Wii!

Finally slept before 3am, at 2.59am, but as though Morpheus was teasing me I woke up 24 minutes later. But with the help of a long podcast I managed to drop off till 7am when I thought about getting up until it was 10am. As is usual, the routine is stepping in of me going to get four portions of jiaozi and the boys getting up later to eat it. Except this time Nezha was awake. He'd asked me for some melatonin last night and it seems to have done the trick.

They had no particular plans but I wanted to see if I could get our old Wii working again, one of the few things salvaged from our old house. It and its accoutrements were dirtier and yellower than ever, and I had severe doubts. I started by cleaning the main box, which had had its folding flaps lost many moons ago. I dared clean it and the power cable just to see if the red light would come on. Thankfully I'd left an adapter on the power cable so I put it in its stand and plugged it in an lo and behold the red light did indeed come on. But that was the first of many things that could go wrong; I had to fix the broken component cable (as I hadn't brought the HDMI adapter - silly me), then see if it would actually connect to the tv, then attach the sensor, clean and set up the Wiimotes with nunchucks etc., then hope that the old external HDD would spin up and work. If any of these went wrong it wouldn't work. But one by one I set it up. It was a real pain trying to plug in the component cables but at least the tv had this connection. But it was a real faff trying to get to them after taking a photo with my phone to see the order of the colours. But when I eventually coaxed the remote control to change input to component I saw to my satisfaction the old Wii interface, with Youtube and iPlayer etc. that would never work again. It even had the correct date and was only a couple of hours out so the internal battery must have been working.

My beloved first Wii still going strong

Next was to set up a Wiimote. I was ok to buy batteries but didn't want to venture into the searing heat so looked about and was not surprised to see a couple of random AA batteries in different places. Yes! The Wiimote came to life and I connected it to its mother station and I appeared to have a functioning Wii! Next was to see if the HDD was working so went to the Homebrew channel to try but unfortunately it didn't pick it up. But I tried the suggested "unplug and replug" and this time the titles turned up on the screen (all owned of course). I dared choose Mario Kart Wii (I even brought the disk with me) and it fired up! Ah nostalgia...even the kids now can share this with me with the Wii and recently have been playing on it at home. To my chagrin I came 8th in Luigi Circuit in the Mushroom Cup, and then in Moo Moo Meadows I was doing ok until the controller jammed turning left. I unplugged and replugged it in eventually but by now I was half a lap from 11th nearing the end of the first lap. Thanks partly to skill and partly to MK Wii's simple AI I managed to catch up within a lap and coast to victory as Daisy on the Mach bike. I got through Mushroom Gorge and Toad's Factory mostly unscathed for another victory. Simple pleasures.

Not my best win but felt better

Well there was to be no siesta; I'd got up relatively early in order to get an early night as I had no idea what time we'd be going to the funeral tomorrow. I'd asked Jiuma on Weixin but she hadn't got back to me. Anyway it was 5.30pm so I asked Leilei if he was hungry. He was eating sunflower seeds which meant he was, so I said we'd go out for a bite in half an hour. Nezha had apparently gone out by himself an hour ago and managed to order a huge bowl of rice and thank the owner and say it was "hao chi" which is pretty good progress. He said he wasn't hungry but joined us as we went across the road to Tan's aunty's place, which happened to be closed so we picked one nearby and asked if they did chao fen. Yep, plus some jiu gui yumi (drunken sweetcorn) and a pork dish, plus a large bottle of full-sugar Coke. The boys both wolfed down the fen and were nearly full by the time the yumi came, over which Nezha was asking if I believed we really put a man on the moon. I said I had no real reason to disbelieve it. Then we got on to politics and whether I thought capitalism was right...ah a tricky one. I just explained that I don't like being polarised and that both sides have their virtues.

I'd like to have had a longer conversation but Leilei had spilt Coke over the table and himself and wasn't too happy. I said I'd go to play ping pong and they were both interested in coming which surprised me in a positive way. But they wanted to go to the Guanmart supermarket first and I needed to get my raquet and theirs.

So I changed clothes and turned up and so did they. It was busier than usual but some ladies let us get on their table. Soon it was Nezha and Leilei against them and they found out the hard way (as I did many years ago) that they were shit. But to be fair it didn't stop them trying and Nezha did improve a bit. I motioned to go at 9.15pm but Leilei said he wanted to play me and I would never let him down in such a situation (we first did this when he was 5). We had a great session where I was clearly better but he won some great rallies and I was proud of him!

Boys vs girls

I left the two of them playing as I wanted to shower and get to the supermarket before it closed. Indeed I got there at 10:10 and managed to pick up the shower gel I forgot the other day. I really wanted some boiled eggs so asked a fu wu yuan. She really wanted to help and was lovely but said the only cooked eggs were quail eggs. She took me to where they were and I duly spooned a few into a bag then got it weighed. Then, with 10 minutes before closing, I asked for "wash body soap" and was told to go upstairs, which I did and found the soap but also the boiled eggs I'd been looking for. Oh poor lady she probably didn't know what wasn't on her floor.

It should have been an early night but I ended up chatting with Mat and Awl till the early hours. But only because Jiuma had finally got back to me to say not to go to the funeral tomorrow as it would be too hot. As if that would be a good reason....

Impromptu meet with Zhang Hua and Li Kun again

Still maintaining the habit of sleeping late, this time an improved 3.39am till 10.18am. I knew I was due to eat lunch with Ma Laoban so didn't eat, and instead dozed a little until at 1.20pm he pinged me to say sorry he was still busy. No problem but would have been good to know an hour ago.

So lunch became the default jiao zi from the local lady. Tan's brother was back in the house. I didn't need to see him as I could already smell the wreak of cigarettes he chain smokes. I ate my jiao zi in the bedroom because of this, and got Leilei from his slumbers to have a portion.

Tan called to confirm we are going to Jiuma's mum's funeral on the 7th and to some relative's wedding on the 8th. They will cost 200 and 300 kuai respectively which I'm not complaining about. The problem is I'll have to go to the funeral by car in the morning of the 7th and I've not yet got my sleeping patterns in toe. I guess I'll just have to get up early tomorrow and deal with the consequences. I can't see the boys going.

I pinged Zhang Hua to send me a pic of me with him and his wife from yesterday and he duly did then asked if I'd eaten and if not to come round to where he was for a bite. Well I didn't look this gift horse in the mouth and said I'd leave in 10 after a quick shower. These are some of the evenings I like best; not expected, simple, and mates coming and going over the course of a couple of hours. They were in fine fettle drinking sweet potato leaf alcohol, and I even tried half a glass and it was ok, but moved to the beer after that. More blokes came, one with a wife and kid and he ordered more food to be delivered and a new table was brought out to be put alongside the first one. They all took delight in teaching me drinking terms such as "gou rou!" (I challenge you!) and "zhang li li!" (something like "this is good!").

The fact that we were eating outside, and that there was a breeze thanks to being between two large apartment buildings made it cool in both senses, and I recognised one of the blokes from the KTV last night and it was nice to see the sober side of him, though still in high spirits...

Me with Zhang Hua's son and Zhang Hua

Relaxed meal

During the meal I got an IM from Li Kun asking if I had time tonight. I did so he said to come round at 9.30pm. This gave me the excuse to leave the meal after not too many drinks, and pick up the bottle of lemon Gin from home that I'd been meaning to give him since we got here. I turned up at 9.40pm and was the first there but a few minutes later a couple of other blokes turned up and we ended up staying over 3 hours with various bbq and other stuff delivered, as we discussed politics (to a limited extent) and I gave my opinions about the last few UK PMs. But I wanted to keep to my lower limits regarding beer so made my excuses at 1am to aim for a relatively early night.

