Definitely last time in Pingguo 2016

Tan had said that A Heng was coming at 8am to pick us up so I judiciously got up at 7am in order to be prepared. As I got out of the shower at 7.20 I was told that the two cars would be there at 7.30 and we had to have everything ready. Blooming heck, at least tell me to expect 7.30, but that would be asking rather too much. Well I was mostly ready, having spent a good hour sorting stuff out after coming home well before midnight last night.

I let everyone go downstairs and helped take the luggage as they went to Waipo’s to say goodbye. I had the genuine excuse of needing to take the dian dong che there a few minutes later. So I was afforded the time to do a last minute tour of the flat. It’s always sad. I reflected on the 3am storms I’d witnessed, the paper aeroplanes Leilei and I had made and flown, the arguments with the kids for playing on their devices too much, the sumptuous siestas, the Wii Fit, and sweating so much when doing exercise. Simple, non-special activities, that take on a special meaning for me at least when I’m here. Having one’s own place really makes this place. But the kids are growing up quickly now. They had fun this year but I don’t know if that fun that I also share in will continue for them.

I remembered to turn the fridge off and leave the door open, then put my shoes on and left for another final time. I called the lift and as soon as it came I had to run back to the house to pick up a few things I’d left in my study like scales for luggage and rechargeable batteries from the Wii remotes. Maybe they weren’t that important but that last look at the house justified my forgetfulness.

The dian dong che just had enough dian to get to Waipo’s, and I warned them they’d need to charge it to get anywhere. Waipo was not showing it but was effectively in tears and hugged Leilei and Xixi in a way she’d never done before. Before it was words, but today it was feelings, and we knew as we drove away she’d be crying.

The journey to the airport couldn’t be over quickly enough, but it took two hours. Due to regulations now we had to say goodbye where A Heng dropped us off so the chances for photos were diminished. The queues looked quite bad for security but I remembered we had the Priority Pass - not only was there a lounge on “landside” (meaning before security), this lounge had its own security so no queues. Although there were lounges “airside” (after security) I suggested to Tan that we stay here as the ladies told me the wifi wasn’t working in the other lounges.

I was maybe a little naughty but I don’t like flying and had brought a little snifter of the last bottle of gin I’d bought in Guanmart the other day, and dreadfully mixed it with cola. I did try to drink it in the loo but ended up flushing it down as it tasted rough and even the thought of drinking it made me feel like an alcoholic and I knew I was better than that. I did have a little bit of neat G left though which I made useful with a rather sugary 7-up, and made me slightly less worrisome about the impending flight.

But it wasn’t that bad, and we arrived in Shanghai eight hours ahead of our next scheduled flight. Of course this was five hours before we could check our luggage as it was one of those you had to retrieve your luggage between flights in but that was that - apparently there were no seats on the later flights to Shanghai so we’d just have to sort ourselves out without any lounge decadence for a while. Well we bought some snacks and then went for a meal and it made me realise how worthwhile lounge access can be, but when you’re stuck with check-in luggage you just have to wait till you can check it in. I went for a walk with Leilei, then with Xixi. We both noticed a particularly large and splendid preying mantis on the outside of one window. We talked about how they catch their prey, and I realised that at any time, unbeknownst to us, you have an opportunity to educate not only your child but yourself too.

Then at 7pm, an hour and 15 minutes before check-in opened, I noticed there was already a queue. I did something sensible. I bought a beer for 8 kuai (actually my second of the afternoon but don’t tell anyone) and took my laptop and myself away and found a quiet corner on the first floor away from most people. In order to get online I used Chuan Chuan’s phone number and asked her on WeChat to send me the code, which she did half a minute later and I just managed to enter it to get online before the minute period ran out.

With that online time I managed to check-in, something that I hadn’t been able to do from Nanning because it was too soon. I was also able to change our seats to similar to what we did coming over here. By the time I got back the queue was enormous and there was still well over half an hour before check-in gates would open. So I told Tan and Xixi that Leilei and I would go and manlyly stand in the queue. We were so far back the queue had doubled back on itself and people coming out of the lift were having trouble getting past it. In fact the queue was becoming a health and safety liability in my opinion. But thankfully, 15 minutes before advertised, they started letting people in. I thought we’d be at least 30 minutes in the queue but it actually moved pretty quickly. Then I found that those who had checked in online were put into a much faster queue, so I called Tan to tell her and Xixi to hurry up and join us. Gosh that 15 minutes with a beer and a laptop had saved us closer to an hour and we dropped off the without a problem and got through security in a breeze a few minutes later.

