Back to Pingguo after annoying travel arrangements

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leilei taking some Zs on the bus

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leaving Zhuhai and arriving Nanning

The flight was due to leave at 7.50pm, but due to my past experiences with getting to airports with the locals I did not want to leave after 4pm. Momo's mum compromised and said 4.30 would be ok to get a taxi, and concurred that it would be nearly an hour. So we had some time and decided to take the bus to the beach, but I was not leaving our stuff in the house so packed up and brought my two-laptop backpack and single hand-luggage with mostly dirty clothes.

We first ate of course, at a fast food place but this didn't mean McDonald's - I had rice with duck and pork. Then as we were about to leave it bucketed down for 10 minutes. Being pessimistic I wondered what the most negative outcome could be - not being able to find a taxi, delayed plane, turbulence? But it stopped as soon as it started and we walked to the beach. Due to the humidity I could feel myself getting more moist (in the non-interesting sense) with every step. Eventually we realised we were walking to somewhere that we should really be on wheels to get to so we took a bus to an area of the beach that was designated for swimming. Thankfully we didn't swim, but the kids played football on the beach and I had to look after them trying my best not to sweat more in my long trousers, with socked shoes. Eventually it was 3.45 and I got the kids to get back and wash the sand off their feet but Momo's mum said we still had time so they went down to the water to build sand castles. Eventually at 4.10 I said it was enough and we got the kids desanded again and walked to a hotel where apparently we could get a taxi.

Except when we got there the reception rang for one but there was no answer. It was too early to panic, so I didn't, but noticed some people turn up in a taxi just as the reception had made contact with a taxi company. Not wishing to be rude, I apologised as I asked the taxi driver if he could go to the airport. He could and we bade a rather quick and thankful farewell to Momo, his brother, and his mother. I was concerned that it would take 90 minutes as we'd gone east to the beach and the airport was west, but in fact with all the weaving through the traffic it only took 50 minutes and it wasn't that long after 5pm that we arrived. But that was ok, we had lounge access, and the app said I'd be able to grab a couple of beers.

Check-in was straightforward and we got in the VIP queue for security and found the lounge just after. But it was rank. Dirty and full of empty Sprite cans - only a single fridge with crappy sugary drinks and the food was non-existant except for crappy salty biscuits. At least there was coffee (instant). I suppose I'm a bit spoilt but it actually seemed that outside the lounge in the main airport was more lounge-like than inside. When I asked the woman for a glass of wine she told me they didn't have any alcohol and I internally fumed. I would have bloody got a flight from Guangzhou instead if I'd known about this! I went for a walkabout in the airport and nowhere sold even a can of beer, except for the restaurant, which had cans for 20 kuai and I didn't want beer anyway. I seriously thought about getting a meal in the restaurant to get a glass of wine but they only did bottles for 198 kuai. Actually we had time and I really could have done with a couple, but I was with my son and I decided to be appropriate. I didn't need alcohol - I just wanted it to make what would be a turbulent flight less turbulent, but more important was being a proper parent and I knew with Leilei even if it was turbulent I wouldn't show it.

We left the lounge early as there was no advantage being there. I'd checked the status of the flight - it was coming from Xiamen and stopping off at Zhuhai for just an hour, and had arrived 6 minutes early. So we got in the queue before asked to, thinking we were being intelligent. But a tad later we were told the flight was delayed. What? We could see the blimmin thing sitting there waiting for us to get on. I searched online and found it was quite stormy in Nanning and judged that must be the reason for the delay. Then I realised we'd not get back to Pingguo tonight so I'd better sort a hotel. I could easily have rung a few friends and sorted out staying at someone's or even getting a lift, but I wanted to do this by ourselves.

I used ctrip.com to find hotels in Nanning but on my laptop it only returned one result. Hmm...I didn't want to worry, but I realised we really should sort something out so I tried tripadvisor.com but wasn't too confident in their results either. Then for some reason I tried ctrip again but this time on the phone instead of the laptop. Thank goodness for excellent portable chargers. By this time both our phones would have been dead normally (although my Samsung Note 4 has a changeable battery), but my Anker charger quickly brought both our phones back up to a decent charge. Anyway, ctrip.com showed far more hotels than I got on the main website, and we found what looked like a nice one not too far from the train station. It was only 170 kuai but by the time I chose it I found that the actual room we'd need had two beds and was 269 kuai plus 30 kuai booking fee. Still, not too bad. But just as I was about to click "Book", I noticed that the "Waiting" status for our flight changed to "Delay". I could not be sure that "Delay" wouldn't change to "Canceled" with one "l" as another had already, so I waited.