Meeting Zhang Hua at unexpected KTV

After managing to avoid a late night out last night I had some hopes for today. Though I did ping Ma Laoban and we agreed to meet tomorrow lunchtime as he was in Tian Dong at the moment. So I ventured out in the late morning scorch but I was on a charged-up dian dong che so it wasn't so bad. I just picked up some boiled eggs and yogurt in Guanmart and didn't even think about booze as I'm looking forward to another day or two off (at least reduced).

I was annoyed to see that both the bread and bbq I'd brought back yesterday were gone and thought maybe Tan's brother had appropriated them as he came back yesterday and delivered some grapes. But late morning I knocked on Leilei's door and it transpired he had taken the bread and Nezha the bbq. So much for any breakfast for me, but at least it didn't go to waste.

So as I'd been up since not long after 9am I made myself a lunch of the leftover dofu from yesterday and two boiled eggs at 11.50. I contemplated a beer to help with a siesta but decided against it, given the last 10 days or so. I managed a 36 minute snooze according to my app and I didn't try any more as wanted a reasonably early night.

It was the first evening I hadn't been invited out and decided to take advantage by going to play table tennis at 7.45pm. I will never regret this but blimey it was so sweat-inducing and after an hour and a few minutes I explained I had to go back and shower. "There's still an hour to go" opined the probably 68-year-old who'd summoned my sweat for the last hour but I just had to tell her and the others that I needed to acclimatise and would be back soon.

But after I'd peeled off my top and managed a shower I decided to ping Zhang Hua whom I've known for about 15 years on and off and should really contact. He said he'd get back to me with where to meet up shortly, and after a short chat with Mat and Awl I took the bigger dian dong che to go and meet him. Or rather him and his wife at the equivalent of a lemonade stand on the street, except this was more lemon tea.

We waited a few minutes while his wife sorted out one for me and although I'm not a great fan of sugar or caffeine my lack of sleep and food made me take a few gulps before Zhang Hua jumped on the dian dong che and a couple of minutes later we were at a KTV place. I'd really expected to have a couple of beers together on the side of a road but when we got in we saw a raucous place just get more raucous at my appearance and I was plied with food first (thankfully in this case) then weak "Budweiser" beers which was also fine as I hadn't drunk anything all day.

Zhang Hua, me (didn't manage to open eyes properly), and his wife

But blimey the state of the other people (mostly blokes) was a sight to behold. But I'd behelden it before and went with the flow. I'd been worried Zhang Hua had organised this for me but a bit of logic meant this had clearly been in full flow since a lot earlier this evening. I was asked, but not forced, to sing some English songs, and refused saying I didn't know how. Eventually we descended into cai ma which gave all and sundry lots to be amused about.

Some of the blokes were pretty excited

Finally at close to 1am  most of the pissed blokes had left and Zhang Hua and I were just playing a couple of girls at cai ma to finish off the opened beer. Zhang Hua looked a bit the worse for wear and accepted a lift back to his place which was luckily mostly on the way back to ours. Apparently the boys are out again...

More cai ma and picking up dian dong ches

Despite tiredness for some reason I didn't sleep till 5am but got up before midday to get some jiaozi for the three of us. It was a rather quiet day for a change until A Wu called at 4pm to ask if I could come to his office to eat at 6pm. Yeah, sure, but the boys probably won't come. Then got a message from him on Weixin to be there at 6.30pm. So at 6.15pm, as I was getting ready he called to ask why I wasn't there and that the food was on the table...ha!

Well I got there at 6.40pm and yes there was some food on the table, but the rest was still being cooked so I mulled around talking to some of the kids until two blokes and a woman arrived at 7pm. Ah - these guests were the reason for the meal and soon after we sat down to eat. For no more than five minutes until the nuo mi jiu was brought out. I had no intention of drinking any more than I had to and managed a few 2.5% beer ganbeis as Huang (one of the new people) got more and more red-faced, seeming speeding up the rate of ganbeis.

Then A Wu suggested playing cai ma and the other bloke leapt up as he is apparently one of the best around. So much for staying sober but at least A Wu and I held our own against the other two and by the end of the meal Huang was sleeping with his head in his hands. The other bloke was very complimentary on my cai ma and said something about going to another place to play sometime.

A couple of rounds of cai ma

I got a lift back with the lady and the other bloke and she drove at 5mph due to her bad eyesight (her admission). It would almost have been quicker to walk but the car's A/C kept me seated till we got to our complex. But I now had missions to pick up the two dian dong ches.

It was good to talk to Mat for 25 minutes or so during the walk up to the hotel where I'd had a meal with friends two days ago and I was very greatly relieved to find it all by itself in the carpark instead of where it should have been with the other bikes. It had enough dian to get back, and indeed I stopped off to get some badly needed bog roll from a modern convenience store I'd not seen the likes of before (and maybe a couple of cold ones). Then it was a walk to the stadium to see what I could do with the bike with the dead battery. I passed by the bbq area and got a shout from what turned out to by one of Tan's "uncles", except I had a feeling he actually is related. They've moved from their pitch around the corner for some reason and I said I'd be back soon if not tonight.

15 minutes later I found the second dian dong che and there were a couple of kids on similar bikes saying "hello" to me. I asked them where I could charge it up and they said I could just go into complexes around here. What an obvious idea. All I'd have to do would be to scan a QR code. So I got on it just to see how far it would take me and managed to get up to 15kph very slowly. I thought I'd chance it, and had some uncomfortable moments crossing roads when the lights changed but just made it back home to put on charge. Phew. It was getting on for 1am but thought I might as well get some bbq as the boys may want some too.

For once I didn't get pulled over by any hellos, more like responded similarly with a wave. And I waited for my 5 duck tongues, 5 beef, and 5 pork for 20 mins having another chat to Mat that lasted till I got back and had one of each by which time I was full and put them in the fridge. The boys were already back but not hungry apparently, so I brushed and went for an early bed, which didn't happen till well after 4am yet again.

Massive birthday meal

Oof woke up at midday regretting last night's excesses. Luckily I had no arranged luncheon, so made do at home. The main plan we had was Wei Laoban's son's birthday meal at a hotel at 5.30pm. Or so I thought. I'd asked the boys to come along as it may be an important event, and they were actually quite impressed when A Wu turned up in the brown BMW X6 to pick us up. We drove to his office to pick up five 5 litre bottles of nuo mi jiu first, and apparently a large moustached fish that we left in the end. Then indeed we drove to a hotel and put the bottles in one of the eating rooms with food already laid but no-one sitting there.

Being picked up in style

Then A Wu said he was going to pick up his wife and left us there with a few bosses trying to work out how to boil water using the machine at the tea table. Nezha asked how long it would be till we start and I said I honestly didn't know but could easily be up to half an hour. They clearly didn't want to wait around that long and I didn't blame them. And apparently they'd had little sleep so wanted a coffee. Where we were didn't look like there would be any Starbucks-like places but surely some cola would fill the caffeine gap? So all three of us went for a walk before the bosses could complain.

Sitting and waiting

20 minutes later we were still waiting. Then the son who's birthday it was ran up to me and jumped into my arms. He's a little chubby and I was taken aback, not to mention my back wasn't ready for this, but I managed to hold steady and slowly lower him down only to find him holding my hand and beckoning me to one of the other rooms. All three of us walked in with him to find it full of families around the largest spinning table I think I've seen. It was nice to see lots of women and children, but I was still worried about the number of men I might potentially have to ganbei with. But the son's mum came in apparently to tell us to go back to the first room, so we politely wished them bon appetit and gratefully left.