And the lounge was delightful. Had we known we might have gone hungry for the food was rather good, and Tan had a portion of noodles even though she’d had one an hour previously. The kids were happy as they had a good choice of food and drinks and baba was happy because he had his first genuine tonic (plus gin) in a month and a half. Two plus hours was comfortably spent here, and definitely helped justify the Platinum Amex for a third year.

We even managed to get priority boarding thanks to our “young” kids. Tan managed this on the way over here and I managed it on the way back simply by asking. This has got to be the last time we ever manage to do this. Although it wasn’t an A380, the Boeing 747 took off ok and I can’t make any complaints. After the meal as most were falling asleep I asked for a last glass of rouge and the flight attendant (male) got up and poured me two. The sort of treatment that might make me choose Lufthansa again.

Properly last night in Pingguo

Hmm. I got up earlyish to the sound of my own coughing and pain of abs. It should be good sit up exercise. Oh this was our last day...so although I thought 90% of packing was done it wasn't and Tan was cleaning everything in sight. The washing machine was on non-stop with bedding.

Finally took kids to Waip's and left them after having a yuebing. I wanted some time to myself to do some last minute checks that I can't do with Tan around, but she was still there when I got back around 2pm eating the leftovers from yesterday's bbq. We weren't due to leave till 5pm so there was no massive hurry, so I did my equivalent of packing till she left at 3pm. First I double-checked the hotel I didn't remember booking. Google had been clever it seems, and automatically put an entry in my calendar for the hotel stay. It struck me that it had the name "Capital" in it, and my heart sank as I found the hotel for tonight was the "Beijing Capital Airport Hotel". We were flying to Shanghai. Oh had I mistakenly booked a Beijing hotel because that's where we first hit China nearly six weeks ago?

But then I noticed something worse. It's only because I was on the work VPN that I was able to access the google services, and when I opened up the link to the hotel it brought up the whole itinerary. It was quite cool that Google had put all the flights in the calendar and even made a timeline of the travel arrangements but what was that for tonight's flight? "Cancelled". Shit, really? I had to check but Air China's website was absolutely crap and the only way I had an idea was that I was not able to purchase tickets for tonight's flight. So I tried to ring them but I chose the English option and was kept on hold for over 20 minutes before I gave up...every minute you have to press "1" to continue to hold.

My first thought was to check tomorrow's flights. I had to make some positives out of this and and if there was a cost then at least it could be put against an extra evening in Pingguo. But the cost was looking like well over 3000 kuai for the three of us. I had to get through to Air China, but I checked the tickets and it said you should check flights at least 72 hours before departure and it was only 10 hours - would they rearrange at such short notice? We didn't have much time and I nearly went and bought the tickets for tomorrow as we can't miss tomorrow's late flight to Europe. To be honest I was more concerned about Tan's reaction when I was to tell her. Somehow it would be my fault and in this case it quite probably was.

I had formed a plan for what to say. I called her and asked if she'd like to stay one more night in Pingguo. I knew she would but her response of course was "why?", so I mentioned the cancellation and to my relief it didn't appear to be my fault for not checking three days earlier. To be fair I'd tried to check-in online last night but the website didn't understand the e-ticket. So not being my fault, Tan set about calling Air China as really they should rearrange things for us. It ended up being a round of several phone calls to different departments until one said to call Lufthansa as the second and third flights back were with them. Finally someone gave us an email address team.shaxr@dlh.de where we had to send proof of the cancellation. The Google message wouldn't suffice, but this time on the Air China website I managed to find the status of tonight's non-flight of "cancel" and took a screenshot and circled it in red.

It took some time but a subsequent phone call to them meant they had the confirmation they needed (as if they couldn't find it themselves) and after a nervous few minutes they said they could get us on the midday flight tomorrow. Ok, lucky I didn't purchase unnecessarily. Things were looking pretty good; we had an extra evening in Pingguo and no hotel to arrive at with knackered kids at 2am and being turfed out at midday with 12 hours till the flight. Yes, I'd have preferred the 5.30pm flight, but six hours in Shanghai airport after a decent night's sleep was very very good. Tan mentioned that we could spend the time in the lounge but I saw that there was a two-hour time limit. But I also saw there appeared to be three lounges so if necessary we may be able to lounge-hop. As an extra bonus I told Tan I'd cancelled the Shanghai hotel (she didn't know it was actually Beijing - and never will), but really it just meant not booking one for tonight at great expense. Hurray!

