Getting cold in the morning

Despite most of the locals getting into panic mode about the cold, it only seems to be really cold early in the morning around 7.30am. At that time it is really beastly taking Leilei to school on our electric moped. However, I shouldn't complain as it is a 5 minute ride and I can be back in bed soon after.


Leilei looking like a rapper dressing up for school

Dog meal

The last week has been particularly busy with work and not much sleep or fun.

I had been invited out by Uncle Yellow for lunch somewhere "outside Pingguo". As I had already arranged to go for a meal with Tan's friends at 5pm I had clarified with him that I'd have to leave at 4.30pm.

Uncle Yellow turned up with a friend at around 1pm and took me to the main Pingguo market to buy some greens and a dog. Unfortunately I had to leave them to get the dog for themselves as I had to let A Wu into our house for...I can't remember what...but we are brothers so it is ok - my house is his house apparently.

I was expecting a long drive outside the town but in fact we only drove across the river to a quiet spot. In fact this was a beautifully serene location that I had forgotten existed a mere 5 minutes away from the hubbub of central Pingguo. I even got the opportunity to take myself on a walk for the best part of an hour across the railway to an unknown village where I was offered the cutest puppies for 10 quid.

Our lunch (a dead dog so click to see - don't want to frighten anyone)


Cute puppies asleep


Pleasant countryside

When I got back there were a few more blokes; two who I'd met fishing on my walk, and 6 others who'd turned up for the meal and beer. It turned out to be a very nice meal consisting of mostly dog meat and chillies. I learnt a hard lesson there: don't eat neat chillies then drink non-diet Coca Cola to cool your mouth. I had to keep cold beer in my mouth for ten minutes afterwards and could barely speak.


Eating dog meat and drinking beer

We ate dog and drank beer from 3pm (it was a late lunch) till 4.30pm when I got a call from Tan reminding me I had to come back to go for a meal with her friends. I hadn't forgotten, and was already preparing to go. Anyway, we had another sumptuous meal with her friends and some of their husbands, and some kids. Noisy, but fun and extremely good nosh. The bill came to over 70 quid and I wanted to pay but they were having none of it. Ok, there were 15-20 people but that is still a lot of money compared to wages here. I still can't understand the prices of things here; why you can't get a decent jumper for less than 40 quid but you can get an hour's massage for 1.50. I will look into it.

Tan and the girls at yet another wonderful meal

Reunion meal among others...

Tan's girlfriends had organised a meal together, as is their wont. However, Tan couldn't go as she had to go to a school reunion meal. She didn't want me to go there as she was worried her ex-colleagues would force me to drink tReuoo much. I told her it would be rude not to go, and that they would want me to be there but she was having none of it. Although Tan's friends didn't cancel the meal, they arranged another one for tomorrow as well as it wouldn't be the same without us apparently.

So I went with Tan's friends to a rather nice restaurant. At this time of year "huo guo" is very popular; it is basically a large pot of soup in the centre of a large table that you add stuff to to cook, like raw meat, mushrooms, tofu, greens etc. It's a great way of having a social eating event. We have had a couple of these in the UK and all English friends have also really appreciated this way of eating.

Predictably, about half an hour into this meal I received a call from Tan saying her ex-colleagues wanted me to come to their meal, so I didn't say "I told you so" as I know too well, and explained and left the meal. However I'd forgotten I said I would meet our landlady's husband and A Wu for a meal. I got a call from A Wu as I was leaving the meal with Tan's friends and had to pop in to the meal with a now drunk landlady's husband together with six or seven other drunk men intent on getting me into their state. I did my best compromise by playing a few rounds of "cai ma" and generally winning, sending them into fits of laughter and higher states of drunkeness, then made my excuses and explained I had to attend the wife's reunion.

Eventually got to the restaurant where Tan was. They had ordered one of those voluptuous rooms where the chairs have dresses and the tablecloth is really clean. Apart from Tan there was only one other woman (except for someone's mum); she has a bit of a reputation...a very well-known and scarlet reputation - apparently every single man (and some not-single) "know" her if you know what I mean. I think she is the reason no other women were there. She could drink for China, mainly prefering a mixture of half red wine/half lemonade (a good choice with most Chinese red wine).

The men, with one exception, were in a greater state of inebriation that the group I had just left, and really did try to force me to drink large glasses of beer (by the glassfull). I was literally so full I could not drink even though I wasn't drunk, so I hit upon the great idea of challenging them to "cai ma". Now, normally, when playing cai ma, you should be able to beat people who are very drunk. However, this time they must been lucky as I lost badly and had to drink more than was comfortable.