Eventually we did settle to eat at our table for the statutory 5 minutes before the booze was poured. I had promised myself to drink modestly this evening and for the most part I was good, only ganbei'ing when requested and after 45 minutes or so had maybe got through two cans. Then, we were each handed a can, or jug of nuo mi jiu, and we left to go to the room opposite. This was a suitable time for the boys to leave the meal.

Now the ganbei'ing was unavoidable; we'd bunch up into little groups of four or five people and ganbei at least once, and in general if it was the first time meeting someone you had to ganbei with them too, but as I knew virtually no-one I kept to the group ganbeis. It took 15 minutes or so to get round the table, and I was handed a new can of beer, but when we left, instead of going back to our original room we just moved on to the next room, of similar size and of similar occupants (mostly blokes). And the same thing happened for the next 20 mins. I was due to meet a friend at 8pm and it was already getting on for that, but I understood this was a pretty important event.

And then, I suppose predictably, we moved on the the huge room Wei's son had taken me to previously that must have sat 40 humans. Despite having a healthier percentage of ladies this didn't mean they wouldn't join in the ganbei'ing, and so another half an hour was spent moving very slowly clockwise getting through another can or two. At least after than we finally got back to the first room. The ganbei'ing continued and I made a final one with Boss Wei, before giving my apologies and finally leaving.

Table seating around 40 people

The "friend" I was supposed to meet at 8pm, which would now be 9pm, was more of an excuse not to stay any longer as I just need a break from the beer, and was true to my word until 1am when I ended up having a chat with Mat, Andge, and Awl for an hour or so. But at least it was a good four hour break from it.

Another double date

After a relatively calm late morning I got a call in the afternoon to eat at A Wu's office again at 5.30pm, which I happily accepted, but let him know I'd have to leave at 6.30pm as I had yet another meal to attend to at another hotel. The boys didn't want to go, which was ok, and meant I could take the one dian dong che I'd managed to charge, which would be useful for a quick exit later.

But of course even at 6pm the meal wasn't ready, which was fine by me but A Wu insisted that I stay till 7pm as it is in their culture to be late for an invited meal. Fair enough, I get the concept of being fashionably late, but it's a bit hypocritical when you call me 15 minutes before I'm due to arrive to ask me where I am!

Indeed I stayed till a little past 7pm and tried to eat as little as was politely possible but I couldn't avoid a few ganbeis. But when I saw the location of the next restaurant I found it wasn't the place I was expecting just 1 minute away but in fact well north of the guangchang. Thankfully the dian dong che had enough dian to get there relatively slowly and indeed I was fashionably late, but not as late as Boss Zhou, who evidently had also had a prior engagement. Instead of beer, we got through a litre of some sort of berry alcohol that I was told was 22%.

Afterwards, we were to go to some school to celebrate two birthdays. But after the berry alcohol I felt a little tiddly and someone helped me book a didi che to get there. Of course there was more booze there and afterwards I ended up going to the 3000° till later than is reasonable.

Pingguo Friend Day

Today is Pingguo friend day. I've tried to find the origin of this festival but when A Wu explained that 1000 years ago three friends who ran neigbouring countries got together and somehow China ended up as the main one I had to wonder why that was related to Pingguo. I have a suspicion it's a more modern excuse to go out and eat and drink, though here you could call that any day of the week.

I needed to get some random things like a coffee mug and some house slippers that actually fit my size 43 feet, so went to the supermarket by the market on the bike. At the top of the escalator in the cool A/C I noticed things had changed...there were market-like stalls to greet me. So I walked on a bit further looking for the entrance of the supermarket, before realising it was basically no longer there, and the whole place had become an indoor market. No big deal, and probably a good thing for local traders, and at least I found a pair of size 42/43 slippers for 28 kuai.

We had our evening arranged; Yang Haiwei had invited us to his friend's house to eat, then we were to go to see Li Kun perform in his band in a bar at the stadium. Sounds simple. We were still without dian dong ches so the three of us walked to Haiwei's friend's which was about 15 minutes away. He'd sent a di zhi - basically a location, but it seemed to be in the middle of an apartment complex, so I gave him a call and he said he'd send his son down. We'd met him already this year so sort of knew what he looked like and indeed five minutes later we saw what looked like him appear outside the main gate. He wasn't looking at us though, so I walked over to about 6' away from him, swearing it must be him but not trusting my western eyesight 100%. I tried calling his phone twice but it wouldn't connect, and by now the boys were with me saying it must be him. Just as I was about to ask him and risk embarrassment he just told us to follow him into the complex. It was a really surreal experience. Or maybe the culture is that you wait for your elder to greet you first but surely we were the ones sticking out like sore thumbs?

The meal was like the other day with Haiwei except this house was new and had a tv the size of a minibus. Of course Haiwei was still cooking but there were a few people to talk to for the next 20 minutes until it was served. As is their wont the boys made their excuses after a decent time during which Leilei had at least communicated with some people. He didn't have any beer and Nezha only had a couple out of politeness. And later at 8.30 there was no problem with me leaving after a few ganbeis as it's quite expected to have double dates on such an occasion.

Friend day meal at Haiwei's friend's

I showed the boys where to meet and they turned up before me but even when I got there there was no music. Li Kun said they'd wait till more people turned up. So we had a little food and drink with the people on our table and the boys did their disappearing act again. Then Xiao Nong and Ling Ming got in contact separately as they were both in the area. Ling Ming asked me to come upstairs to have a drink with him and some friends, so I was happy to do so while waiting for the music.

Wondering how strong the beer is

But upstairs in the stadium I could see nothing that looked like a bar. Not wishing to give up I started walking round the stadium and asked if it was the north or south door and they said the former which was annoying as I'd started there. So I did the tour of the stadium first floor and when I came back to the stairs I'd still seen nothing. But I heard voices behind some nondescript white door and bothered to open it to see a room the size of a janitor's office if that, full with a single table and seven men and Xiao Nong, and an empty chair for Ling Ming who had gone out to look for me. Despite the relatively lowly surroundings we spent a fun best part of an hour there just chatting. Ling Ming and Xiao Nong I'm sure have been told to keep an eye on me but they were putting them back much quicker than me. And when I decided I'd better go back downstairs to where I'd been invited, Xiao Nong decided to come with me (presumably to check on me again) and continued to down the beers making me look slow.

Sharing a couple of beers with the guys in the janitor room

Cock balls upstairs...

...and cock balls downstairs

Well we stayed for a decent while and though I didn't know any of the songs they were pretty good. Poor Li Kun had just had an extraction so apparently couldn't drink anything more than tea but that didn't seem to dampen his spirits. I left around 11.30pm and the dian dong che was clearly on its last electric wheels.

Li Kun in the corner with the drums

But I got a ping from toast friend at gone 12.30am who said if I couldn't sleep come to join some friends in the bar we met Li Kun on the first night, so as I'm not going to be here forever I thought "why not?" for the umpteenth time already this month. I decided to trust the dian dong che and to my relief it just made it, the last 100 yards at barely walking pace. And yes I ended up there till 3am but I certainly did accept the offer of a didi che home then, and would have had the bike been fully charged.