Thankfully it was only a delay of one hour, during which I downloaded the ctrip app. They are quite aware about apps in China; normally in the UK they would direct you to the Google Play "shop" but here they just get you to download the .apk file (for Android at least) and you have to set your phone to accept installations from anywhere. But I did and it worked. I got back to my near-reservation and only when we were boarding did I book it. The flight was every one of its 70 minutes long, and Leilei enjoyed watching the thunderstorms that we were trying to avoid, and I pretended to enjoy it too. I nearly regretted not getting the 198 kuai bottle of wine but manned-up. Bloody hell if everyone else on the flight wasn't having kittens about turbulence why should I? Also, I noticed the plane was totally full - gosh we might have been quite lucky to get the tickets we did.

Well we landed ok at 10pm and were out of the airport 15 minutes later. We bought bus tickets to the train station as that's where the buses go - there was no shuttle to our hotel. Hopefully soon there will be a train from the airport to the centre of Nanning as the bus took a good 45 minutes and Leilei and I were split up for the trip. I noticed that the woman sitting next to Leilei was talking to him quite a lot, and he was nodding and saying some words in response. It may not seem like much but this is very important for me. He was out of my earshot but communicating with a local and I'm sure helps his communication skills much more than just speaking Mandarin with mama.

Finally at the train station at gone 11pm, we found a san lun che, or rather the driver found us, and suggested we take a ride. I'd considered walking the 1.5km to the hotel but decided a san lun che was the better idea, so took him up on his suggestion and we endured a 10 minute ride that felt top-heavy as we careered round the broken pavements of Nanning to the hotel. Once checked in we spent a bit of time looking for the room. I thought 2612 would be on the second floor but the first "2" meant the building and the "6" meant the floor. Obviously. But Leilei liked the business room we had so I left him there and went out to grab some food.

It was well gone 11.30 and I really wanted to watch the second half of Arsenal-Liverpool that had started at 11pm, so I was looking for the nearest place that sold food. Luckily I didn't have to walk more than 5 minutes before I happened upon Zhong Shan Lu! The famous food street of Nanning where Venky was sick on er gou tou 10 years ago! Normally I would have walked the length and breadth of the place having fun but I had an 11 year old in the hotel who needed sustenance so I bought a portion of fried potatoes, a portion of tofu with flavour, and two portions of bbq pork (five with chilli, five without) for a total of 40 kuai. On the way back to the hotel I bought a six-pack of Li Quan pi jiu from a local shop at an exorbitant 30 kuai - the shopkeeper tried to get me to buy Budweiser before he heard me speak but I told him "Li Quan pijiu shi Guangxi zui hao he de!" and that put him in his place. I also bought a couple of unnecessary bottles of water - unnecessary because as soon as I got back to the hotel Leilei found two free bottles thereof.

But at least he ate some of the bbq and the potatoes. And I got him to wash and brush soon after midnight and he fell asleep to the most exciting game of the Ying Chao this year - Arsenal nearly came back from 1-4 down at home but Liverpool saw them out. This could be an interesting season! I enjoyed a couple of beers that I couldn't enjoy earlier, but felt quite good that I could take an evening flight without liquid crutches

For some reason I checked the Nanning to Pingguo train and from being sold out the other day suddenly there were some seats available on the 15:45 so I snapped them up immediately at a total cost of 120 kuai including booking before sleep crept up and did its job.

Macau and City's first of the season

Happy 43rd to Tan!

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

I noticed that the taxi's odometer read 999999

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outside Da San Ba

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

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

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

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

Guilin noodles that make you sneeze

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Off to Zhuhai

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

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

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

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

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

The bullet train looked faster than it was

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

Leilei getting some sleep

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

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

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

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

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

Work and too late funfair

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

Apparently it was a Red-Necked Keelbaaack

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

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

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

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

Tea at Xiao Nong's

I first woke up at 8ish after last night's slight excesses. I was thinking about my waking algorithm from the other day in order to help me decide whether to get up. I input the relevant values into the formula: tiredness 60%, needing to get up 30%, value of getting up and doing exercise 70%, chance of siesta 30% etc. But before I could actually determine whether I should actually get up or not the mere task of using the algorithm tipped me over to going back to sleep. At the time it didn't matter, but only when I re-arose at 10am did it occur to me that the effort of calculating the algorithm was actually an input to the algorithm itself!