Anyway, I came out of it unscathed; I used Leilei as an excuse to leave early and take him home for a shower while the rest of them staggered off to karaoke from which Tan returned at nearly midnight with scathing stories of the scarlet woman. Apparently she offered to sleep with the only non-drinker of the male contingent if he had a drink. Now that's a sobering thought.


Some of Tan's school mates from primary and secondary school at their reunion (I don't need to point out the scarlet woman)

KTV with Brandy

At about 9pm, while enjoying a relaxing head massage/wash I received a call from Brandy the hotel manager to "sing song" at my local karaoke bar. I wasn't really in the mood but I said I'd be around later after I'd had a bite to eat. So I went to have a quick bite to eat at the bbq place but kept receiving texts from Brandy like: "Friend: can't smile without you..." which was a bit weird as I'd only known him for a month.

I turned up with A Wu to be greeted by him and an entourage of female teachers who were staying at his hotel for some convention. There was also an old couple, one of whom was the headmaster and friend of Brandy's from their hometown in Guangdong. Brandy likes to drink Budweiser beer from the bottle, and likes others to too. He was quite drunk and got everyone up dancing (except for me). I suddenly then had the microphone slung in front of me and was told to "sing English song". The people here seem to think that I know every song that's been written in English, and had chosen "Say you, say me" by Lionel Ritchie. Now I know that song insofar as like everyone I know the chorus. I don't have a bloody idea how the rest of it goes though, even if the words are up in front of me. So it was not a great performance, despite Brandy's best drink-fuelled efforts to sing the verses in slurred broken English. I ended up doing my party piece "Ni shi wo de mei gui hua" which is becoming a bit of a cliché now, but the Chinese seem to appreciate it. Note to self: learn a new Chinese song (in not too high a key).


A rather amusing video to a popular Cantonese song


Dancing at karaoke (not me)

Leilei's lady friend

Apart from work, the only thing I remember about today is meeting Leilei's lady friend at school. Apparently he told Tan that she's the prettiest girl in the class. Glad to see he has good taste.

Leilei and lady friend

Elders' singing

Every night from around 8pm till after 10pm without fail from our apartment you can hear these strange wailings as though there is a gathering of depressed ghosts and each one is trying to show off that s/he is the most depressed. Well tonight I decided to investigate the source of such sorrow.


I had to hold my phone discreetly so as not to cause suspicion. However that is difficult when you are caucasian here.

It transpires that the elders of the town congregate to sing harmonic songs to attract the other sex. They sit in pairs or groups of 3 or 4, segregated by sex, and the blokes will start singing to show off to the women. The women will pretend to ignore the men for a bit, then, when suitably impressed, will start singing back. I think this is a throwback to when they were in their youth but I find it very heartwarming nonetheless. If they really were teenagers they'd probably be told to go away and stop loitering.

Generic battery charger brings camera back to life

I've hardly used my camera in the last two months as I cleverly left my charger plugged in in the UK charging my spare battery. It has taken that long to realise that an 80p piece of equipment will actually charge the battery. It looks like a slightly dangerous piece of 1940s equipment that might have been part of a lie-detecting machine. You just have to line up the two metal fingers against the battery's exposed contacts, plug it in and Bob's your uncle. It's important not to do this in the bedroom overnight though as it does rather give a disco effect.

My amazing battery charger - fits just about all mobile phone and camera batteries.

With my camera back (a Panasonic TZ3 - great 10x optical zoom in small camera but very poor in low light) I took a couple of shots from one of the local eating places just because I could.

A random pic I took because I had just got use of my camera back

A couple of pics I found in my camera that I hadn't used for so long:

A nice shot of some of the Family from our first week in China back in September. From left to right: Tan's eldest sister (Da jie), Tan's 2nd sister (Er jie), Tan's cousin's daughter, Tan's brother's son A Heng, Tan's brother, Tan with nice long hair, Tan's eldest sister's son Ling Ming, Xi xi, Wai po, a neighbour or cousin?, a neighbour or cousin?


Tan's second sister's daughter Chuan Chuan with Xi xi

Flying back to Nanning

Although there was nowhere to go out to watch the football last night, I did check on the Internet and found Man City thrashed Arsenal 3-0 so I had a happy, if short, sleep.

Can't be bothered to describe the hassle I had getting the shuttle service to the airport. A ten minute walk turned into nearly an hour due to misinformation and the peculiarly foreign persuasion for not being able to say "I don't know". Those three words would save soooo much time. But whether you are in France, Spain, Portugal or China (not Germany) you will never hear those sacred honest words. People will rather send you on a wild goose chase than admit they might possibly not know the way.