First head wash and a friendly sing-song

Up at a leisurely 2pmish for a change. A Wu called to go for head wash so I thought why not? It's been four years since the last time. I got there a bit late to see him already having a haircut and I was told to go to the shampoo room. And yes it was a very decadent hour or so of massage and facial, much of the time with hot steamed Chinese medicine blown over my face.

Not uncomfortable when you get used to the heat

Not sure what the face mask was made of

We left at 5 to pick up his daughter from school. Then dropped her off at house using face id to get in. We then picked up his brown BMW X6 for some reason and drove a couple of minutes to a boss meal at the bottom of a house. I got bloated due to drinking beer too quickly and losing at cai ma. So after a while I went for a walk and found we were close to the guangchang.

My advertising friend pinged me to invite me to a meal she was in and I saw she was quite close. So I made my excuses to the bosses, did a last ganbei, and left around 9pm. I found her in a private room with a load of other people. They were joking about a guitar but they actually had one and I ended up having it thrust in my hands and playing The Boxer.

They were all drinking Corona beer which is stronger than I'm accustomed too, so next I played Me and Julio. Then an actual guitarist turned up and two of them start singing songs with two guitars. Finally they gave one to me again and we did Sound of Silence as a sort of finale, with the actual guitarist providing some sort of accompaniment.

Unexpected music at second meal of the evening

Then Haiwei called and I saw he was also pretty close so walked to meet him with a mate which was much less fun than the previous hour, but at least some raw fish turned up. To keep the evening going I went home via racist Huang's seafood place and he was actually there and in good spirits, so had a bit of a catch-up chat. I left shortly afterwards but before I got home to top off the night a couple of random people drinking at a table on the pavement called me over for a quick drink it was literally about three ganbeis as I didn't have space in my belly for any more of the fizzy stuff.

Football "cheerleading"

Jeepers up at 3am again but this time with the help of some philosophical podcasts (well scientifically-based) I managed to drowse on-and-off till 2pm, by which time when I roused and found the boys had already gone out. I ate a couple of boiled eggs I got from the supermarket yesterday then realised we were supposed to meet at the football stadium in under 3 hours. This turned into under 2 hours, when I remembered I still hadn't registered us. And now that the lovely drizzle had left for annoying heat, I was glad to see that one of our dian dong ches had apparently charged from 12.13 to 10.30. This was a big deal as yesterday it had stopped charging after 2 hours for some reason. I wish I knew the reason though as the other bike apparently stopped charging after 5 minutes which is well annoying.

I worked out how to use the washing machine (I think) and finally went to get some jiao zi after 3pm. The boys managed 1 1/2 portions each then we went to get a new key cut for 4 kuai and I left them to get some frozen coffee while I went home to get the passports to prepare my third attempt at registering ourselves. Well I found the moved police place without too much asking but when arrived was told that the registering place was now at a different office on the other side of town. But I had a dian dong che with dian and was happy to go there.

Yes it was the typical hour or so of fuss as the person didn't know what she was doing and to be fair I had to explain the difference between surname and first/middle name in English, and the address and phone number. But an hour later we were finally officially registered as living here.

The local football team Guangxi Pingguo Haliao has only been around for 3-4 seasons, moving from another Guangxi town to Pingguo a couple of years ago. I'd seen a couple of matches live on YouTube before and wasn't massively impressed. But this year they are back to playing in front of crowds again, and boy they certainly had a crowd. According to who you talk to you have to queue up at 3am or 5am to get tickets if you weren't quick enough to snap them up online. However, if you get a kit you can go in for free as a "cheerleader".

I'd checked this with Ling Ming before leaving for China and he confirmed this and got his wife Xiao Nong to order three of them in the biggest size, and he'd delivered them a couple of days ago. But somehow it just didn't add up. Wouldn't many people just buy a kit for 120 kuai rather than queue up in the early hours for a 30 kuai ticket? Moreover, apparently having the kit can get you in to all the games too.

But the problem was I just found out a couple of days from Tan that I would have to do an interview for the local tv. She'd even written a speech for me! The news about the interview was confirmed by Xiao Nong and I'd been practising the speech while doing the registering, but I still couldn't remember it. I decided I'd try to wing it and maybe have a little Dutch courage beforehand.

Well I got home in time to pick up my kit and the lads and I were fortunate enough to find a san lun che to make the journey more bearable. I was not wearing my top but when we got there it was a sea of red, with most people milling about in replica kits. We were a little disappointed to see that our kits were not replicas, although they were the right colour, and guessed they must be the "cheerleader" variety. Then something happened that hasn't happened for quite a while here - loads of people came over to us to have their photos taken with us (especially the boys). They were wallowing in the attention and giving the peace signs etc.

Pre-match build up

It was 5.45pm and we'd been told to be there by 5.30pm and to "hurry up!". So after watching the lion dance and more supporters chanting I video-called Ling Ming and he was still on his dian dong che on the way over. So much for "hurry up!" but no surprise either. When we met I was told that we'd queue up and that there would be no ticket, and that if we wanted at half time we could leave the stadium to get something to drink and then come back. So we started queueing but the boys were thirsty so I went to get a couple of bottles and of course Weixin stopped working for payments. So I used a 20 kuai note as backup but they didn't have the 12 kuai change but thought to scan me so they could send it to me and this time it randomly worked.

But by now the boys were past security (luckily handing the flick knives they'd bought earlier in the day to Ling Ming just before) so I handed the bottles over the wall and went to queue myself. As I had a mostly finished bottle of doctored lemonade I was asked to chuck the bottle away so I took a last swig and realised that handing the water to the boys a few minutes ago was probably a bit naughty.

There was over an hour to go till kick-off but almost all the "cheerleaders" were already in their two allocated sections in the stadium, with almost no-one else sitting there at all. In the end we clearly had been given tickets with seat numbers on but it seemed that these didn't need to be honoured. A friend I recognised came to us and found us three seats near the front, then a moment later told us as we were tall we'd sit higher up. With so much time to go I fancied a beer but it didn't look like they sold anything like that here. But the "cheerleaders" were in fine fettle, as if they'd been imbibing the whole afternoon. Huge flags were being waved but it did feel a little manufactured, something akin to the "ultras" in Italian football. One of the drapes had "Welcome to hell" written on it in English.

Two tall cheerleaders

It was a full house

In full swing

I then I realised I'd had no interview, nor anything close to one. What was going to happen? Something after the (dry) match? Whatever, pretty much bang on the start whistle the clouds that had been threatening dumped 10 minutes of Guangxi juice on us, and barely anyone had an umbrella. I used my non-Guangxi top to shield some of it and it didn't dampen the spirits of us cheerleaders as we followed a couple of main guys with loudspeakers. They were screaming non-stop till half-time, and we barely sat for any of it. The second half was the same and although we won 2-1 it wasn't a great performance. It was the first time this year that I've seen westerners in Pingguo though (on the pitch).

Thankfully, no interview materialised after the match either, so Ling Ming took me to A Wu's Boss Zhou's place leaving the boys to find stuff for themselves. Eventually there was a late meal served, with extra beer to make up for lack of any at the match, and for some reason Boss Zhou ordered a takeaway portion of snails for me as he thought I wasn't eating enough.

Another boss meal

No credit and no charge

Up at 3am for a few hours but meandered through sleep till lunchtime. I received an SMS at 4.53am saying my account was underfunded by 129.39 kuai. What? Ok, the first time yesterday I could understand but this was just 12 hours later! I forwarded the text to Li Kun as I thought there must be some issue. But he just confirmed it was underfunded and that I needed to top-up. Well I wasn't going to spending 250 kuai a day. Li Kun said maybe someone had been calling abroad...but surely the boys wouldn't have been that stupid with all the messaging apps and VPN? I found out later Leilei had been calling abroad...bloody 18 year-olds...how can you not be aware of foreign phone calls? Probably because they've never really had the concept of paying for electronic communication, and don't consider the difference between using mobile data and an actual voice call.