So I had now to deal with what was effectively a self-referential algorithm, as if the original wasn't hard enough. In fact I am wondering if this could be the world's first self-referential algorithm. Surely most algorithms calculate something entirely outside the space they reside, except perhaps for quantum algorithms. It's a bit like my algorithm is aware of itself, and therefore incurs its own uncertainty. It almost deserves a name - the Quantum Uncertainty Algorithm for Sleep - QUAS - just the acronym is soporific.

But it was a working day so no more time for algorithmic daliances. But it was also Chinese Valentine's day so after tea at Waipo's I found a local flower-monger and spent a ridiculous 130 kuai on a bunch of roses that were actually quite tastefully set up. I did ask a few times regarding various bunches how many roses there were and the modal answer was "11". I didn't hear a "12" so can only assume that's not a lucky number or something. I also asked where the roses came from and was told Vietnam, which may explain their cost, or not.

Tasteful roses for Valentine's day

Ling Ming had invited us to tea at his wife Xiao Nong's parents' place. I'd been there before last year and was quite looking forward to this family affair. Their house is actually a house, with a garden, and like others, if you have a garden you often have chickens too. Except they also had a pig.

We had a great meal but there were a fair few blokes who brought beer so I had to go more gan bei's than I was expecting. But I was quite good and ensured not every peng bei was a gan bei. Even Tan noticed, I think. But Tan and the kids went back eventually and I had to play mopai, which is a card game the last time I tried to play was also with Ling Ming. I sort of get the rules - you get five random cards each (from a double deck) - then throw out a card you don't want to count. The cool thing is that if your card is the lowest ranked of the chucked out cards you have to drink.

Xiao Nong's parents' garden and next door's for good measure

Then the actual game itself is based on two pairs, the strongest being actual pairs, then afterwards 9,8,7 etc, with 19=9, 18=8 etc. I still don't know the rules properly but it seems if one person beats all other with both hands then all have to drink twice, but if he wins once and loses once the losers only have to drink once. But for such a simple game there are other nuances that I still have to learn. It still seems like something exportable to the UK.

A decent hand in mopai as I understand it

Xiao Nong gave me a lift back at gone 11pm, and thought it fit to comment that I didn't smell of alcohol, which meant I'd somewhat succeeded.

Work and "tea" and more KTV

I forced myself to get a little more sleep after a 7am arising by doing my German  trick, but for some reason I had a 6' long hollow metal pole about half an inch in diameter where one end was sort of cut to a scoop shape, and that end had what looked like the flesh of mango in it, and for some reason that was preventing me going to sleep. Except that the pole itself was a figment of my imagination due to the German counting. I had finally got myself into a vicious circle of German counting causing me to be in a dreamful state that was preventing me from sleeping. This went on for some time until I thought about it and wondered if I was actually sleeping, and just dreaming I wasn't. This reasonably logical thought caused me to snap out of the circle but I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not. After having a brief chat with Andge on WhatsApp though I nodded off as I was suddenly getting out of Heathrow Airport and was at an underground terminus, except it was overground, and I saw what looked like an underground employee run towards an incoming train that had nearly stopped and throw himself at the front of the now nearly stationary vehicle. He didn't get run over as the train had stopped, but he was injured and I ran over to him where there were a few other workers and I shouted at them for some angry reason but I'm not sure how they could have stopped some stupid suicidal colleague. Then the train had mysteriously disappeared and I was looking in vain for a bin at the end of the platform.

When I woke up properly I read one of the headlines of the day about a bloke who died in the Gatwick express by sticking his head out too far and getting hit by another train. A lesser mind might have seen a link between the two but not I.