Well luckily the 40 minute journey to the airport took 25 minutes on this Sunday morning, and I had ample time to check in for my 10.10am flight. There were no more spaces on the evening flight with Tan and her sister and the kids and quite frankly I wasn't complaining despite the 3 hours sleep.

Once in Nanning I bought my train ticket 2 hours early before going to Tan's sister's house to pick up my laptop. I got back to the train station with half an hour to spare so had a meal there. The young ladies serving there took pity on my carrying 3 bags so served my plate to my table (not a usual service). I think they really appreciate a smile and a kind word here - something I rarely see the locals give. I made the right decision by buying my train ticket early. My car was full of standing passengers by the time we took off, and although I normally involve myself in some sort of social intercourse during these transits, I was so tired I just played card games on my phone for most of the 1hr20min journey.

At home I had the boring job of washing clothes and putting them out to dry. I found out that one of the terrapins had snuffed it while I was away. I was annoyed with A Wu as I'd asked him to look after them and he said he would. I felt a bit guilty chucking him in the bin but what can you do?

Took advantage of the fact that Tan and Leilei won't be here till tomorrow by having a relaxing duty-free (from Hong Kong) Gin and lemonade (I've tried to find tonic water). And now it is time for bed.

£200 pair of shoes

Checked out of my comfortable hotel at 11am and went for lunch before 12 in the only place I could find that wasn't touristy. There are more foreigners here than in Shanghai, it appears to me. Walked the 10 minutes to the train station and immediately got a train to Guangzhou East. That meant a tube ride across the city but I like that. Met up with Lao Li and the kids as the women were still shopping... Eventually they came back...I asked Tan where we were eating and she told me we were eating at Lao Li's again. 30 minutes later we were being told to get ready to go to a local restaurant, where we had fish heads and more interestingly, cocooned silk worms that Leilei and I had chosen; apparently a very good source of protein.

Rather than going to bed, the ladies decided to go shopping. So I went with them, with Leilei and Qiqi. We took a taxi to downtown and the shopping centre was like a very modern European one. So too were the prices. In fact prices were considerably more than in the UK for brands.

As 9 o'clock rolled around I decided to take Leilei back to the hotel for a shower and bedtime and leave the girls in their element. I knew Tan's sister wanted to get some shirts and a jacket for Lao Li but I wasn't prepared for what I heard later.

I'd showered Leilei and just got him to sleep at 11pm when Tan got back with a smile on her face and bags under her arms (better than under her eyes I suppose). It transpired that her sister had spent 15000 kuai (1500 quid) on clothes that evening. Surely that is a year's salary for most? She'd also bought me a present of a pair of shoes and I had to guess how much... 300? more. 500? more 800? more. I gave up at this stage. Apparently they cost 1700 kuai after a 20% discount. I kid you not this is a pair of 200 pound shoes. I was stunned. Surely I should have got these made to measure. It was a miracle they even fitted. But they did. And they are very nice. Dark brown leather made in Italy probably by virgins whose hands have never made contact with a man.

Apparently Tan's sister had spent so much that she had earned approximately 30% of what she spent in vouchers for that shop. "So the shoes were free!", said Tan. I nearly uttered the first syllable of the sentence that would have been: "No, the discount is built into the price of the original items - if the shoes where free, why would they be 20% off?" but then I realised I am happily married and would rather keep it that way.

I've discovered that Lao Li lived in Hainan Island for 18 years (Hainan is an island that is officially part of China). During that time, as he worked for the government, he had little chance to spent his fairly decent income as everything was effectively expensible. As such, he has ammassed a huge amount of money that he is happy to dispense of now that he has met Tan's sister (they were actually colleagues so they have known each other for some time). That makes me feel less guilty about wearing a pair of shoes that are worth more than my car.


A 200 pound pair of shoes

Kowloon

I was in no particular hurry to get to Hong Kong, so after getting up relatively late at 9am we trundled over to Lao Li's house for lunch of leftovers of yesterday's feast. I love the tiny passageways you find where people live. They are called "hu tou" in Beijing, but in the south we call them "xiao xiang". When you walk down one of these you can forget you're in a big city and instead just breathe in the cooking, trip over the manky cats, buy a cheap beer at any one of the many tiny shops catering for the locals. Again we had a couple of beers, but that is ok for midday. Then I went to the local tube station and took the 20p journey to the train station where I got a GBP7.50 train ticket to Shenzhen, China's border city with Hong Kong. I had been advised to take the bus to Shenzhen but I prefer trains and in fact the train takes little over an hour (not 3+ hours as I'd been told).