I had my doubts about the dian dong ches and had them confirmed when Leilei had paid me back 200 kuai and I'd put it on our mobile account and had mobile data again. I tried driving one of the ches and it barely moved, meaning no overnight charging. I tried more attempts using Weixin but was going round in circles. Eventually I "followed" the company that does the charging and after a convoluted sweat-inducing few minutes I managed to get the charging light to change from green to red which I was reasonably confident it meant was charging now. Finally!

But by now it was raining again and without wheels it wasn't practical to go to the police place to register us. Tan said they were now getting very strict about being registered when you arrive in the country. If that was the case why were they closed for Dragon Boat day?

At least they still have a fairly decent selection at the supermarket by the guangchang

As it was getting on for 6pm I was aware we'd been invited out to a meal at A Wu's new office, so set about getting home to pick up the boys to walk over there. To be fair they have been ok about turning up for such meals for a while at least, but they were already out eating DFC, so I just went by myself and to be fair it was one of those boss meals they would have been fairly bored at.

I need more sleep

Bloody hell I woke up at 3.30am again. Stupidly since we took the flight I have forgotten to take my melatonin as really its main use is supposedly to counter jetlag. And I've been taking it most nights for the last few months despite almost no jets.... Well with the help of VPN and Youtube podcasts I managed to doze on and off, too tired to go to ping pong but too awake for a proper sleep. If I was living here properly I'd have just got up and got on with my day, knowing I would find a few spaces (in terms of time) to grab a nap here and there.

In the morning Jiuma had left to go to Baise, saying Erjie would turn up at 3pm. I didn't really pay much attention to that as people say lots of things here. But at 2pm Erjie video-called me to say she was outside Pingguo and was going to pop in to see Leilei. Sure enough a couple of hours later there was a knock on the door and Erjie and a couple of other ladies walked in and shrieked to see Leilei. Of course as all relatives do they remarked on how tall and how thin he is. But he seems pretty cool with that. As an 18 year-old I was so self concious about being thin. But we managed the photo-shoot and then they said they were going to Baise for a meal and that we could go with them. Hmmm...no thank you was our reply but we were told any time we wanted to go there we could get a hotel for free...yeah not dodgy at all.

Leilei with Erjie and another aunty

Leilei had forwarded me a text, which I worked out was saying the account was under-funded. What? Already, after four days? Oh well, I guess Li Kun had just got us the cards but no credit which is fair enough as we haven't paid for them yet. Topping up would be via Weixin of course and Yima's friend helped me out as I topped up my account with 50 and the same for Leilei. I tried to top up Nezha's account but it wouldn't allow me to input his number for some reason. I know when Li Kun got us our cards mine was the "main" one and the others linked to my account. In fact I'm not sure I needed to top up Leilei's at all. Anyway the text I received appeared to show my account was still 112.99 kuai in debt. So I added 100 and then 30 and that appeared to enable all three of us to get back online outside of wifi zones.

Bugger, I still hadn't registered us and we'd been here for five days already. Five days or 5 days? The former seems more correct but in this internet age do we need to bother? I understand in general from one to nine should be written like that but from 10 and above it's the number form. But is it a rule set in stone? Are any rules for the English language set in stone? It doesn't bother me that much as I'm not an English teacher but I just want one single rule to be adhered to: "literally" means exactly as is. Not similar to. If we could adhere to that single rule I'd be happy for the rest of English to swim about in the mud of ambiguity.

Well it has pretty much been raining since we got here but at 4.30pm there was a break and I took this opportunity to go to the police station. It was still overcast but only about 30 degrees so I walked it. It's such a cheap thrill, walking in Pingguo. Even though almost no-one shouts "hello!" any more, I still have an acute awareness of where I am and that to some extent I will be judged as a foreigner and I will never lose that feeling of needing to be a "good" diplomat. I got to the vicinity of the police station and asked a shopkeeper if he knew where it was. He pointed and said "not far" which was all I really needed. Three minutes later I was there and couldn't understand how I'd missed it the other day.

Inside I explained that I needed to register us and the lady wasn't sure what I meant. I wasn't really sure either so just said when we come here we need to show our passports to the local police and she seemed to get it. But then the other police woman - no, just police person - told me that I had to go to another place to "deng ji wai guo ren". I was slightly disappointed but not surprised; there have been at least five places we've registered ourselves in the last 19 years or so. She kindly wrote a couple of sentences to explain where to go and who to see in the building, which was on the other side of town and they wouldn't hear of me walking there (not least because it would take 45 mins and they closed in 30).

So after this most recent unsuccessful attempt to register ourselves I started walking back and picked up a couple of small towels for wiping the seats of the dian dong ches clean. Again, such a trivial thing as that turned into a delight of talking with the shopkeeper's daughter who didn't know how much to charge me so called her mum to find out. Yes it was only a 2 minute conversation with her but it probably gave us both more value than it would have normally...although it most ways it was totally normal. I also needed a shower mat to save us from a near-certain injury in the slippy bathroom. Neither of the shops I tried understood the Google translation of shower mat so I had to explain the action of taking a shower and slipping over in order to get them to understand what I needed. But the second shop had a dirty one hiding away somewhere.

A Wu called as is his wont and I agreed to meet him shortly at his new office. But first I wanted to sort out charging the dian dong ches. These days all the charging places have a number and a QR code, so clearly I'd need to sort something in Weixin. I duly scanned the code then got page after page of instructions in Chinese that I was gutted not to understand. This is the difference between being able to chat to a person in Chinese and actually interacting with applications. I got as far as taking a screenshot then literally writing the characters down on paper then inputting them into Pleco, and found out I needed to fund an account. Fair enough I added 10 kuai but then there was more stuff to do. I sort of gave up and sent Tan a couple of screenshots and she sort of helped. I plugged them both in and saw that the chargers' lights were green so hoped they were charging...green is for "go", right?

The evening consisted in a walk to A Wu's new office for "tea", then going out to a restaurant not far from our place. I pinged the boys and was a bit surprised to hear that they'd come over (on their hired bikes). The meal was with Boss Wei, who seems to be A Wu's main boss-companion so far this time. Plus A Wu's new wife and Boss Wei's wife and a few other people. The boys turned up to the delight of the others but Nezha said he felt sick and went to the loo. Meaning they both left minutes later. I guess it does take time for your belly to adjust here. 

At 9pm I explained I'd been invited out to see another friend so I was allowed to leave. I went to meet Lu zong at his new place in Jiang Bing Lu. Annoyingly I can't order a didi che with my phone without doing photo ID, which I'm not sure is a good idea as I have Li Kun's banking details and his photo ID attached to my phone too. So as I saw no other means of transport I just ended up walking and getting there a little late. We had a couple of beers  and bbq with some friends for a couple of hours before A Wu wanted to meet up again at a KTV bar around midnight. Again I walked the 1k or so and made it there to find them in a strangely non-singing room in the KTV place. I was getting pretty tired and it didn't help that the woman who decided to sit next to me whooped me at cai ma, And I made my excuses and left soon after 1am.

Nice grub

Awoke bang on 3.30am after 3h30 sleep. So much for getting over the jetlag. Dropped off a little between 8-11 though, and again after heating up some leftovers from Uncle Yellow's meal a couple of days ago.