One of the highlights was a cute kitten I passed on the way to Waipo's - a sign things are getting normal here

Today was mostly work, punctured by lunch and tea at Waipo's, but a bloke who tried to invite me out last night got in contact to invite me to drink tea at his new place tonight and he would pick me up when I called him soon after 7.30. He called me Jiefu, meaning elder sister's husband. I don't think Tan has a younger brother, so guess she was his figurative sister rather than blood one. I checked with Tan and she knew his wife so he should be safe. Soon after 7.30 he called me to say he hadn't eaten yet and would call me when he had. Soon after 8pm he called me to pick me up but I still had the kids with me. I took them downstairs but didn't want to take them as there would inevitably be smoke. Not that I think passive smoking as bad as it's made out - I've heard it said that a non-smoker in the same room as a smoker who smokes 20 fags smokes the equivalent of 17. That must be total bullshit - it's nothing like the same intensity as dragging from the cigarette itself. Still, it's not nice to come home stinking of fags.

So I called Tan and as luck would have it she was walking back from Waipo's so we waited a couple of minutes and I dumped them off with her and let her be sure she knew who I was going to drink tea with. I didn't know what to call this bloke so put him down as "bu zhidao" in my phone book, literally "don't know", and mean to rectify that soon. We drove a little bit around the guangchang and I realised he could have just told me to walk there and it would have taken less time that it did to fetch me but it just doesn't work like that. We parked and entered a rather nice teahouse, called a chaguan, and it genuinely did have rooms on different floors that served tea. Apparently he owned, or was the boss of, or both this place, and we found a nice room on the first floor where he put himself in the master tea pourer place.

Of course tea is a euphamism after 9pm. It wasn't a lie as we did drink tea - the supposedly really expensive flower tea that I discovered with Ma Si last year. But after 15 minutes Don't know ordered six small cans of 2.5% Snowflake beer. I could deal with this. Then a couple of ladies entered and of course we had to gan bei with them. It transpired they worked for him and for one of them it was her first day. Then another, rather pretty, lady arrived but I can't remember who she was introduced as. She asked for water rather than beer, and that alone struck me as being rather sensible. But she was served tea rather than water, then went and opened a beer and poured herself one and did a gan bei with me. So much for sensible.

As the evening wore on a couple of blokes arrived before apparently two of the most high officials of Pingguo made an entrance. I think this was meant to be the highlight of the evening but these two were as pissed as tadpoles. They sat themselves one to my left and one to my right so I was a little trapped. The one to my left gan bei'd me but the one to my right, although looking just as far gone as left man, seemed to acknowledge his state, and stick to tea. Then it was time for a group stand up gan bei and no sooner had I stood up as the bloke on my left dropped his glass on the floor. The glasses were unfortunately not the thimble-sized glasses, or even the bbq sized glasses one normally gan beis from, but rather beaker-sized, holding, I estimate, 175ml of liquid. Well sadly for me, the trajectory of the escaped liquid from the newly dropped glass was a curve that soaked the left side of my teashirt from armpit to hip. The perpetrator was blissfully unaware as the ladies quickly tidied the broken glass away and poured him a new one, which was successfully gan bei'd.

My right side boss/government official declared himself as the other party at Baksec Zhai's yesterday evening and I then recognised him. If he'd been less comatosed I might have recognised him before. He then stood up, tea in hand, to do a group gan bei and befell the same fate as his mate but luckily the scalding contents of his broken glass did not hit me. I suspect both of them knew it was time for bed as they left soon after. And indeed I made signs to say I should get back. I'd already had phone calls from A Wu and Yang Haiwei asking me to go out with them and I would have preferred it quite frankly. So after a bit of cai ma with the pretty girl, Don't know gave me a lift home some time after 11pm.

Drinking tea with Don't know, pretty woman opposite

I probably shouldn't have, but when he was out of sight I gave A Wu quick call and he said to come to the KTV on the opposite side of the guangchang from where I'd just been. Well why not? Rather than take the dian dong che, I just walked the couple of minutes and by the time I got to the second floor there were already people ushering me into the room. Yes there was some party in full swing and I had to do a few more gan bei's, but it was slightly more comfortable in the company of someone I knew. I ended up singing Ni shi wo de meigui hua for the first time this year. And then A Wu put on Pengyou - one I should know off by heart after nearly 10 years but I always fall back to reading the pin yin Cantonese on my phone. But horror, I didn't have it on my Note 4! Well I would have, if Google Drive worked, or if I'd marked it as available offline before I'd got to China, but I hadn't. So I had to get A Wu to help most of the time, and made a mental note to learn this one properly so it will always be offline in my head.

