Writing school twice

Happy Birthday Mama! Up at 9am and did some more 7 exercises before a writing teacher I’d met a couple of days ago outside the supermarket texted me to ask when to meet up. So I said we would do after lunch, but she then proceeded to invite us to lunch anyway. I picked up the kids at midday from making cake for Tan, to take them there. As is quite normal, when we arrived all the adults wanted to take pictures of them, and they were not really happy about this, but I tried to explain that they should see it from their eyes but I don’t think seeing anything from others’ eyes counts for much for 12 and nine year olds.

Making mama's birthday cake

Well it was lunchtime and I wondered what they had, but they asked us what we wanted. I was a bit taken aback by this and asked the kids. They just said “jiao zi” so that’s what we asked for. The teacher looked almost a little bit disappointed as if we could have asked for something a bit more challenging, but made a phone call and said it would be on its way. Well maybe it was but it may have started its journey in a different town because about half an hour later one of the newly ubiquitous black and yellow mopeds turned up.

Xixi practising at the handwriting place

So another of my dreams of getting some afternoon sleep evaporated with each passing minute of the afternoon and although of course I wasn’t really angry I was slightly annoyed. But we got home around 3pm and actually I did manage between 20-30 minutes of less-than-awakeness as I recall not getting further than 13 in German counting.

The kids had no intention of sleeping so I took them out a tad later to the Golden Horse table tennis place but strangely there was no-one there. But I needn’t have worried; the writing teacher place had already invited me to go to theirs for a drink this evening so I thought I should take them up on this offer, though the kids weren’t too excited. When we got there they were in full swing and there was more than beer going around. I stuck to the former though, while one of the blokes was drunkenly going on about how his beef jerky was the best in the region. To be fair it was bloody good, especially on a nearly empty stomach. But pissed people often just get a bit more boring and that was the way the evening went, so we didn’t stay that long….

Getting a bit of fresh air from the boozy inside of the writing place

Too much red wine for me....

Thankfully, Yang Haiwei called me later in the evening to go for a drink with some of his mates. I dumped off the kids and went to what normally would be a pleasant evening. But for some reason it wasn’t. Maybe it was people getting drunk on red wine, and the fact there were blotchy-faced women that didn’t do it for me (nothing against women, just those drunk on red wine with similar coloured faces, as for blokes). So after a bit I went downstairs to the tiny tobacconist where my mate Huang works and I spent a few minutes with him having a chat and a weak beer, which was much more preferable.

Long day and some ping pong and first game of season

Got up at 9am which was too late for TT or even jogging unless you particularly had some sort of heat-wish, which isn’t very different from a deathwish at least in terms of spelling. Somehow met up with A Wu as he had an injured hand. I didn’t quite get what was wrong and it didn’t hinder his driving (but no man would admit to that anyway). We passed by some bloke selling a bubble-gun thing and A Wu stopped and bought a couple for his one-year-old son for 10 kuai each. I was tempted but knew they’d be broken within minutes.

A man selling bubble machines

Then somehow we went for a magical headwash. I know I generally prefer these in the evening or any time after a full meal but it was damn good at this time anyway.

While we were in this vicinity I noticed a place I thought I recognised from years ago; a small Septwolves shop I attended the opening of in something like 2008. I wasn't sure if it was the same place so took a pic of it so I could compare. I did go inside and ask the lady at the cash register but she was probably five at the time so wouldn't have known.

The Septwolves shop in 2017

...and yes I found the pic of the same place from 2008

By this time it was midday so we went to a place that did goose - not the place we would normally have gone to a year or so ago but it was still pretty good if not air conditioned. And then on to some other place where he was to drop off some takeaway from the same place. You’d think dropping off a bag of goose meat and rice would be a 5 min job but when he left the car I had a suspicion it would take longer. I walked into the local corner shop of the apartment complex and started talking to the owner (or the owner’s wife). Normally I quite like this situation as I’m able to have a decent chat but I was hot and bothered and tired, and didn’t fancy a beer that may have made the situation more amenable. Also, I’d arranged to meet Liangwen for some pingpong at 3pm and now that wasn’t so far away. Actually that was why I was annoyed; I’d hoped to grab an hour’s siesta and I’d realised that clearly wasn’t going to happen.

After about 45 minutes A Wu came back and I asked to go home to pick up my ping pong racquet (apparently not bat as you would think).

A Wu fiddling with some bank dongle that fits into the 3.5mm headphone socket in an iphone

Liangwen had  told me to get to the Golden Horse Ping Pong Centre by 3pm for some competition (although of course I wouldn’t be competing). So A Wu dropped me off in time actually but there was almost no-one there. Liangwen arrived half an hour later and then I realised he was not in the competition either. In fact it was some guys from Tianling, and at about 4pm they started playing. Yang Haiwei was there of course and Pingguo won, as I think they usually do.

While this was going on some woman was sorting out food for afterwards. I made myself useful and offered to help cleaning greens and to my surprise was accepted. It wasn’t much but at least I did something more than just watching table tennis. But tiredness was calling me so I made my excuses and left before 5pm promising to be back for the meal at 6pm. At home I felt so pre-emptively guilty of not waking up in time for the meal that I ended up not falling asleep at all, and leaving less than an hour later at 6pm to go back for the meal where I would be expected. Bloody hell they didn’t even eat till 7pm mainly due to just waiting around, a talent most non-UK countries seem to have mastered. At least during this time I managed to practise a little ping pong which kept me awake.

The woman I helped clean greens with on the roof of the ping pong place

We didn't use these but I wondered how long they'd been out there for and who would use them next

I had time to ponder the view from the top of the ping pong place

The meal with the Tianling folks was very friendly despite the room temperature beers (35 deg C) and the smoking doctor bloke made a nice speech I didn’t really understand. Then to my surprise they got back to playing table tennis but A Wu had called me to go and play ping pong at his bosss’ office and eat more food there. I ended up predictably downing a few (cold) beers and cai ma’ing for a meal before actually playing table tennis against a machine which is bloody knackering. But it stood me in good stead for playing A Wu later, who although is much improved, still lacks enough for him to be able to beat me.