Some mate IM'd me at 5.42pm to drink beer and as I had nothing officially on I said I should be able to. Then I bumped into Waterman, no, Lu Zong as is his name I now know for sure, and he asked me to go out tonight. I said I may already be busy but maybe I could come over later. I had a portion of bao zi at our local place and the woman was very happy to see me after such a long time.

Then Chen pinged me to ask me to go for a bite and I explained about the existing dates. He answered fairly logically that the bloke (who quite frankly I couldn't remember) who'd invited me for a drink hadn't even given a time so we could count him out, and that we wouldn't need to go to Lu Zong's till 9pm. So I pinged the bloke I should be seeing and explained I had two other dates and we could meet up in a couple of days, and he said "ok" and 10 minutes later I was waiting outside our building, watching Chen coming up the road in live location on Weixin. When I saw him lean out and shout my name from the right-hand side of the car I knew he must be in a didi che and that meant he was going to drink, as he's one of the few people I know who are very strict on themselves about not drink-driving.

We drove up to just north of the guangchang into a residential area where we walked in to what looked like an alcohol shop, to a great cheer from mostly red-faced people drinking baijiu. Chen was aware of my dislike of this vile liquid and had brought a load of German beer. And although it may not have been real German beer it was German strength at 5% so I knew I'd need to be careful. But I was brought straight up to the boss to gan bei a large glass of beer with his thimbleful, but after that I insisted on half or third measures when gan bei'ing the rest of the table.

I wanted to take a picture of the food and that was fine but Chen made a point of me not taking a picture of the people. I sort of got that and understood that the multiple people taking pictures with us were of their own volition.

Nice array of food at the meal

Well 9pm arrived and it was pretty clear we wouldn't be going to Lu zong's place so we went with the flow. Then I got in contact with Leilei and it appeared they had sussed out how to use the public dian dong ches using Weixin. Now that he has someone's card assigned to his account he can pay for stuff with a simple scan. So he simply scanned a couple of the yellow bikes and they both rode up to where we were. To more cheers of course! I do understand that people still like to have their photos taken with us, but I was happy it was the boys who were more the centre of attention rather than me. Apparently they hadn't eaten since lunch so gorged themselves on the grub, and in this case quite literally were eating grubs, as far as I could understand.... Well they were explained to me as "wood worms" which sounds self-explanatory but I wasn't aware they were so big.

The boys enjoying their grub

Oh dear...

The boys made their excuses after a while and at well gone 11pm I had to admit I was flagging again. But Chen is cool and understands that and won't try to force me to stay. So one gan bei later I was saying my goodbyes and not quite committing to coming back tomorrow as invited. Chen had ordered a didi che and 5 minutes later I was back home not even contemplating a night cap.

Back to ping pong and meal with Haiwei

Somehow I was up bang on 7am as if jetlag never existed. I could easily have gone back to sleep but did my trick of logicking myself into shorts and a light tee-shirt and grabbing a couple of bottles of water and my trusty table tennis bat. After a couple of mouthfuls of yesterday evening's doggy bag made my way to the old people's leisure centre for the first time in getting on for four years.

The tables had changed, as had the floor, and I recognised no-one from before. And maybe for the first time I wasn't the youngest person there. But within 30 seconds of walking into the room I was invited to play. It's one of my greatest pleasures here, at least in the morning time. The bloke I was playing decided we would play a game and for once I didn't have to ask as I knew it would be five games. I was happy with losing the first 11-8 and ecstatic to win the second 12-10! I lost the next three of course but I will still chalk it up as another moral victory. I then did the rounds with a woman of my age and another bloke before someone I recognised walked in and gave me a shout of recognition before shaking my hand and getting on the table with me. He proceeded to put me in my place until even he could see that I was waning and he told the woman to replace me. That was what I needed as it was now 10am and I could go home and get the boys some breakfast.

They hadn't rustled but I knocked to ask them for their passports as I'd need to register us with the police for our stay. But not before going to the dou jiang place we've been to for years to get them some bao zi as the jiaozi were already sold out.

Sadly my dian dong che is broken, and according to jiuma it will be 1000 kuai to repair so not worth it for 7 weeks. I told her I agreed but inside I wasn't sure. It's a major form of freedom here. But she said we could use another one that she'd bring round but she'd already told Leilei about that and he was excited about using it with Nezha. So maybe in the end I'll pay for it to be fixed and then the family-in-law will be able to use it in the future.

So I took her red dian dong che out in the rain to find the police place. This has been a bit of a wild goose chase in the past as it's been in at least three different locations. But I found the place we'd been to for the last two times and of course it was boarded up. I asked the bloke in the neighbouring water place (that was blasting music out as they do) and he said they'd moved down the road and I got him to write the name on my phone so I'd be able to find it later as apparently they were on holiday today and tomorrow as it is dragon boat holiday at the moment.

I did drive down to try to find the new place so I'd know where to go Monday and came across a police-looking place with people wearing police-like uniforms in it. I asked if they were the police and they said no it was 200 metres further down the road. 200 metres further down the road I saw nothing police-like so it's going to be a question of getting Uncle Yellow to help again I guess.

While on the dian dong che I decided to get some jiaozi from our old place near our old house. But I happened upon the water place next door first and found Waterman sitting there. He jumped to his feet and we had a hug. He immediately took a video of me and sent it on Weixin then we shook hands again and drank tea for a few minutes while he invited me to a new place in Jiang Bing Lu when I had time. He understood when I said I needed to get some food and got three portions for 18 kuai - more than the last time but understandable and still delicious. Annoyingly Weixin pay didn't work, or rather it did but said I needed to await an SMS to confirm but it never came. And a couple of doors down I picked up a six pack of Li Quan and a couple of zero-sugar lemonades as I planned to have another siesta.

The lads still hadn't stirred when I brought the jiao zi so now they had both breakfast and lunch on the table. I managed a portion of jiaozi but despite the early start only managed to drop off after 3pm to a Lex Fridman podcast thanks to Pure VPN being the only reliable one so far. A Wu called to wake me up an hour later and I didn't really know what he wanted but I told him we'd been invited to Yang Haiwei's tonight. Then I got three more calls that I thought were from A Wu so I ignored them in an attempt to get more shuteye until I realised at 5.40 that it was Haiwei calling me. So much for being ready at 6pm, he was already on his way to pick us up and wanted to know where we were.

I'd already showered after ping pong so picked up one of the remaining duty free bottles and 5 minutes later we were in his car driving to his friend's place. He spent the next 40 minutes or so cooking and the boys were asking how long to wait. But this is China and you don't ask such questions. At least there were snacks to keep the wolves from the door.

Well we started with lamb soup with lots of meat in it but it was strange that there was only us three plus Haiwei and the woman of the house. Leilei spotted what he thought was a tiny maggot and said it put him off his soup, and that put Nezha off eating the rest of his. I looked at the so-called "maggot" and could barely work out anything other than an excuse. Obviously I couldn't explain a maggot for fear of offending the cook so I just explained the boys didn't really like soup and could they have a bowl of rice instead? Of course they could and they did actually finish it before asking if they could go for a walk.

Spot the maggot

Nice meal at Haiwei's

That was the last I saw of them as the woman's husband walked in with two crates of beer in addition to the cans we'd already started on. Haiwei's younger son came out of his shell a little and spoke a very little English so I'd done my job. We went on till well after 11pm when Haiwei could see I was flagging and drove me home as you do, and I was asleep by midnight.