I made my excuses and left just before midnight, like a manly Cinderella without a prince/ss, or glass shoes, and A Wu left as well. As we were leaving the building we saw A Ni entering. Apparently she had to go for someone's birthday and I guess she had to close down her cafe before leaving. She didn't have too much to say to A Wu and I wished her a good time. I refused a lift from A Wu because a) he was drunk, and b) it was only two minutes walk away. But I thought to myself, "in for a penny, in for a pound", and I gave Yang Haiwei a quick ring in case he was still about.

Yang Haiwei was still about, in a KTV somewhere. And he sent me a "location" in WeChat. Again, the map showed nothing so I had to guess where he was and the map showed me "warm" or "cold" but it became clear it was the same KTV I've been to eat behind a couple of times recently. I didn't need to call when I arrived; the girls at the reception magically knew who I was, or at least where I was going, and we went to the fifth floor to see Haiwei and some friends. Yes I had to do Ni shi wo de meigui hua once again, and a few gan beis too. It was the birthday of his younger son's teacher apparently, which in the UK wouldn't justify such revelry but who was I to argue? I left with Haiwei at well gone 1am and when home decided to sleep in the office until a bit later where the lure of the bedroom and its more comfotable bed brought me around 4am.

Baksec Zhai and reunion meals

Up at reasonable 9ish, I went by myself to the dou jiang place to get breakfast for 9.5 kuai as the kids were still getting dressed. As I arrived at the dou jiang place I heard a loud "oi!" and saw Jiefu (A Wu's older sister's husband) calling me from a black 4x4. We shook hands and he reminded me that we were eating at Baksec Zhai's today at 5.30. At home I managed a 7 minute exercise stint before shower then it was off to Waip's for lunch where we brought more mangoes.

I asked Tan when Da Jie was leaving, and she said straight after lunch, because if she stays in Pingguo for too long she gets ill. Before I enquired into the nature of the condition Tan herself said she thought it was all in her head too. So after lunch Da Jie's husband and stepson got the car ready then simply drove away. I mentioned the bleeding obvious that Da Jie wasn't in the car and Tan said she was going to stay longer. Back in the house this time it was Da Jie's turn to give the kids a hong bao each, but this time "only" 200 kuai each. It seems a slightly odd, if practical, way of giving a gift as it is immediately clear who gave the most as the value is explicit. I'm sure she doesn't have as much money as Er Jie but it seems a little mean to have this exposed in such a way.

Xixi and Leilei with their hong bao and Da Jie

A less-posed photo of the ladies and A Heng at lunch

Although it was another scorcher, I wanted to sort out the train tickets so Leilei and I got our passports and drove to the station where we waited a few minutes in a queue until it was our turn. I explained the problem of the duplicate names on the tickets to Guangzhou and the lady asked for the passports and typed in the numbers to retrieve the booking. It was hard to see the problem on the screen as there was only enough space to see our surnames, which of course are the same. But the passport numbers were clearly different. So I explained in detail what the problem was and she called over another member of staff. I was aware that the queue was growing behind me and didn't want to be responsible for anyone missing their train so asked if she really thought it was a problem if both tickets had my name on. The answer was probably not, as the surnames were the same. Then she started saying something about paying 10kuai. I had no idea what she was talking about and, aware of the queue, just said ok I'd pay. Finally I had the tickets in my hand and noticed they didn't even print the first names on them anyway....

Back home I showed the receipts for the two 5kuai charges and innocently asked Tan what they were for. She didn't know so I told her to forget it but for some reason she really wanted to find out so started chatting with a friend who worked in the railway to find out. Apparently if you get the booked tickets printed from the machine there is no charge, but if you get them from a person, and the station you're picking them up from is NOT the originating station, you have to pay a 5 kuai surcharge on the ticket. She looked quite satisfied with the answer until I asked her why I wasn't charged for the Guangzhou to Zhuhai tickets. I told her I didn't need to know - it was 10 kuai after all. But I secretly did want to know.