The meal with the Tianling folks was not quite as blurry as this

In the evening the kids went to sleep at Waipo’s so I brought over their stuff and clothes then went home to wait for the footy. I don’t normally have caffeinated coffee this late but wanted to watch the City-Brighton first game of the season and we won it quite convincingly 2-0. Walker looks to be a good acquisition. Also managed a chat with Awl in the early hours before sleep defeated any more chance of communication.

A day in the life...

Once again I disdained early morning exercise but mainly down to laziness justified by wanting to use the abdominal wheel thing I got the other day. Blimey it really hurt and I’m not going to go down too far for fear of never coming back.

I still feel the urge to capture the view while waiting for the lift

Tan had planned to take the kids to Nanning at 11am on the “dong che”, meaning the fast rail service we now have. But of course this didn't work as planned due to the fact that there was a) no space on the train, and b) A Yi’s ID card had expired (and you can’t get tickets without one). This was typical lack of planning that happens literally all the time. It’s not a big deal - they went by car in the end, but blimey it still strikes me as strange they tell me one thing and do something else. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest only I get scared of the thought of my family being on the road outside of Pingguo.

I worked till 7pm before meeting up with Liangwen for a walk. I’m getting slightly peeved he only wants to do enough exercise to work up a sweat (i.e. walking) when I need something more vigorous, but hey, it’s conversation with a friend.

Later I found myself with the Waterman for a beer. I really shouldn’t call him that as it makes him sound like the character out of Monkey but he is the boss of the place that delivers our water and he is a man. More embarrassingly I don’t actually know his name. It was very nice though to have a chinwag with this local mate but before long I was asked to go to a new German beer bar with an advertising friend. So I did and had to choose an appropriate beer from the fridge. This was only difficult because I wanted something low in alcohol and what was there was mostly 5%+ - unheard of in Pingguo normally. So I settled on some Corona at around 4.5% and hoped its lack of Teutonicness wouldn’t be disapproved of too much.

As much as I would have been happy to end the night there, I got a call from A Wu, as one does, and found myself in a KTV place a bit later, but not as late as has been known and was back home, absolutely shattered, at 1am.

XSLT but would have preferred Java

Up at 6.30 after nearly five hours sleep. By the time I'd decided I wouldn't sleep any more it was already 7.40 and I already hadn't. It was too late for a jog and I was ping ponged out after the last few days so I decided on a walk up Chairman Mao Hill. It was rather cool for a Pingguo morning but by the time I got to the top I wasn't. I got talking to a 50 year old woman from Szechuan, who apparently was retiring. It was quite an awkward conversation as for some reason I barely understood a word. I hate these times; you've spent a fair few years getting used to the lingo and then in a few minutes you realise you're a bit crap.

Despite this I carried on briskly walking around the mountain, and used up fewer calories than I would have done had I gone to ping pong. Then boringly work beckoned but at least it was free from emails at this time. Lunch was breakfast but I probably didn't have enough as by 5pm I was starving and glad to go to Waip's for a lovely evening meal. As I wasn't rushed for work I went to the local supermarket and got some tissues and shower gel. So trivial but for some reason rather enjoyable. I also found one of those rollers for strengthening your abdominal muscles and thought "sod it" and got it. It's bloody hard so I suppose it must be good for you.

Back home it was work again. I was trying to use XSLT to split a flat structure into multiple objects but not only is it not the right language for it, the application I was using did not allow for easy use anyway. Had I been able to use Java it would have been about an hour's job. This will take days.

Finally I finished work at 9.30pm and took the kids out on the dian dong che. It was fun as usual but we somehow met up with Tan for a late bbq. However just as we got there I got accosted by some blokes with their families, and ended up having a couple of drinks with them...damn I'd nearly escaped beer today. Still took the kids back at 11.30 to sort out showers.

Horrid foot massage but nice storm

Managed a reasonable 7.45am wake up but didn't fancy running or ping pong and opted for a couple of 7s instead, which made me sweat nearly as much. I've got the Wii here but not really managed the time to set it up. I'd love to but at the same time it makes me nostalgic in an unhappy way. If I lived here I'd probably use it every day but now it's just memories of really great times but not the same people being with me. Except Leilei maybe, who probably won't lift his eyes from his phone now....

We had a severe lack of imagination re lunch and rode around for half an hour before coming back to get jiao zi and pancake thing with some lovely passion fruit drink as we've done a couple of times before. The kids have managed to sort out VPNs on their phones by themselves so I left them to it for a bit but I have become more aware of the left side of my left foot which is rather numb. I first noticed in the swimming pool on the third day but assumed it would go away. So I thought it would be a good excuse to get a foot wash, which means a massage as well....

In fact the idea of a massage washed me over and I had the good excuse of a half-numb foot, so I dumped the kids at A Ni's, where Tan was, and went to the place I'd been before to save myself from drinking too much beer last year below the bosss' place. I suppose it might be boss's or bosses' but I wanted to make sure it was plural (surely that's the correct plural possessive of bosses, bugger if not as I'm getting red squigglies even now under the word "squigglies").

The woman was glad to see me again and commented on how long it had been, and I dutifully told her I'd been away for a year, and had a bit of a numb foot. I may as well have said I had no feeling in either foot as I was of course subjected to a ferociously hot foot-bath as per last year. But I manfully dealt with it, until five minutes later when she started manipulating my foot in a way that made me understand there is no translation for "manipulating". God she was doing things that hurt to high heaven and I was literally shouting out in pain! Did she stop? Did she hell? At least while having a massage at the hairwash place they ask if it's ok, but here I was literally jerking my legs away and she was still pulling them back to administer more pain.

Half an hour later I thought it was all over, and was willing to pay 100 kuai just to get out, but I realised the woman was just going to lunch with another woman who apparently worked there. Oh no, her husband came over with a grin like the square root of minus 1. Whatever pain I had experienced over the last half an hour was exacerbated many-fold. I shouted, I screamed, I literally swore in English and Chinese, but all it amounted to was smiles on his behalf as though I'd justified his work. If I'd actually had a couple of drinks I'd have probably run out of the shop but I was still a little embarrassed. When he said "keyi le" I was the most relieved man on the planet.  I resolved never to go there again.