I still don't quite understand why you have to queue twice for passport/immigration checks. It took around 45 minutes but I thought Hong Kong and China were now more-or-less the same country. Apparently I couldn't be more wrong. For a start I don't need a visa to get into HK - by virtue of a British passport I get a seven-day pass. Once past the border control (like any other border control) I got some money out - it seems the HK dollar is nearly the same as the Chinese Ren Min Bi now - just over 10 per pound. Then I got a ticket for the train. I had no idea where to go but I saw "Kowloon" and I remembered watching Roland Rat as a teenager in the 80s when he was in Hong Kong, and the song: "Kowloon, Kowloon Hong Kong, we love Hong Kong...it's the place to be" - well something like that. So anyway, 40 minutes later I was in Kowloon.

Despite the taxis and buses awaiting I decided to walk to get a feel for the place. After a few minutes I already felt more at home despite the fact it was nice and warm at 7pm; the cars were familiar and drove on the left, without the need to honk every six seconds. The main difference was the taxis which all seem to be 70s Toyotas with red bodies and white bonnets and boots.

After half an hour I wondered if I was really in Kowloon. I was expecting bright lights but all I had seen were church schools presumably for expats. And my feet were getting tired and my tummy was rumbling. I asked a couple of girls where the Kowloon I was expecting was, and to my relief they said it was just a few minutes away and walked with me there. It transpired they worked closely with Nanning and so were able to speak Mandarin with me. They were interested about Pingguo and I think I advertised it well enough for them to come and visit one day. I left them on the corner and realised I had not spoken a word of English for five days. Result.

Kowloon reminded me a bit of Tokyo. Bright lights, but an air of safety and control. After 10 minutes of walking around I entered one of the smaller kitchens for my evening meal. Even there the manager and staff spoke Mandarin. I ordered some pork with green beans and rice. And a bottle of Spanish beer served by a young lady with a short yellow skirt. And then some goose. Then one more beer (nothing to do with the skirt). Then I ordered barbequed fish. A young couple sat down at my table and we eventually engaged in some conversation. It transpired they are both Chinese and Maths teachers, and of course speak English. So my five days without English came to an end but I was happy to share my fish as they shared their meal with me. They wouldn't let me pay for their meal but instead afterwards took me in a taxi to the walled city of Hong Kong just up the road.

I hadn't expected much of a cultural visit but we had a pleasant half an hour walking around the clean park and I couldn't help feeling if I had time and money Hong Kong would be a relaxing place to stay, if not as exciting as mainland China. At 9.30pm or so they took me to Kowloon station in a taxi and I caught the 10pm train back to Shenzhen. Although I'd only been there for a few hours, there was definitely something "home" about Hong Kong, but I was missing family, and although I could have stayed, it made more sense to sleep in Shenzhen at a fraction of the cost of HK.

I got back to mainland China around 11pm and got an inflated cab to the hotel that Lao Li had arranged for me. He has done business in Shenzhen and Hong Kong before so has "special rates" in a particular hotel here. In fact 18 quid is pretty damn good for the most comfortable bed since I left London. Made a bit more comfortable with the duty free Gin but don't tell Tan that. I did also buy a nice bottle of Baileys for Lao Li and Tan's sister. I hope he realises it's more of a woman's drink (I did try to explain but I think he stopped listening after I mentioned whisky).

Intuition

I'd planned to surprise visit for Tan at Guangzhou but her woman's intuition told her to give me a ring at about 9am when I'd managed, after some time, to find the bus to get to the hotel she was staying at. I was in no mood to lie, so I said I was in a bus in Guangzhou so she said she'd wait for me for breakfast. So much for a surprise.

We had a great lunch (11.15am is lunch here) together with a few beers with Tan's 2nd sister and her boyfriend, which they insisted on paying for. Then I took the kids to the Yue Xiu park, which despite the small entrance fee is quite large and beautiful The kids had a lot of rides including a boat ride that Leilei truncated by announcing he wanted a weewee when we were minutes from dry land. Later had a lovely meal of roast goose and stewed lamb at Lao Li's pad and came back for an early night at 9pm. Lao Li has a small flat just around the corner from the hotel we're staying at. I think it's paid for by the government, as is our hotel room as he is here on business.

Cancelled trip to Vietnam replaced by overnight coach to Guangzhou

Got up at 5.30am to the sound of Tan's sister packing for their shopping trip to Guangzhou. They left at 6.30 for their 8am flight and I left at 7 for my 8am train. The 3hr20min train journey was fairly uneventful except for the beautiful mountainous Southern Guangxi countryside. Also it took me 2 hours to realise that the soft background music of ethnic stringed instruments was in fact a loose overhead luggage rail. I felt as stupid as when 15 years ago I reached into my pocket to find 20p while going down the escalator at Tottenham Court Rd tube only to find that the budding violinist was nothing more than the unoiled escalator itself.