We had a relatively chilled afternoon in the air-con of the house, until A Wu rang at 5.20 for our 5.30 meal with Baksec Zhai. I don't know his real name, I've known him since 2006 as "Bloke from Baise" even though he now resides in Pingguo. Apparently he is now the fourth most important person in Pingguo. Well I took the kids to A Ni's where we waited a good 20 minutes in A Wu's car, engine running for the air-con, and didn't get to Baksec Zhai's till gone 6pm. We entered to find his wife and another woman cooking, and no sign of Baksec Zhai himself. But Jiefu was there trying to sort out the Internet connection. I watched him for a bit and saw he didn't really know what he was doing. I asked to have a look and it transpired he was basically trying to do the same setup as at ours; connect one router to another and use it as an access point.

So of course I said I'd help out. I noticed the ethernet cable coming from the source router was going into the WAN socket of the access point router, so he was off to a no starter. I couldn't get into the source router settings deep enough to restrict the DHCP server address range, so couldn't be sure it wouldn't hand out 192.168.0.254 to another device, but took the gamble of manually configuring 192.168.0.254 on router 2 anyway. It didn't like this as it conficted with its WAN settings, but as it was going to be a dumb access point I turned of WAN anyway after which it accepted it. Then I turned off the DHCP server in router 2. I tested by connecting my phone and although it got an IP address from router 1 there was no internet connection even though a computer connected to router 2 could connect fine.

By this time the food was on the table and the kids were complaining they were hungry, so I said I'd try to fix it a little later. A Ni had come with Tuborg 3.6% beer from her cafe and another boss who looked important came and sat on Baksec Zhai's right (I was on his left). Needless to say, beer was poured, great food was eaten, and a good time was had by all, until I noticed the kids were getting restless. As Tan was at a reunion meal I asked if I could drop them off there but A Wu said he'd take them. Then I realised I'd probably have to go there anyway later so told them just to wait a little longer. Then it dawned on me I still hadn't fixed the Internet.

A boss, Baksec Zhai, and me about to do an umpteenth gan bei

and us 10 years ago in September 2006 when I first met him in Baise

It was a good excuse to have a break from the beer, but when I got back I still couldn't configure router 2 to share the wifi properly. Then I noticed a newer looking router, the same model as our second one, sitting atop the table and asked Jiefu if it worked. It transpired it worked fine and I had no idea why he had been trying to configure an older one. So after a factory I set up router 3 with the same settings as the now turned off router 2, and lo and behold we had wireless Internet in the house! Baksec Zhai and I high-fived but in all honesty I was probably more excited than him. Then Tan rang to tell me that her teacher at the reunion meal had to leave in 10 or 20 minutes and I was to bring the kids around to see her. This provided a timely excuse to warn Baksec Zhai I'd need to leave in 15 minutes (it was already 9pm) and he accepted this but not before a few more gan beis.

A Wu took us to where the restaurant should have been, if you listen to what you're told. Tan had said it was opposite A Xia's shop but what she should have said was that you turn right outside A Xia's shop, go to the end of the pedestrian area then cross over the road to near where the new cinema is. No matter, we walked there and found the nice restaurant with a good 20 or so primary school ex-colleagues come from all around Guangxi and one that had just arrived from Beijing by train. They were all in good spirits, that became better when they saw the kids and they posed for more photos - they are very good at that now.

Tan's ex-colleagues from primary school and two little half-bloods

The fried crickets were simply scrumtious

We ended up staying till 11pm and I particularly liked the fried crickets, as did most. I played quite a lot of cai ma to everyone's entertainment but stuck to the weak beer as opposed to many of the others who were on red wine with a slice of lemon. I noted that the teacher was still there as I left them all to walk the kids home to shower and have a relatively early night.

Sisterly reunion and family meal

Well at least I wasn't up too early and treated myself to another two mangoes before going to the basement to pick up dian dong che I'd left to charge last night. As I entered I heard the typical suite of alarms going off that never seem to stop for more than a couple of minutes and no-one pays any attention. Typically you have to move someone else's bike to get yours out, which triggers the alarm. But this time I saw it was our bike that had its light on and I realised it was our bike only that was eminating sound. I pushed the button to stop it and put the charger away but noticed a notice stuck to the front of the bike. I didn't understand it but guessed it was to do with the alarm and feared it could have been going on for a long time. As I rode to leave, the security bloke stopped me and had a right go at me. Of course I claimed ignorance but it transpired I hadn't closed the seat lock properly, where the charger is normally kept, and the alarm had been going all night. I guess that the security people normally have a bit of a sleep, or at least enjoy some tranquility in the early hours, but I had prevented that.