Bloody painful foot massage - I'm sure he's a nice bloke though

It was around 4pm and the weather was getting really dark, but I picked up the kids from A Ni's as I promised I would.... As the clouds were really low we (I) decided to go for a little ride on the dian dong che. We pulled over by the smaller pagoda and watched some workmen for a bit until huge raindrops greeted us. The kids were well aware of the impending possibility of getting wet and not having electricity, but I kept them there for a few minutes while we appreciated the incredibly dark clouds gathering. But yes, by the time we got home five minutes later we were pretty much soaked from the near water bombs that started to pelt us.

And yes, the electricity went soon after we got home. But I had a meeting to attend and it appeared that at Waipo's they still had power, so it was down the 14 flights of stairs and back onto the dian dong che to go there so I could do my meeting. The meeting actually went pretty well as I lay in the bed we stayed in a few years ago. And by the time it was over I had an invitation to see the kid that speaks a bit of English whom I met the other night. I said I'd contact him a bit later.

The kids and I surveying Pingguo under a tempest

As the rain had died down I decided to go to the 6th floor ping pong place to get a bit of practice in. The decision was a good one but my attempt to pull out the dian dong che wasn't, and I managed to knock it into another, which had the domino effect of knocking all the others over. I was really embarrassed and hoped no-one had seen, but that hope was dashed when someone came out of his or her car to help me right them all up. He (or she) said something to the effect of "hey, shit happens". Ping pong was ok, but you never feel as good afterwards as you do when having started at 7am.

I went to meet my new "friend" at Bar 3000, where I'd been last night, just at the bottom of Jun Lin Tian Xia. I suppose I was being a mini-ambassador but I couldn't really be bothered there. I took Leilei with me but took him home after a while as he was clearly bored. At around that time (11pm) Yang Haiwei appeared as I'd belled him earlier to come around, so at least I had a proper mate with me.

I insisted on paying close to midnight, as we were all clearly tired. Li Kun had been texting me about meeting up to eat chicken, so after I'd dropped off Haiwei I found him thanks to a WeiXin link just a couple of hundred yards from our place. He'd had a couple of beers but was his usual chirpy self, and I managed to stay up another hour with him and a couple of mates. Even now I'm aware we've only got three more weeks so I quite like these experiences.

Haiwei meal

Up at 8am so logicked myself to ping pong even though I wasn't massively feeling like doing it. The Chinese (at least here) are well into sweating, like it's a really good thing to do, and I don't disagree with them in general. A good place to do this is around a table tennis table. I was hoping for a siesta but was pleasantly surprised when Yang Haiwei called me to go for lunch. Despite going for a few cups of tea first we did go before 1pm and were very reasonable with only four 500ml cans of 3.1% Li Quan beer between four blokes. I took the opportunity of asking if people were buying bitcoin here. Haiwei was not interested but the other bloke made it look like I'd tickled his funny bone. I said I was no expert by any means but was interested a bit, and he told me that A Wu recently had 5.5 BTC but had sold them. Based on the recent value I bet he wished he hadn't. But that's what it's all about - betting. Even if you don't buy any you're betting that it's too risky to. In fact, annoyingly, every decision you make in your life is a bet in some sense. In every sense actually. It's just a bit hard explaining that to your kids.

But I was really glad to have this bitcoin conversation. It brought a really international flavour to the conversation and we talked about volatility and inflation and I certainly learnt a few new words. I just felt a bit embarrassed that Haiwei was nothing to do with this conversation. I wanted to talk about the concept of money and how I'd explained scarcity, fungibility, portability, divisibility, etc to my kids during the course of a drive to school, which was much more than I'd learnt until a few months ago. But we could save that for another day.

After this nice meal I picked up the kids but they wanted to stay at A Xia's with mama for a bit. This fitted in with me and I managed just a small siesta between 5-6pm at home. At 7pm I went to Waipo's to pick up the kids to go to ping pong. Annoyingly they weren't that interested as I was playing some other friends and they wanted to play me. There is a group of kids that practise every evening at 7.30 but my kids refuse to join in. I'd really love that they do but unless we're here long-term won't force it.

Yuck! Pic from the back of our dian dong che

I left them to shower at 10.30 as Tan was home, and I had a friend calling me to go out to have some bbq. Although I thought it was at the place we'd met last year it was actually just at the bottom of our place, and eventually I got there at nearly 11.30pm. But it was great bbq and I managed to force myself in to pay too; 200 kuai for five of us including cai mai'ing with the boss for quite a time. Bargain!

Coffee and sing song

A reasonable 8am wakeup meant I was not too tired yet not in the mood for ping pong. Instead I decided I'd practise the guitar. Tan has bought a full-size and three quarter-size violin for her and Xixi to practise with, and I felt the need to do the same with my Pingguo guitar I've had since 2008 when I bought it for 300 kuai. It's not a classic work of art but at least it gives me the chance to keep my fingers in motion. But I've been neglecting the guitar in recent months in favour of the piano and after a couple of hours had blisters on my left hand. I had bought new strings three years ago but hadn't put them on so spent half an hour changing them and appreciated the new tangy sound, but it didn't disguise the fact that it's not a great instrument. I was sorely tempted to go out and buy one for 1000 kuai (which would still have been half the price I bought my one for in England in the 90s) but couldn't really justify it. I spent almost all the two hours practising picking the strings for Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall by Paul Simon and respect him more now as a guitar guru than I ever have. It's so much harder, yet so much more rewarding, than simply strumming the chords.

I picked up the kids in the afternoon from A Xia's but I'd remembered to take a pair of linen trousers with me as after being washed they were more creased than the foreskin of a particularly unlucky buddha. A Xia wasn't there, but the woman who was tried in vain to remove the creases by using a vertical steam iron. It was obvious to me after a minute that it wasn't going to work, and I suggested this to her, but it seemed she had nothing better to do so spent the next 15 minutes attempting to pull out the obstinate creases that were not having any of it. Eventually I cracked and just said thank you that's so much better than I expected, and she let me leave a couple of minutes later. Sometimes you just need a normal iron.