Music at Li Kun's and evening meal with Uncle Yellow et al

Up and down from 4.30am till getting on for 9am when it was just "up". The lads were up soon after and it seems they had had a better sleep than me but I wasn't complaining. They grabbed the showers they didn't have last night and I was pinged by Li Kun who said he was at the dentist's but would be at his place at 1pm to give us our holy SIM cards. It's always a huge deal to have a working SIM with data but especially this year as the lads will want to go out together without me and without wishing to virtually chaperone them I will need to be in contact. After all 18 years is not the most mature time of your life (I speak from experience).

They took themselves out to get breakfast and had 16 jiao zi between them. I had nothing as is my wont. Then we left soon after midday to attempt to withdraw some money from the bank and get some provisions from the supermarket. The deluge that had defined the morning had stopped but we foolishly went out without umbrellas and of course after 5 minutes it started again. We avoided most of the moisture by walking under the overhangs of the shops until we came upon the Agricultural Bank of China. Bugger - my card was not accepted in the first or second booth. We are down to 300 kuai after I found another 100 kuai in my wallet so I must sort this out soon.

I chose "English" but the error message most certainly wasn't 

We continued down to where I thought Li Kun's place was, helped by a map he sent and my memory. We were hungry so stopped into an eatery but the boys were not impressed by what appeared to be the fare or my lack of translation skills when it comes to food. So we stepped out and went to the supermarket Leilei and I had been to a few times before that sells a decent range of sugar-free drinks. Nezha wanted some dry beef but we couldn't find any so he accepted spicy wet octopus. I got two boiled eggs and Leilei some crisps as he wasn't hungry after the eight baozi late morning. I asked the ladies at the till if there was wifi and of course there was so I connected and we ate our wares as I confirmed we were pretty close to Li Kun's place.

Uncle Yellow had also contacted me to invite us to Jiang Bing Lu to eat with Boss Zhou and A Ning - friends for many years now. After last night with Li Kun I was a lot happier that the boys would come along and not be bored (at least for a while). The last time we were here it was like taking blood from a stone to get Leilei and Xixi to go out for a meal with my friends. I just hope they don't get too much of a taste for the beer.

We found Li Kun pretty easily and the next couple of hours were a wonderful mix of tea and music. It sounds a bit Leonard Cohenesque but both the lads got into playing instruments with Li Kun and myself and I saw a side of my son I'd never really seen before. Being painfully shy for most of his life he engaged with Li Kun in Chinese and music (two important languages) and Nezha was doing so too at least in music. We ended up sharing each other's music and doing some live jamming and Nezha was really enjoying it. We'd found a medium that surpassed spoken language to some extent or rather augmented it. A bit like maths in a way...totally international. We left only to get some rest at our place as we knew we'd be going at at 6pm to see Uncle Yellow.

I managed a snooze from 3-5pm despite the Vanilla full-sugar Coke I bought thinking it was both sugar and caffeine free, while the boys went out to see the town again. Yes, Pingguo is officially a city now...for the last 3 years or so but it will always be a town in my heart. 

Soon after 6pm we left for Jiang Bing Lu by the river. It would be about a 20-odd minute walk if we couldn't find another means. But on a corner I saw three or four white cars about the size of a Ford Focus - too small to be boss cars but too similar to be a coincidence. So I asked the driver of one of them if it was a taxi, but he didn't seem to understand, so I thought I was mistaken (租车 isn't it?). But then I double-checked using the international term "taxi" and he nodded and even said "yes" in English. So we jumped in and I said Jiang Bing Lu but he seemed unsure...normally such taxis are hailed by the Didi Che app in WeiXin but I didn't think it would work for me as I need to set it to my new number. But I showed him on the map on his phone and we were there four minutes later. I was getting my money out when he asked if I couldn't pay by WeiXin. I thought I'd try it anyway and he said 6 kuai, and to scan a certain QR code. As if by magic it actually worked as I still had some money in my account.

Uncle Yellow, his family, Boss Zhou, A Ning, and a couple of other people were there at a table not in a private area, and for the next three hours or so what followed was a typically lovely meal. Nezha was asked what he'd like to eat and he answered "chicken" when I translated the next thing we knew that a fresh one was being tracked down. Nezha wanted to see it being slaughtered but we were told it was not possible. I doubt that but they probably preferred our company at the meal. And indeed 45 minutes later the dish was served. But the boys, as has been their wont so far at every meal (both of them) wanted to go for a walk for a while and I explained it was Nezha's first time in Pingguo and he wanted to see the place so it was ok. Also, unlike last night they were on Coke and water instead of beer, which I was relieved to see (worried that they'll get a taste for it).

I pinged A Wu during the meal as I thought I ought to let him know I was there rather than him find out by seeing me cai ma on Douyin. Of course he was about and told me to come to the KTV place after I'd eaten. Uncle Yellow was fine with this so we dropped the boys off and I walked the rest of the way to the KTV place. At the counter I showed the address that A Wu had sent, thinking it would be one of the posh rooms but actually it was another Boss Zhou's place behind the KTV building that I'd been to copious times before. A Wu was in fine fettle and grabbed me and picked me up with his bearhug. There were over a dozen drunk men and a couple of sober women around the table and I had to ganbei with most of them, multiple times over the hour or so that I spent there. I was flagging and said I had to go at about 11.30 so A Wu came with me. For once we didn't drive or take a taxi, but walked the 10 minutes to Jiuma's place where I wasn't even tempted with a nightcap.

Back to Pingguo

 Got up reasonably early and my breakfast comprised last night's dish but the lads didn't want that so went out to find something. I asked them to bring back some food for the train journey. When they got back I asked what they had bought for the journey and the answer was "I forgot". Bloody 18 year-olds....

At 11am I went to reception and asked about the shuttle to the train station. I thought I'd understood what she told me and she said the next one was in half an hour so we got our stuff together and went down again. I asked if the room had been paid for but the answer was neither "yes" nor "no". I didn't really have time to ask exactly what that meant so just asked if I needed to pay anything - "no" was the answer I was hoping for and what I got, which is fortunate as we only have about 300 kuai left between the three of us and Pingguo.

The near midday heat was very close, but manageable. That was until the clouds parted and I realised why everyone else was standing in the shade of the fronts of the shops; I could feel myself burning within seconds, not to mention globules of sweat running down my face. I saw two minibuses, or bread cars as they're known here, and I saw that our ticket had 20000D printed on it which was the numberplate of one of them so we looked to be safe. But as the driver opened the side door people appeared from nowhere and pushed to get in with their huge suitcases and I realised that without doubt we really were back in the mainland. But I was worried as we also had huge suitcases and there was almost no space left, and then another lady rudely pushed in plonking her own white box of a suitcase on the step. I nearly said something but bit my lip. A man already in the van calmly redistributed the baggage that was already there and we all managed to fit it all in, though it was a very tight fit. Then the driver announced that this wasn't the van to go to the tube station, and the rude woman with the white suitcase had to disembark in shame (well I hoped it was shame). Still, there were two oldish women standing in the aisle, so I offered one my seat but the driver was telling two other women sitting down with their toddlers to put them on their laps to allow the elder women to sit down. You shouldn't need to be told to do that. The last 5 minutes were incredibly sweat-inducing, not helped by the bit of stress about possibly not getting in and the lack of A/C.