The stern notice that was attached to the dian dong che - I intend to translate it one day

A Wu called in the morning to say that we were going to Baksec Zhai's for tea, but I said Da Jie should be coming and he understood that family comes first so agreed t arrange for tomorrow instead. This is one yet again why it is quite annoying not knowing if someone is really coming when they say they are. There's half a chance that Da Jie won't come today and that it will be tomorrow so all will have to be rearranged again.

Well apparently Da Jie was coming today at 11am so we got to Waipo's well in advance where Er Jie already was. 11 came and went and then we were told they were stuck in a traffic jam. I'm guessing it's not convenient to take the train or something but I've taken the slow train to Pingxiang from Pingguo before and it was lovely and hardly longer than driving, and certainly not subject to traffic. By 12.30 we heard they'd missed the Pingguo exit at the motorway and would have to turn back later so we decided to eat. Finally, at 1.30 Da Jie turned up with her husband and stepson. Apparently they hadn't used the satnav.

So they ate their lunch and then photos were taken. Then Er Jie produced two hong bao (red envelopes) for the kids, each containing 500 kuai. That's going a bit far...she's already spoilt them rotten. Apparently she has ordered them a swegway each - rather silly as I've already told Tan the batteries won't be allowed on the flights back either as hand or hold luggage. I guess it will mean an expensive and long overland journey. Waipo didn't want to be in the pictures as she said it was bad luck for some reason. But when it was just the three daughters she decided it would be ok. It's just possible this will be the last such opportunity.

Da Jie's stepson, Leilei, Xixi, Da Jie, Da Jie's husband

Er Jie, Leilei, Tan, Xixi, Da Jie

The three daughters and Waipo

Da Jie brought some pomegranates

I had considered asking for help buying train tickets to Zhuhai but based on experience I thought it would be a whole lot less hassle doing this myself. I wouldn't have to deal with others' opionions then about the best train to get and why I shouldn't stay in Zhuhai more than two nights due to muggers or whatever. Worse, someone might even offer to drive the 12 hour journey. No, I was going to do it myself. I'd been told that with the new gao tie train the journey was a little over three hours. More like a little over five hours. I would have preferred to get the 16:23 but that would have arrived at Guangzhou at gone 21:30 and we'd still need to take another train for an hour, so I booked tickets for the 08:54. It seems you can't buy tickets all the way to your destination, or return tickets, at least not on ctrip, so I ordered separate tickets from Pingguo to Guangzhou, and Guangzhou to Zhuhai. Once I'd logged in to ctrip.com it remembered the passenger details and I was able to choose who was travelling. Unfortunately Leilei and my passport numbers had changed since we last used ctrip and I nearly booked with the wrong ones, so had to manually remove us and re-add.

I thought that was a job well done when I'd made the two separate transactions to pay for the single tickets, but my email notification showed that for the Pingguo to Guangzhou trip I'd put them both in my name. Oh dear, this would now require going to explain to someone in person when picking up the tickets instead of just going to a machine. And this probably wouldn't have happened if I'd asked someone to help. Well I'd sort it tomorrow.

As much of the family were together (only Tan's brother was not around - presumably out of town working as a driver) it was decided that we would go out to Li Jia He Xiang and this time we actually did eat there. It was a lovely family meal where I learned for the first time Ling Ming and Xiao Nong's son calls me "Yi gong" - grandpa! I suppose it makes sense as Ling Ming is Da Jie's son, so effectively a generation below me. Leilei and Xixi were also excited to be and uncle and aunt respectively. Relatively little beer was consumed and by the end of the meal as we Chuan Chuan received the receipt we noticed we hadn't even got through a box, and needed to be refunded a few bottles (I didn't offer to take them home in a doggy bag).

Family meal at Li Jia He Xiang

I took the kids back home to charge up their devices before popping back to Waipo's to pick up the tv that we usually borrow here and isn't used over there. It took a while but I got it set up with the satellite box only to find there was no signal. I had no idea what to do next after wiggling the dish about resulted in nothing, so set up the old Wii instead. This year I've brought a Wii Fit board so hope to use it.