The Li Kun called me on Weixin to invite me to drink coffee with a camping friend. At least that's how I understood what he said. As it transpired I was right. I was with the kids and told them we'd probably be going to a posh coffee place with air-con but we ended up in a small shop with a fan. To be fair it was ok. The owner made some pretty good coffee and after a cup I was buzzing and told him I literally couldn't drink any more. Then he told me about some German bloke who'd come around some time before whose wife was also from Pingguo...I wasn't happy but tried not to let it show. So not only are there a couple of African teachers here, but now and again there is a German...so much for being the only gay in the village...the only comfort I got was that he said the German didn't speak Chinese.

There was a swegway at the shop but that only lent a few minutes of fun for the kids before they got bored, so I told Li Kun that I'd have to go. I would dearly have loved to go for a siesta but the coffee put paid to that. So although I got home at 3ish I had no chance of a sleep.

I dropped the kids of at Waipo's then got a message to go to Yang Haiwei's family at 4.15. I was expecting to go there at 5pm and at the time was still hoping for half an hour's kip but that went out of the window. I decided to go and deal with the tiredness. At least this year, whether it's the VPN or WeiXin is now using another map provider, I got a clear view of how to get to the house. However that didn't stop a good 10 minutes on the phone describing exactly where they were...we only really found each other when we were within literally shouting distance and I saw Haiwei on a balcony above....

I was feeling a bit queesy at Haiwei's family's house, and genuinely thought about excusing myself and going home, but then I though about how many people I'd potentially upset, so made a manly effort to join in in all things. It took a long time before the meal during which I was prising out English words to speak with Haiwei's son and a couple of his friends. This continued into the meal but I was still quite good and managed not to drink that much. Haiwei had said he'd bring a guitar as last night we'd been talking about Sounds of Silence and The Boxer, but luckily that didn't turn up. Despite my dicky stomach I did manage to eat some of the food although it was nearly all fish, until some beef jerky came around which I found easier to digest.

I made my excuses to leave but Haiwei said we'd meet up in a bit at a KTV place to sing song. I could hardly disagree as I'd barely drunk or eaten. He was taking his kids and I said I'd take mine and after a refreshing 45 minutes at our home took them out on the dian dong che to the new KTV place in the centre. KTV really isn't the same with kids, especially when they are singing kiddy songs. But I did cai ma with a couple of the dads...I lost the first eight in a row to one, then continued to beat him eight in a row in a mathematically unlikely scenario. I did have to sing The Boxer, though without guitar, plus Pengyou after I found the lyrics online. Tan's call before 11pm was a grateful excuse to leave to bring the kids home as they'd been stuck in their phones almost the entire time anyway.

A kiddy friendly sing song...

...though maybe not for these kids...

Passion

I managed to wake up at 3am, a whole 59 minutes after I fell asleep. Well that was ok, I'd just fall asleep again...at least that was the plan but it didn't quite work out and by 5am I'd decided I'd see it out and catch up after lunch. So I went for a jog at 6.30 and managed a slow hour around the guangchang a few times. More and more people are starting to do this and I had the idea of starting a Park Run here. Except by 9am it would be too hot so it would have to be a 7.30am start at the latest. I wonder how many people would really turn up.

Back at home it would be hours before anyone else was up so I didn't bother getting breakfast from the doujiang place, and instead had some of yesterday's unfinished bbq that was in the fridge. Normally this gets thrown away, so I was happy for the chance not to waste it, even if getting through several spicy duck tongues at 8am felt slightly weird. Later the rest of them got up and Tan said she was taking the kids swimming, and this time it actually happened and they were to meet friends and eat there (I've learnt that "swimming" is the optional part, and generally the excuse for a meet-up). So at midday, after my own bite to eat, I allowed myself a little drink to ease to flight into a morpheus grip and didn't arise till the kids got back at 5pm. They were quite sunburnt and I shuddered to think of the trouble I'd have been in had it been me who'd taken them out. Then suddenly it was 5.30pm and I realised I'd dropped off again, so this time I forced myself to grab a coffee to make my awakeness stick.

We had no invitations or plans for tea so we went downstairs to the jiao zi place, but Xixi didn't want any and chose a pancake-wrapped sausage thing with some lettuce instead from next door. It was not the most nutritious of meals but it fed them. The kids got some soft drinks from the other next door but I decided I would have some fruit, and asked the woman what she had. Of course she pointed to the menu and of course I was too proud to say I couldn't understand it, so looked at it in a way that I hoped made me look like I was deciding which of the various options I should choose. I wanted something new for a change, which meant something that I didn't understand (i.e. not watermelon, mango, or, well basically anything with "melon" on the end). So I started mouthing what I could read from 百香果 - bǎi something guǒ...white something fruit...I had a clue...now I realised the second character is one of the characters in Hong Kong (Xiānggǎng) but I couldn't remember which one...but it would be bǎi xiāng guǒ or bǎi gǎng guǒ, white fragrant fruit, or white harbour fruit. I guessed the former but couldn't work out which actual fruit it would be even if I could pronounce it. As I was mouthing it out the woman must have seen the troubles I was going through, or just grown impatient (which is unlikely here) and just shouted out "bǎixiāngguǒ!" and I looked at her without thinking and said yes I'd like one please! I had to watch as she opened the fridge and brought out a couple of brownish small-apple-sized things that she broke apart, revealing yellowy fleshy seeds inside and finally it dawned on me it was passionfruit. It took a few more seconds before it finally clicked that this was a Chinesisation of the English and had little to no bearing on white fragrance. Sometimes you can over-analyse things. It was delicious though.


Tan was off to Tian Dong and not back till tomorrow so I had the kids to myself for the next 24 hours or so, so we went for a drive down to the river just to have a walk. They didn't seem to get that going for a walk can be something in itself...you don't need to buy something or jump on a castle...or maybe that's one of the differences between being a kid and being "grown up". So I tried to explain that just by looking around and seeing and hearing things they don't get in the UK is an experience in itself. Like going to the bridge that has no road on the other side, and hasn't had for years...wondering why it's like that, and what you'd do if you could...I think that got them thinking a little.... And I still wonder why there is no road after the bridge..fat chance I'll get a good answer....

On the bridge with only one road, with Xixi who recently bought a mask in order to look like a "savage"...

