

Well I took away a can of soda and three beers

I was very relieved to find that Pure VPN was still working after a few attempts. So I was geographically in China, technically in a sort of no-man's land, and culturally somewhere in-between. The three or so hours I was there passed by quicker than that, and I managed a brief chat with Mat before I went to board. I think I may have dropped off a bit in the 2h45 flight, though I do recall having a last red wine on the flight (not always available on "domestic" flights and Tan's China Eastern international flights didn't serve booze at all).

The flight arrived 8 minutes early at 11.12pm and I was fairly optimistic of getting the last metro at 12.48am, even though we still hadn't deplaned at 11.35pm. Although I'd spent quite a few minutes writing my landing card for China, upon arrival in Hong Kong I realised (quite obviously) that I needed a landing card for there rather than China. But this time it took all of a whole minute as I didn't have to write down a full address in Chinese. And then I found my Weixin health declaration had expired a few hours ago so had to redo it but luckily I'd scanned and saved the QR code I needed, and once re-scanned it remembered all the details from my previous declaration except for the flight number. So although I had some unexpected tasks to do in the airport they didn't slow me down half as much as they could have done, and after no more than 10 minutes queueing for immigration I was technically, physically, and culturally in Hong Kong. And it was only just gone half past midnight.

I really wanted to make use of the Octopus cards Leilei and I had bought over four years ago, but the machine was having none of it, not allowing me to top-up or even check how much there was in it. So I used my English bank card to pay the $115 HKD to Hong Kong, and got there 20 minutes later or so. I had planned my 16 minute walk from the station but Hong Kong at night is a maze, not helped by being very muggy and having the effects of recent red wine. And when I checked Google Maps again it said I was 45 minutes away by foot! So sod it I got a bloody taxi, and withdrew $1000 thinking it was about a tenner's worth, and being surprised when the driver handed me back about 900 of them.

Although I had no need or desire for a nightcap, I was quite pleasantly surprised to get two free drinks vouchers, and would probably have used them but the bloke at reception said only soft drinks as the bar was closed. I didn't believe a hotel bar in HK would be closed at 1am so went to check for myself, but the bloke followed me too saying "zhi you soft drinks" (I'm not sure how that would really translate into Mandarin). And looking back, it probably was a good thing...I was tired and needed whatever rest the hotel room could afford me, and I didn't even consider breaking in to any duty-free.

Solitary journey back November 2023

Well this may be silly, but I know I have to find work soon, and Tan had spent most of October back in China for the moving of her parents' bones to another place to be together. Apparently this involved scraping what was left of the flesh off the bones as Waipo's had only been there for four years or so.

But I also had a massive inkling to go back. This summer had been so good. I had found a really cheap £398 return to Hong Kong from London and bought it mid-October. Carpe diem?

So at 5.30pm I was back in T4 in Heathrow with almost no queue for check-in. The kind lady got me seat 47G when I asked for an empty row. She couldn't promise of course, but it at least gave me a chance. The lack of queue meant that even after duty-free it was still more than four hours before the flight when I got to the lounge. Not that I've ever been turned away for being early before. I took full advantage of some decent curry and vin rouge, and may have managed a whisky or two before boarding started. My excuse was simply trying to get some sleep on the flight.

Last curry for a while

I ended up being in nearly the only empty row of 3 in my field of vision. And still it was the same when boarding was complete and when we took off!  So after (yet) another meal and a last glass of rouge I took my melatonin and Phenergan, and lay down over the three seats under my blanket (but with my seatbelt showing). I woke up with only 1h22 minutes of the flight to go! This well justified what planning I could re seating and probably getting to the airport early. And then bang we'd landed and I'd not even been checking. Just about the smoothest journey ever from London to China.

Three seats together for the first time going out