Leilei said he wanted to get some presents for his mates but of course we want to get something local they can't easily get in the UK. So of course we went to the "shenme dou you" shop downstairs near our building. We call it that as it seems to have everything we (the kids and I) need. We ended up getting some of those character practising "parchments" that you use by dipping a brush in water and the writing comes out black for a few seconds until it dries up. Original, fun, and educational. And only 5 kuai each though the brushes were 3 kuai. I got some paper to make paper aeroplanes and for Xixi to do some art with the water colours she bought. Altogether it came to 62 kuai as the shopkeeper showed us on the calculator. But he said 55 kuai to show he was giving a discount. Then, who I can only assume was the boss, shouted out "50". It was like they were bartering with each other to give a lower price even though they were running the place! I didn't argue, and as I was fishing for cash the boss noticed Xixi looking at the pretty nail clippers and of course asked which one she wanted. She chose a pink one of course and I noticed Leilei getting jealous. He waved off any attempt at payment and as we were leaving noticed Xixi glancing at a Spongebob Squarepants padlock and immediately picked it up and gave it to her (it should have been 13 kuai). Leilei was a rage of envy by the time we got out of the shop and I had to insist Xixi give him the padlock, and explain that he'd just have to accept Xixi would get more attention than him. I explained how I was once the attention-getter, then he came along and stole it from me - now Xixi has taken some of his thunder which is sort of fitting as his name means "rolling thunder".

Leilei standing in front of one of our favourite shops in Pingguo, the "shenme dou you" shop close to our building

Leilei and Xixi's artwork on coming back from the shop with more than we bargained for

Back home I tried in vain to get the satellite working so I could watch some olympics so ended up hooking the laptop up and streaming some of the Pakistan Test where it looks like England could well fight back to win after being 103 runs down in the first innings.

Well...just once in a while get back to the old way of things

Mangoes for breakfast and tea for tea

Up at a leisurely 8am in time for a less leisure 90 minute ping pong session to sweat out any of yesterday's excesses. I realised we still had loads of mangoes from Tian Yang so had the excellent and healthy idea of having a couple for breakfast - luxury! To avoid too many going bad I put the rest in the fridge and brought the other box to Waipo's when we went to lunch a bit later.

Healthy and delicious breakfast

We had been told that Da Jie would be coming today to see her son Ling Ming and younger sisters Er Jie and Tan. Except I suppose Er Jie should be called Er mei as she is younger. It's all rather confusing. Depending on who is calling me I have a different moniker. So if it's Chuan Chuan I'm Yi Zhang, but if it's someone else its Jiu Jiu or Bo Bo so I have to be aware what each means to know if it's me that's being beckoned. Needless to say I must fail quite frequently. So I was interested to hear Tan call Er Jie by her actual name, Tan Lihong, as I thought that within families one never used actual names. Tan said this was quite normal but I have my doubts. I didn't make her aware of my doubts though.

After tea at Waipo's the kids and I went for a ride and we found ourselves near Li Kun's place where we've had tea before. We weren't on a mission so decided to give him a ring and he said he be around in a few minutes. Of course we weren't expecting him straightaway so popped into a small supermarket we hadn't seen before. This was the third or fourth place I've been to this year that sells fizzy soda water and it was one kuai cheaper than the other places at 4 kuai, so I bought a few and got the kids some sweet drinks too. After quite a few phone calls we finally met up with Li Kun a good half an hour later at A Ni's place as he was near there. After a wee chat with A Ni and son, we followed Li Kun, his wife, and daughter in their 4x4 to his place where I learned this place was his tea-drinking house only and he actually lived by the market. A house exclusively for tea-drinking? I had no evidence to oppose this as we spent the next 45 minutes or so doing exactly that.

The kids were wondering why there was so much phone number graffiti - I think I remember Tan saying it's places offering fake degrees but I've never tried calling one

But the kids were quite bored so as promised I took them to play at the guangchang where they got soaked again on the ben ben chuang jumpy castle before showers beckoned. In the end it transpired that Da Jie wasn't coming today but would be here tomorrow. Then for some reason I couldn't sleep till 3am - must have been the blasted tea.

Colourful scenes at the guangchang