I took them to the guangchang later to bounce off the energy of sweet drinks, and afterwards they both decided they'd like to sleep at Waipo's so I got them showered and ready and took them over around 10pm. At least that freed me up to see Yang Haiwei and his family a bit later as they would have been a bit bored with us chatting, and me having to speak English to his elder son. Despite having kept my diary clear for tomorrow (as he'd invited us to visit to his family's home in Po Zao) he declared that we would not now be going as his son was too busy. Just like that. Nothing gets planned more than a few hours ahead here, but it still surprises me. Instead we were to have a family meal at his place as we have done for the last few years.

I had promised to see my mate Hua the other night so around 1am I popped round to his shopped as he'd been messaging me for the last hour and I'd promised to make it over. I told Haiwei and he said he'd come too, which he did. There were about four blokes sitting at a table outside the shop and all greeted me heartily when I turned up on my trusty steed. It was more of the same in terms of gan beis though Haiwei's wife took them home after half an hour and we continued on for a bit longer but I was getting really tired despite my recent siesta so called it a day at 2am.

A Wu meal

We've been here long enough that jetlag shouldn't be an issue but that was my excuse for another 6am wake-up. Today I couldn't be bothered with a run, so I languished in bed until the guilt tripped me into going to play ping pong. I was duly beaten but I sweated more than enough to justify my time and got back in time to get the kids' breakfast. It's becoming as predictable as it has been in previous years, except they no longer want dou jiang. So I end up buying four eggs, one you tiao, and a couple of yumi bing and a portion of jiao zi if they have them and it costs about 80p and there's always enough left for me to have some lunch later. Despite prices rocketing for many things, and the horrible exchange rate from a post-Brexit point of view, this is one of the things that remains nicely affordable.

Tan took the kids out at lunchtime and I knew I'd need a kip but I called A Wu and Ma Laoban to see if they were available for lunch but neither was. This is a bit of a strange experience here but I think of it as a good thing; people are actually busy as opposed to some previous years' experiences.

Tea was at Waipo's, which she really appreciates, even though she eats earlier than us and doesn't eat at the table any more. I don't know why this is but I'm not going to question it. While we were at Waip's, Tan showed a video of a recent kerfuffle in Pingguo where a bloke was covered in blood after a fight with someone. It filled the kids with the heebie-jeebies and meant I had to get them home reasonable early tonight. I'm quite annoyed at that...we get these sort of stories now and again in the local news in London but we don't change our livelihood.

A Wu then called me to go to eat with him and some bosses at the office behind the KTV. I've hardly seen him since I've been here so drove over and it was just like old times with food and beer and cai ma. I excused myself at 9.30 as needed to pick up the kids from Tian Yang Po's bbq where Tan was eating with Huang Chun and A Xia, and took them to the supermarket before heading home for a shower and bed. Tan got back at 2am.

Some people were drinking suan mei jiu but I don't understand why the hip flask was so big or hip-shaped

A really enjoyable meal but I had to hop to a meeting soon after...

Early jog, late ping pong

Yet another pre-6am wake-up so I Weixin'd Liangwen and we met up for a jog at the guangchang. Unlike last year he wasn't with his female jogging partner, and also unlike last year he insisted in jogging even slower than I wanted to. He also wanted to avoid the road areas due to traffic so we headed towards an area with more trees. This gave me the opportunity to spark up a conversation about electric vehicles and go on about our Renault Zoe. I thought he'd be fascinated but he just took in in his stride (literally), and simply agreed with me when I said that within five years most traffic would be electric. Agreeing and understanding such a prolific change should be a major thing in my book, and should at least have provoked a bigger response! But on reflection I've come to get used to this sort of acceptance of change; change where I'm from comes to a greater extent from the people, whereas here is more "dictated" from the government. Although intuitively it may feel that the former is the better, I'm less and less convinced by it. But the consequence of the latter is that people are more accepting of change from above as it is just the way it is.

It still interests me, the view while waiting for the lift

A really normal view of someone stretching in the guangchang

Later I got the kids a sort of pancake filled with sausage and lettuce and fried in not the most healthy way, then took the kids to A Xia's shop where Tan frequents in order to drop them off as a siesta was beckoning. It was so nice to hear A Xia compliment me on my looks as she said I was more handsome than last year. Pathetic maybe but I'll take it. So many people (a handful) have commented positively on my looks this year it genuinely makes the effort to do the swimming and running worthwhile.

I got back and managed an hour or two's kip without too much trouble and when I awoke set about sorting Leilei's iphone. It was palaver 2.0 as in order to reset the phone I needed to confirm it on another device that had his apple ID, of which there were none. Then in order to reset the password it sent an email to his email, but that required 2FA on one of his devices too. I was going nuts as he'd managed to make monthly paid-for subscriptions on "free" apps that I was massively annoyed about but couldn't cancel until the phone was working. Finally I got it to realise it would need to download the latest update, but after ages it still hadn't done so. Then I realised it may be the VPN that was preventing this, so reluctantly turned it off and finally a couple of hours later it reset the phone. It has taken around 10 hours in total to do this. Not happy.

I needed to pay 2000 kuai to Ling Ming for cleaning and sorting out the flat so got in contact with him and drove around to their new flat around 4.30pm. It's a really nice place at the top of the building and has two floors and views over the river. Their kid is two now but doesn't remember me. Ling Ming wouldn't take more than 1800 and after spending a good half an hour complimenting their new abode I made a move as they were going to his wife's mum's to eat.

Ling Ming and his toddler

In the evening I took the kids to play ping pong in the new place we were supposed to have gone to yesterday. Haiwei had sent a Weixin location and we turned up and arrived on the red dot on the map but there was no ping pong to be seen. We asked about and were told to go to the sports centre but that was far from the red dot on the map where we should have been. Eventually after half an hour of phone calls and misunderstanding someone walked down the road to find us at a hotel and took us to a place down a dark alley not that close to the red dot.

We went out for tea first and it pelted it down not for the first time...very refreshing

What we found inside was a massive ping pong place and a competition that was in full sway. Eventually one table was freed up and a bloke invited me on where we practised for a good half hour. The kids too got their chance to have a practice but had to put up with copious semi-professional phone-photographers snapping them at every opportunity. We'd expected to leave by 10pm but only some time after that did things start to calm down and a big photo opportunity was taken with all of us. Apparently there were two other zhen that had come to compete.