That twanging in the background, I later discovered, was not a Chinese guitar but a loose Chinese luggage rail.

Pingxiang is a border town with Vietnam, where Tan's eldest sister "Da jie" lives. She was waiting for me at the station and we went to her flat where the old government building was. It was a bit refreshing not to have so many locals shouting "hello!" and "I love you!" at me, as here they are pretty used to seeing foreigners.

Had a nice lunch with Da jie and her husband, then she explained she had arranged for someone to take me to the border and wait for me to come back. She was also under the impression that I would stay a few minutes just to get my passport stamped. I explained that I might want to stay a bit longer but she said it was too dangerous, especially in smaller places. I knew that arguing further would just result in trouble so I made a decision on the spot not to go to Vietnam at all. As Tan and Leilei were in Guangzhou, an hour or so from Hong Kong, I decided I'd go there that night and save Vietnam for a time I didn't have to tell everyone my every move. Actually it was a bit of a relief as I hadn't learnt any Vietnamese and I'd rather go off the beaten track.

My decision to go to Guangzhou was accepted by Da jie and we immediately went out to buy a ticket for the overnight bus that left at 7.30pm. By now I was knackered and after we'd bought some food for the evening meal I fell asleep for an hour. By the time I woke up there was a lovely smelling huo guo awaiting me. After another hearty meal and a shower we took a three-wheeler cab to the bus station where I got my first experience of the overnighter coaches. I immediately wished Pingxiang had an airport. The coach had three columns of rather thin bunk beds (wouldn't get away with that size in UK). Luckily I was near the back on the left on the top so I didn't have anyone clambering over me to get to the loo. Unfortunately that meant I was doing the clambering during the three times I had to go to the loo during the journey - the last time I kicked some poor bloke on the head as even the aisles had filled up with sleepers for the journey. Unsurprisingly after a few hours the coach began to hum - so much so it wasn't even worth holding in my own farts. The journey itself was reasonably eventless apart from an hour's delay when the police stopped us to search all our bags, presumably as many of my companions had come from Vietnam. The bed itself was comfortable despite its lack of girth and I managed 6 hours of broken sleep.

The grim confines of an overnight coach. Worse if you are sleeping in the aisle and receive my stinky sock in your face while I'm trying to go to the toilet without waking people up.

Need to leave China to fulfil visa obligations

A lot of work in the morning, then I took the bus to Nanning in the early evening as I have to go to Vietnam tomorrow. Xixi has gone with Waipo and Tan's brother's wife to Bangxu (their hometown) so wasn't there to see me, unfortunately. Leilei was though and despite having a whale of a time there always runs to me with a big hug. Tan and the others have been telling me I have to get the bus to Ping Xiang, the Chinese town near the Vietnamese border where her eldest sister lives, as the train takes 5 hours and the bus takes 2. I prefer the train so I looked up on the Internet and apparently the train takes under 3 and a half hours and the bus takes over 3. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it. At 9pm I took a taxi to the train station and bought my ticket for tomorrow morning for 1 pound 70p (my US keyboard doesn't have the pound sign, well it does but in American that means the hash sign...). It actually takes 3h20 mins and the bus (subject to traffic jams) is just about the same time and costs six quid. This is why I never take Chinese advice at face value.

In fact Tan was originally going to come with me to her big sister's town, but then she was invited by her 2nd sister to go to Guangzhou shopping (a one hour flight away which her sister is paying for). So unbeknown to me she arranged for A Wu to accompany me to Ping Xiang. Something I only found out yesterday. I told him it was unnecessary and I didn't want to put him out. He said he had no work for the rest of the week as he hadn't been paid so it wasn't a problem. Also he said it was very dangerous going to Ping Xiang as robbers could get on the bus and steal from you. Of course he assumed I was taking the bus, but he also assumed I would be in Vietnam for 5 minutes and he would wait for me. When I explained I might want to spend a night or two in a country I'd never been to before he then realised it might not be so convenient to wait for me there, or even go there.

I really hate being mollycuddled. Thankfully I have managed to get out of it this time and will travel unaccompanied to Vietnam. Although having read about it I'm not so keen as I was before. I don't speak a word, I don't have a map and I don't know the name of the nearest town. Oh well, we'll see.

Double decadence head wash

Mostly work. Although A Wu took me out for another head wash after lunch (that's double decadence) although I paid.