But we got there with two hours before our train, and the cool air emanating from the station was more inviting than anything we could have seen or heard or tasted at that moment. I'd been reading up about train luggage security and there are some very specific rules, such as no aerosols greater than 120ml. Effectively all your luggage is hand luggage on a train, so I'd been careful. But there is generally an air of randomness, and I was hoping we wouldn't get a strict official as we had five litre bottles of duty free (the rules say max size is 500ml) and our suitcases were over-sized and mine was overweight. As we put them in the scanner I noticed a man in front of me was taking various bottles out of his luggage and taking a sip of each one in front of the security woman, presumably to prove it was not dangerous. This was not really a surprise to me as I'd been asked to do that before, but I didn't want to open the duty free and take a lug of neat orange gin. As it was, all three of us went straight through and were not asked to open a single bag. I'll tell Tan that but if they are asked to open their bags it will be my fault!

Despite the air con the midday sun was coming through the transparent roof and causing us to sweat in our seats, so I tracked the source of the air con and found seats as close to it as possible and it was so much more comfortable there. The lads went on a walk around the station, and I realised there was no wifi here, and we would probably be without a connection until we got to Pingguo unless things have changed and the trains now have it. So I just sat back and people-watched for the best part of an hour, enjoying a lot more than I would have done at any train station back in the UK. I went for my own gander when they came back with a bit of food and thought I'd just double-check that we didn't need a paper ticket. There was a small queue for the information desk but people just kept pushing in in front of me before I could get to talk to the bloke. I hate this, and hate to do it myself but eventually I just had to force my voice to be heard and my body to lean on the counter and eventually got the e-ticket information confirmed, and the quay (A28) we were to go for. There was "only" half an hour to go so I thought it best to get over there. Indeed there were already queues and once again it was sweaty time. Luckily they opened a new queue for manual ID checking and of course there was a mad rush for it. But we were patient and eventually very relieved to find there was plenty of space for our suitcases as that is not always the case on crowded trains. A justification for the extra 15 quid each for first class. Pity they couldn't put on any wifi though....

The three and a half hours took a little less than that as we were now pretty relaxed. The next thing that could go wrong was changing trains in Nanning East as annoyingly when we booked the tickets the direct trains to Pingguo were already sold out (two weeks in advance). At Nanning we arrived 10 minutes late but still had 31 minutes to make our connection. It turned out we nearly needed all that time as when we went to change platforms a worker apparently needed to see our passports again. Then when she told us where to go we needed to show our passports again to get there. Again we had first class just to give a better chance of getting luggage space and indeed there wasn't as much as the previous train. But the lads were able to put their suitcases behind the end seats and we went to sit down for the last 59 minutes of our train journey. And it passed by relatively smoothly despite not being able to keep an eye on our luggage. We got off at 18:40 and I breathed a deep Pingguo sigh of relief and remarked to the lads "welcome home!".

It was genuine relief...it felt like there could be no going back now. Literally living the dream (or nightmare had it been full of westerners ). I'd not asked anyone to pick us up as perhaps I should have done but wanted to do something under our own steam. Three years ago Leilei and I had shared a san lun che from the station to home and I fancied doing the same thing, despite half joking they probably didn't exist any more. But that looked less like a joke as we passed the taxi drivers but I was determined and finally we came upon a group of ladies and their three-wheelers and negotiated two of them to take us to Waipo's place. The lads loved this welcome to Pingguo - so much more interesting than a boring taxi.

Taking san lun ches back home

Jiuma was there to greet us and within a few minutes we all had our rooms and started the A/C. Leilei and Nedas decided they wanted to go out for a walk and I didn't argue, preferring to sort out my bags and grab a shower.

But first I asked if they had wifi and breathed a massive sigh of relief when she said she did, and 3 minutes later we were online again after 7h40m without connectivity. The VPNs were still playing up but I could get connected to people on WeiXin, so let the appropriate people know we were safely back in Pingguo, and I agreed to contact Li Kun when the boys were back.

So at 8.30pm Li Kun sent his location, which was on the south side of the football stadium and told us to get a didi che taxi there. I told him I couldn't use WeiXin to order one so would take a san lun che. He then told me there weren't any so I told him how we got back from the train station and anyhow worst case we'd just walk it in 15 mins.

Well it seems he was mostly right about the san lun ches, as we saw none and walked up through the guang chang in full swing. Yes, we were well and truly back. As we got to the foot of the stadium we couldn't see the place named 两室一厅 (Two bedrooms and one living room) so asked one of the outdoor food stall people. But she didn't know and told us to ask someone at the traffic lights. We had no idea of the significance of the traffic lights but headed in that direction before asking a bloke running a clothes stall. He didn't know either but when I showed him on the map he looked at the actual address of the place and part of it was 北们 (north door). Given we were on the south side of the stadium we said our thanks and headed to the north side. Interestingly, the floodlights were on and we could see people walking about as though it was a new feature of Pingguo.

In fact Guangxi Pingguo Haliao are top of the Chinese League 1 (2nd division) at the moment and I was keen to go and see them. Until I heard people have been queueing up from 5am to get their hands on them as the online ones sold out immediately. However, Ling Ming told me that if you buy a top for 120 kuai you can get in for free as a "cheerleader". So a week or so back I asked him to get 3 for us and indeed his wife Xiao Nong obliged and we hope to pick them up soon, but whether we'll actually get in or not is another matter. Wouldn't loads of people just buy a top to get into a match rather than queue up that early?

Anyway at the north side we quickly found 两室一厅 with Li Kun and two friends the only occupants. It was like nothing had changed. His male fried was already half cut and the female friend drank and served tea. The boys, having only had some crisps and sweet snacks since breakfast (due to having forgotten to get lunch) were famished and as soon as the soft chilli peanuts were served set upon them. But with chopsticks this can be frustratingly slow one at a time, so someone brought a spoon for Nedas. Well actually he is now known as Nezha, who is a famous character from around the time of the Monkey stories (he is a naughty boy in them). When the bbq started to be served 15 minutes later the two of them wolfed it down. I've never seen Leilei eat so much in one sitting.

The bbq went quickly

When they were full they went for a walk for 20 minutes or so and said they were tired when they got back, so Li Kun ordered a didi che and used the address Tan had given me. I hadn't used this address with the san lun che drivers, preferring just to give them the name of the street and then pointing until we got to the house. I told Leilei to message me when he was home (we had wifi in the bar) but after 15 minutes was concerned when I'd heard nothing. There wasn't much I could do; they had no means of communication and only a key to the house. Finally, after about half an hour I received a message saying the taxi had gone to the wrong place. I have a suspicion there is more likely to be something wrong with the address as Li Kun had pasted it in the app when ordering.

After another 40 minutes or so I was flagging myself so Li Kun ordered me a didi che, but this time I showed him on the map where to go. As per usual the car turned up in under 2 minutes (I remember the days when Uber used to be quite good), we said our farewells and we'd meet up tomorrow when he'd sorted our SIM cards.

A couple of minutes later I was standing outside our complex 御景华庭 but before going in I thought I'd get three bottles of water for us. Well that turned into a walk to Huang's Beihai seafood place. I suppose it was lucky he was away in Beihai on business for a couple of days as I shouldn't be out too long, but some chaps at a nearby table recognised me and invited me for a beer. Well...I told them I couldn't be long as the boys were at home but still a bowl and a glass were shoved in front of me. I stayed for maybe 15 minutes and of course when I took three bottles of water and a can of lemonade they wouldn't let me pay for it.

Back home I saw a missed call from Li Kun and a message asking if I'd got home ok so I replied giving my reason for being a bit late...I guess he was a bit concerned, as I was about the boys earlier on. They didn't come out for their water so I assumed they were asleep. Something that I unwillingly avoided until nearly 3am according to my watch/app.