Leilei and Xixi apparently had a good time practising while I was doing the same

It was getting on for 11pm so I took the kids back for a quick bbq as they were peckish. We only got five duck tongues and 10 beef and the total came to 50 kuai without any drinks! That makes Tian Yang Po pretty bloody expensive as it was hardly filling. Back home I kept receiving calls to go out and eat with the ping pong people from earlier. Only at 12.30 did I get the chance to when Tan got back, yet I was met with howls of delight and made to gan bei for a few minutes before I ate anything. It was nearly 2am before I got home.

A very rare pic of Leilei and Xixi actually genuinely apparently enjoying each other's company

The ping pong meal I joined finally at 12:30am that went on for a good hour afterwards

Bad lift

Up at a reasonable 8am to spend two hours getting beaten at ping pong. It's become quite a routine not just this year but from the last 6-7 years really. I'm not sure how I'd cope without the exercise. I picked up the kids at midday from A Xia's shop and we went to have gorgeous sweetcorn soup at a place I've been to a few times. They had a little egg-fried rice too. I thought I'd ordered two fried eggs too but what appeared was a much better option - an omelette with plenty of greens that I had to scoff myself as the kids were having none of it.

Back home I only managed a 15 minute doze before being asked to take Tan's pad to Waipo's, where I also got tea for the kids. We had decided to go to ping pong in the evening but were stuck at Waipo's for quite a while as a massive storm yet again laid drops the size of small goldfish abound outside. Only when the drops were scarce enough to do a Billy the Whizz style escape did Leilei and I rush onto the dian dong che to go home to pick up the ping pong bats, or racquets as I understand the official term is, however unlikely it sounds. Actually it's been proven that running fast in the rain makes you get wetter...you live and learn.

Actually apparently it's Billy Whizz, not Billy the Whizz...

Strangely, on the way up the lift stopped at floor 9 where a bloke was waiting. I told him we were going up but he was welcome to come, but he motioned that he would wait. Or he didn't understand a word I said and preferred his own company. A few seconds later as we were ascending we had the awful experience everyone always thinks about but rarely has. The lift stopped all of a sudden and the lights went out leaving us in pitch darkness. For the first few split seconds Leilei and I thought we were falling such was the change in gravity force. It took me a couple of seconds to logic out that it must just be the electricity as we weren't splattered on the floor. We were sweating bullets though as the lack of air conditioning added to the palpatations we were still having. Although petrified, Leilei had the presence of mind to check his fitness watch to see how augmented his heart rate was, though he kept whimpering how scared he was.

It was up to me to remain calm and collected and let him see that I wasn't afraid. I was acutely aware of the heat and the potential lack of oxygen, and managed to prise apart the internal doors. Then Leilei berated me for not having a flashlight app on my phone, so I took a picture using the flash and found we were almost exactly between two floors, I guessed between 11 and 12. Then it dawned on me that the phone in my hand was the obvious piece of apparatus to get us out of here. I was so grateful to see one measly bar of reception, and it was enough to contact Tan, who said she'd call the manager. But it was getting so hot...try as I might I couldn't pull the outer set of external doors open more than an inch, but it was enough to let in some sweet, relatively cool air, not to mention a stab of light. It also gave me the opportunity to shout for help..."jiu ming! jiu ming!", I called, until Leilei told me I should be shouting "jiu women!". Not that it mattered - no-one heard us...we heard what we thought were footsteps, plodding slowly up the stairs, or maybe plodding down, but never getting quieter. We shouted at the footsteps again "jiu women!!" but they didn't hasten, and it was a good 30 seconds later we realised it was the sound of dripping water.

By the light of the phone I saw a number for the lift company so on Leilei's advice called it lest they be able to do anything. By this time Leilei was sitting on the floor as he'd seen a youtube video on how to survive lifts falling down, but in an effort to prove it was only the electricity that had gone I refused to do so and said this must happen all the time (though I didn't really believe that). We'd been in the lift now a good 10 minutes and I was really disappointed that no-one had come. But the lift company did answer the phone and I was explaining which building and what had happened when I realised it was pretty pointless...they wouldn't be able to do anything remotely and help would surely come before they could sort any. Sure enough, while on the phone a bloke came up the stairs and I shouted at the top of my voice so he'd know where we were. I immediately apologised to the woman on the other end of the phone who'd just been deafened by this, and explained it looked like help was at hand, so not to worry. The bloke was able to open the external door of the bottom half of the lift, but there was not so much space to get out there, so I bade him come up to the top half as we saw it. My only concern that the lift would surge into life and slice whoever was getting out of it at the time, so I went for the option that I thought would make for the quickest exit. As the top door opened I told the bloke to move out of the way and shoved Leilei as quick as I could out of the door, before being helped out myself.

What you might see when trapped in a lift - one third of the door of the 11th floor by your knees...

...and what you might see as you escape through the half-12th floor door

What a bloody relief after such a harrowing experience, but the bloke didn't look like much had happened...I guess it wasn't the first time, but how bad would it have been for an elderly woman of Waipo's frailty? They could have died! But it gave me an idea for something that should be mandatory - backup batteries on each lift with just enough power to get to the next floor and open the doors when something like this happens. Blackouts are not that uncommon here....

On the drive back to Waip's we found that only the traffic lights were also out; the other shops nearby all seemed to have electricity. Indeed when I came back to check half an hour later the electricity was back but Leilei understandably didn't want to go up yet. I thought about forcing him to to confront his new fear but let it go as Liangwen was calling me. Apparently instead of going to ping pong at 7.30 we were to go for a couple of drinks first with some mates. Leilei wanted to go back to Waipo's so I dropped him off and went back home to get the table tennis stuff, and actually felt my heart racing a little more as I got in the same lift that 40 minutes previously had trapped us in. In the house I called Liangwen to find out where to go but I didn't get through. I realised suddenly that I'd run out of credit...gosh so lucky that didn't happen an hour ago or we'd have been trapped considerably longer. Then in the lift down Haiwei called me to go out or something but he cut out and I tried to shout to call me back as I had no credit.