Back at home again after having sorted out the travel arrangements with Tan at Waip's I went to cancel the Beijing hotel as I would have had to do anyway. But try as I might I couldn't find any confirmation email. After a long time it finally dawned on me that Google had made a false positive - it must be that. The link from the Calendar item Google had created went to the travel itinerary, which only had flights. Somehow Google must have inferred a hotel booking. Moreover it wasn't for tonight but tomorrow. Ah and I thought I'd tipsily mis-booked - I should trust myself more.

Even though we had two cars prepared to leave soon, changing to tomorrow morning was no problem, and I even found the flight was 12.55, not midday, giving us an extra hour in bed. I let A Wu know the news and he said we'd meet up later. Waipo had told us they'd cooked a chicken so I went to hers to eat and pick up the kids. With an unplanned evening ahead I called Zhang Yangwen as I'd promised to a couple of nights ago and not been as good as my word. He picked the phone up before I heard it ring and said yes we'd meet up for a beer. He said he'd pick me up from our house after I'd dropped off the kids but when I called him he didn't turn up. 15 minutes later I asked where he was and he was waiting outside A Wu's old office. 13 years and I still make the same mistakes on phone conversations.

I followed him on his motorbike and we went to a place close to Beihai Haixian. He put the menu in front of me and told me to choose what I wanted to eat. Man I'd just called him and managed to misunderstand where to meet up and he thought I could read a menu in blurred Chinese characters? But actually I understood more than I thought; I ordered fried sweetcorn with pork mince, fried (rather than bbq'd) duck tongues, and horse meat.

He called a mate who couldn't make it, which is rather unlike here. I thought about calling a mate but I didn't know anyone who'd really fit in with Yangwen - he's not a local and is rather a professional it seems, as he's worked in engineering in some Arab states and Pakistan. But anyway sometimes you don't need many people and the two of us enjoyed the excellent food washed down with a couple beers at a much slower rate than I'm used to here.

Then he said he needed to make a phone call and spent a whole half hour on the phone. At first it seemed quite heated but then it turned more jovial and laughs emanated. Strangely, I could understand nearly everything he said, though still couldn't get the context. I suppose he speaks a more standard Mandarin than most people here, well he actually speaks Mandarin on the phone which is fairly strange in its own right. While he was speaking I watched a documentary on the tv about onions. The presenter was a Russian woman who spoke brilliant Mandarin, and it made me jealous, though I suppose it's not my job to interview people in China. Not that I wouldn't mind though - at least she was getting clear answers from people.

When he finished his call he apologised and said it was a work matter. I knew what he meant...sometimes we carry our work stuff with us and as inconvenient as it might appear to be it can actually enable us to have freedom we otherwise would only have dreamed of 20 years ago as we were stuck in an office.

By 10pm I thanked Zhang Yangwen for the food and company and made my way to meet A Wu at the boss’s place behind the KTV where I’ve been a couple of times with the kids this year. I’d been warned not to stay up late gallivanting and had no intention of doing so. When I got there I saw a ping pong table set out and boss Zhou in sporting attire. I Jokingly asked him for a match but he said yes. So there was me in long trousers and an admittedly short sleeved shirt, but a cotton shirt nonetheless facing my adversary. Well actually I did the UK proud mostly. I hadn’t had too much beer with Zhang Yangwen and was able to smash the ball around from left to right enough to really impress boss Zhou. People even helped us collect the balls. I was enjoying this more than I should be but realised I was holding up proceedings. Proceedings being eating and drinking.

We finally laid down our racquets (yes apparently table tennis bats are officially racquets, but lord knows how I’d explain that in Chinese) and sat down to eat a meal that I had no appetite to eat and beer I had no interest in drinking. But that’s not an excuse here, and while the air con plastered my soaking shirt to my back giving me goose pimples I endured a few gan beis not sad because I knew I shouldn’t be, but a little sad because I knew this would definitely be the last time this year. I made my excuses and left before 11pm for the first time this year.

I remembered to take a quick pic of the clothes I'm leaving behind in case I get to come back

More clothes that quite frankly could be chucked but who knows?