Liangwen had told me the name of the place but I only half remembered it, and without internet on the phone it was a bit random to try to find it, asking people who hadn't heard, so I had to wait for him to call me again asking where I was, and then keep him talking until I found a stranger to give the phone to. In the end it was just on the other side of the guangchang and we went to a restaurant room with about six rather drunk looking men, one especially so that when he spoke the others could barely understand either. I didn't know what to make of it really but I joined in a couple of glasses and we left within 20 minutes to ping pong. Haiwei called again to tell me to play ping pong in a different place, and sent me a link which I got as I was connected to the wifi. But I'd already decided to go with Liangwen, and picked up the kids on the way. We only stayed 45 minutes at the 6th floor ping pong place as I felt I should really see Haiwei, so said goodbye, and got back on the dian dong che. It only had four bars of electricity when not moving, and zero when you accelerated so I took it carefully as I got to the guangchang, but it started going seriously slowly and I realised we wouldn't make it, and I couldn't even tell Haiwei. We managed to limp back to the house at 8...7...6 kph, barely enough to balance on two wheels before totally giving up just as we arrived. 53 km we'd managed since we got the bike back...not bad...just got to remember to charge up at four bars next time.

Uncle Yellow had invited me to "drink beer" this evening and had called me a couple of times since table tennis. As it was just around the corner from Waipo's I left the kids there as Tan was out. It was his wife's friend's birthday but it seemed to be mostly blokes and bbq. They seemed a nice bunch, and there was the usual gan bei'ing and picture taking going on. But there was cake too, and although I didn't fancy it it was enough to entice the kids to come out for a bit. But it didn't last long as there wasn't that much to keep them interested so I dumped them off at Waip's again as the people here wanted to have a sing-song. In this case it actually meant that; one of them had a guitar and I finally noticed that the shop we were sitting outside of on the pavement (doing our own bbq) was a music shop. Some bloke did a nice rendition of Knocking on Heaven's Door, before a girl plucked up enough courage to do a song or two in Chinese. It was pleasant but I knew it was well gone 11 and I needed to take the kids back, so after a last gan bei I said goodbye and sure enough as I was taking the kids back I got the call from Tan berating me for being out so late with them...it's not as if they've ever been to bed before midnight so far!

Singing song at Uncle Yellow's wife's friend's birthday bbq

First squat of 2017

Despite the usual 2am going to bed I woke at 5.45 so decided to do a leisurely run of 5.5km. Having a VPN this year on the phone and laptop has made a lot of difference; for the run I could actually track where I went on the map. Breakfast was the usual eggs and you tiao and pancake from the dou jiang place, and then it was work till lunch, siesta, then work again from 3pm. The good thing about the work I'm doing at the moment is that it doesn't require any client intervention, so no-one's waiting on me. This meant that when Li Kun called me to go for a meal I was able to say "ok" and grab the kids and get picked up by him half an hour later.

We went to a new place that is more of a swimming pool than a restaurant, but we took it for the latter and had a lovely al fresco meal without too much in the way of beer. Unfortunately, though, I received my first taste of la du this year. It had taken a good three days for my poo to take on its usual Pingguo texture reflecting a fairly high protein diet, but I could feel the liquid version burgeoning up whether or not that's a verb. Had we been within a few minutes from home and I'd had the dian dong che I'd have grabbed it and managed to hold it but that was not an option. Oh no, it was to be my first squat of 2017. Last year working with a couple of Chinese blokes in Holland I'd heard stories of how their Westernised Chinese friends had managed on a squat toilet. One had taken to removing a single leg of his trousers and tying it around his neck to avoid contact with the floor. I didn't have time to make such a cunning plan, but I had the advantage of shorts. I took my right leg out then put my heel in my shoe, leaving enough space to perch my phone and did the deed just in time. Oh sweet relief but I knew it wouldn't be the last time. How Andge managed a whole level of Angry Birds in 2009 I'll never know. Perhaps it was something to do with the loo not being a public one.

When I got back to the meal there were nods of "we know where you've been", but it wasn't in any way mocking. And when I grabbed another set of tissues it was "we know where you're going" but I didn't give a monkey's cuss. Thankfully that was all for the evening, at least from a squatting perspective.

Meal with Li Kun, pool in background

It would have been nice to go for a swim, but we'll leave that for next time. When we were taken back I took the kids to the guangchang again but it started raining and the bouncy castles were coming down. Yang Haiwei called me to go for a beer but I had to say the kids came first, so couldn't meet him. We ended up going for another magical mystery tour and ending up doing exercises by the stadium as we've done a couple of times before. Not massively interesting in terms of doing new things but enjoyable and bonding.

Late night exercising

Back home while getting the kids ready for bed I got a message to go to KTV from the same friends as the other day and as Tan came home at 11pm I said I'd manage to come for a bit. I was glad I did - friendly people and no forced beer made for a pleasant evening and I was more than ready for sleep when I got back at 1ish.

Normal

Zhang Liangwen had invited me to go jogging at 6.30am but that didn't happen after a well-past 3am sleep last night, but I still got up before the kids and while Leilei went with Tan I took Xixi out to find somewhere different to eat. We happened upon a place with its doors shut which meant air con was on, and as it's been blisteringly hot for the last couple of days we took refuge there. The couple of women working there had hats on and I realised they were probably from a muslim part of China, so I made sure not to order pork. In the end Xixi and I both ordered beef dishes which were really good and I was surprised Xixi ate a fair amount of hers as it was pretty spicy.

Spicy beef noodles for brunch

I've realised it's just normal being here now - I hardly ever feel like taking pictures and the only reason I did of the food was just to put a message on WeChat so that the rest of my Chinese friends would know I'm back in the country. The only aspect of holiday about being here is the relative lack of work at the moment, otherwise it's been mainly catching up with old friends and enjoying the extreme weather, whether hot or raining or both. Ah yes, and managing siestas - those saviours of sanity.

The iphone palaver continued...in order to reset it I needed itunes so installed that on the work laptop but the bloody thing wouldn't connect. Then the same thing happened on my laptop so I had to put it in factory reset mode. Finally it got recognised but when I tried to reset it another error happened. That had taken the best part of an hour so I put this mini project aside as I wanted to get some ping pong in with the kids. After that we went to the guangchang, and unlike yesterday the bouncy castles were up so I let them slide into five-year-old mode and spend half an hour getting drenched there before showering early.

As it was only 10.30pm, I took the kids out on another magical mystery tour on the dian dong che. Nothing magical other than it's something we can't do in the UK and you generally get to learn something new. Today we just went on a new road and found a flashing light that turned out to be some sort of firefly. If nothing else it got me the chance to talk about how this was chemicals reacting in the fly's bum but Xixi told me off for being too sciency.

First KTV of 2017 and big storm

Up at 7am - although I could have slept longer had I decided it would not be regrettable if I went jogging but when I checked my phone I saw there was some urgent work to be done which kept me busy till 2pm. And then as I was about to fall asleep for a nice siesta another email came through that required my attention and I had to accept that there would be no sleeping this afternoon. In the end it took me till gone 10pm to finish off work so a good 15 hours.

During the afternoon Leilei came to me whining that his iphone was locked and wouldn't accept his passcode. Doing some searching it seems others have had this problem where the phone refuses to accept the correct code and the only option is to reset the phone. But in order to do that I needed itunes and basically it was going to be a real palaver and as I had work to do I put it off till tomorrow. I'm not a great Apple fan.

We had a whale of a storm during the afternoon too - I'd experience the rain before but the wind was unprecedented in my experience. Apparently trees had been uprooted in this typhoon but I didn't believe it till I saw it.

The kids were eager to go to the guangchang so I took them there after a trip to play ping pong but to their dismay the bouncy castles were not up probably due to the recent rain. Xixi was desperate to do something so I let her do some stained-plastic painting even though the average age of the other kids doing stuff was much lower. They did want to come here so much but are clearly growing out of it - they're getting to the age where the actual stuff to do here will be much less interesting and they really need some friends of their own ages to engage with. The problem is they don't know anyone and aren't really the most social people in the town to go out and meet people.

In the evening it was nice to be invited to karaoke by some friends I'd met last year. I could only make it for 11pm and I didn't intend to stay up till 3am...most of the people had been there for long before me and I had no intention of catching up on their state of inebriation but I did manage to do a couple of songs that seemed to be appreciated muchly.

Back on our dian dong che

Bloody woke up at 7am after three hours' sleep. I fought against wakefulness and lost, but did manage to watch the last 20 minutes of City v Spurs in a pre-season friendly we won 3-0 so that was quite nice. Knowing I would likely be able to snooze later I did 90 minutes of ping pong at the old people's leisure centre where I was soundly whipped but in an enjoyable way...most of them know me by name now and I barely get a minute off-table so I'm hoping it's good exercise. However it's a bit disheartening to see many rather portly bellies attached to the blokes who are so good and play for hours...I'm hoping it's because they eat too much at night. My Xiao Mi band doesn't understand the difference between table tennis and stepping though so I had a barely justifiable 8000 steps by the time I got home.

I stopped off at Lu Wen's on the way back from ping pong but didn't partake of the beef fen

I sorted breakfast for the lazy kids and then took them to Waipo's. I was determined to sort out our own dian dong che so finally found the place that fixes them and brought the bloke over to see it. He did explain what was wrong and I understood the cause was its lack of use but it wasn't just the batteries that needed changing but the dianping. I still am none the wiser as to what that means, but he said I could pick it up after tea and it would cost about 550 kuai. I like the way they time things by meals here.

I then went back home to wait for a bloke to fix the living room curtains. Gratefully he came by midday, which meant I could get to bed by 12.45 and set my alarm for 4pm. Except I'd forgotten to put my phone on silent and Haiwei called me to say he'd pick me up at 3pm for table tennis. 3pm? He'd said 8pm last night. Oh well ok I responded, just wanting an excuse to sleep - let's speak at 3pm. I did sleep but at 2.37pm the phone rang again and Haiwei was telling me to get ready. I'd blooming told him I was having a siesta but hey...I said I'd be ready by 3pm which was the original agreement, and grabbed another 15 minutes shuteye. As I was getting ready a thunderclap from hades let itself be known in the immediate vicinity and within 30 seconds raindrops the size of peach stones were hurtling down. This meant I had to bring in all the clothes and close all the windows, which led to another call asking where I was. At least I had a genuine excuse for being a few minutes late.

It turned out to be a semi-official competition between Pingguo and Bama, a town a couple of hours drive away. Each team had four players that all played each other in a first-to-three game. I practised in the background with a couple of blokes for an hour or so and then went for a rest behind the main table where they were playing. I spied a cushion on a hard wooden bench and tried lying down on it and resting my head. I did the old counting in German trick and almost immediately I started having weirdish visions and I realised I had not caught up enough on sleep. I never thought I'd actually do any genuine sleeping on a hard bench but I must have as when I got up it was 6.30pm. No-one had batted an eyelid, such is the normalness of doing such spot-sleeping here, but for me it was a first and I almost felt proud.

Flexi-table tennis ball holders for practising top spin

Of course after the competition (which we won) we were to go for a meal with the Bama team, which was fine by me as I was refreshed. And of course it was great and involved beer and cai ma, and the Bama blokes were pretty impressed with my ability. I just hope that one day they'll be impressed by my table tennis. I could have stayed longer but needed to find the kids, which gave me an excuse for a break. Then I realised it was already getting on for 10pm and I'd intended to pick up the dian dong che hours ago. So I walked over from Waip's to find the family who own the shop gorging themselves in watermelon. As soon as they saw me they invited me over to share with them, which I did willingly. The cost was indeed 550 kuai but at least we have the dian dong che back and the kids will fit on more easily now. I noted there were 1200km on the clock, so will see how long the battery lasts.

Well I took the kids back home on our trusty steed but Haiwei had called to say that some of the blokes had moved on to a bar and his son was there and he wanted me to talk English to him, so after making sure the kids were getting ready for bed I went over and spent a couple of hours with them, as Haiwei fell asleep on his chair (as is his wont) and his son told me that that makes him angry. While in the loo, a bloke started talking to me in English and insisted on adding me to his WeChat. I didn't mind but then went to his table to say hi to his friends, who were rather drunk. Another time it may have been fun but I was tired and did my best to just do a couple of ganbeis.

I said I needed to go at 1am, and woke up Haiwei. His son had been taken home by Haiwei's wife, whose name I never remember, so it was up to me to take him back on the dian dong che. Luckily he didn't fall asleep on the back and I got him, then myself home a few minutes later, but still didn't sleep till 2am.