Trifecta of massages ain't that great

I got a wake up call from A Wu around 10am asking if I wanted to eat dog with the bloke that called me last week. Against what I felt like saying, I said yes. At 11.30 I got picked up but instead of going to eat straightaway, we went to an estate agent where A Wu went on to apparently buy a garage. I know he bought a house last year that he is yet to decorate, so I suppose it makes sense. However, given the state of the tiny, messy place he calls home at the moment, I'm surprised his priority wasn't to decorate and move into his new place. I was asking the ladies about the price of the flats, and was told 2300 kuai per square metre, which isn't that much more than the 2000 we paid three years ago, and certainly less than the 3000 I'd been told about last year. Given the glut of new blocks of flats being built I'm still having problems working out how prices are still rising. Assuming it's true, it must be that Pingguo is sufficiently big that it is drawing in more people from the countryside, and that people here are getting richer. I've seen nothing to contradict this so I should be right at a simplistic level. But it seems strange when you read about the various Chinese ghost towns, which have many familiar looking blocks of flats, but no dwellers, like Chenggong http://blogs.worldbank.org/transport/rise-of-the-chinese-ghost-town.

At midday we went to drink tea for a few minutes in the place where I have my own teacup. But this time as we literally only had a couple of minutes A Wu told the lady not to bother with tea so we just drank hot water instead. I nearly asked why we went to drink tea in the first place but thought better of it. We then drove to a place near the goose restaurant and I found out it was Boss Tao's place, he of the iron ore business who had worked with A Wu six years ago. He told me I'd put on weight (why, thank you) as he shook my hand. Then a few more blokes turned up but there wasn't yet any food, so I decided to go on a little wander around.

Other than boss Tao's house just about every other building in the road was either a cheap hotel or a massage parlour, with a ratio of about 2:1. The hotels charged from around 60 kuai a night, and had "o'clock" rates (the hotel translation, not mine) from 28 kuai, which I guessed were per hour, given the nature of the other establishments. However, they all had families sitting about inside them and didn't actually look seedy.

I then got a call from one of the blokes to eat. Back at Tao's place the food was on the table. Centre stage was a big bowl of duck. I had been expecting dog, but someone said that the dog had run away. I gathered that this was a joke, and it didn't matter one jot as the more important thing about these meals is the company. But there was something different about the beer-drinking - rather than just pour out people's glasses and gan bei, everyone was given their own bottle, which was kept under the table by feet (very kickable and yes at least once was one toppled). Whenever you gan bei'd you filled up yourself from your own bottle, which I gathered was a means of keeping tabs on how much you'd drunk. Once, Boss Tao filled up my glass with his bottle and I caught him in the act, exposing him to the table and forcing him to drink his before filling his glass with the contents of mine and forcing him to drink again. I'm not sure this was actually a drinking game but for the rest of the meal there were various attempts by some to fill others' glasses, which I found pretty amusing.

Gan bei'ing at Boss Tao's

But coming up to three bottles downed, I was feeling the bubbles and explained I needed to go for a walk to settle my tummy. When I mention things like this honestly there is never a problem as they know I'm coming back. Even the other streets around here were littered with more cheap hotels and I almost got lost. I had a slightly weird experience when I came across a number of dumped dummies in an alleyway behind some restaurants (and presumably clothes shops), and thought I might be on the set of some science fiction film. 15 minutes later I rejoined my friends to continue. I managed a few more bites and another bottle before going for a wander again. I looked inside the massage place with the pink curtains and it looked totally innocent. Then Boss Tao came to me and insisted I went for a foot wash. I was absolutely fine with that as it meant I wouldn't have to have any more beer, and indeed it was a totally innocent foot wash and massage, which I really appreciated by nodding off for a couple of minutes in-between the blokes coming round to see how I was.

Legloss in Pingguo

By the time I'd finished it must have been 4pm. A Wu then said we'd go for a massage. Having just had one as part of my foot wash I wasn't in need, but neither was I in need of arguing with the idea. We rolled up to a place 30 seconds away, which was more of a "professional" massage place and walked to the third floor with Driver, who I since know is called A Shan. Once in our room we each laid on our massage bed and A Wu promptly fell asleep while A Shan and I were massaged for the next hour.

Maybe because he hadn't had a massage, or he really needed to pay attention to his hair, when we finished, and A Wu woke up, he decided to go for a head wash. Well I'd just had a double decadent two hours, was I going to turn down a trifecta massage mayhem? This time A Shan didn't come in, and the head wash half of the 50 minutes was lovely. The wet massage on the back and neck wasn't quite so amazing as usual, and the rest of the massage part was, quite frankly, unnecessary and bordering on painful. I'd managed to reach the threshold of pleasure and started to turn the circle back. It is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Though it was getting on, neither of us were hungry. My only important goal for the evening was to watch City v Southampton to start their Premier League campaign, and opined that we should go to a bar to watch that. A Wu had agreed, but by the time we were ready to go to the bbq place it was already 10pm, having faffed about as one does. We picked up Lu Wen and his daughter, and I got an order for some bbq from Tan too. By 10.50pm the bbq was still being cooked so I went home to see if I could find the match on telly or t'Internet. I was still searching when they came back with the bbq. Then a few minutes later A Ni and A Da turned up too so we had a fairly impromptu gathering in our living room, which is what it is for, really.

As we noshed on the duck tongues and fatty beef I searched in vain for a decent picture, while A Wu insisted on trying his bottle of Spanish "Porto". Those words don't go well together, and the "wine" did not go with anything other than lemonade, unfortunately. So the three of us blokes chugged it quickly so we could wash it down with beer. If it had been the UK we'd have poured it down the sink. We finally got a reasonable stream of the match so I stopped cai mai'ing (as I was losing badly) and focused on the football. Shockingly, we let a 1-0 lead turn into 2-1 just as we had against QPR. I had a similar gutted feeling as I had on the last game of last season, only not so deep. Similarly, when we managed another comeback to win 3-2 the relief paled in comparison to winning the Premier League! It was a deserved three points but our defence is certainly suspect, after performing so well for the first half of last year.

Nice siesta before another meal with Bak sec Zhai

At 6.49am I gave up trying to sleep and went to my study and taught myself how to pluck some of "A Most Peculiar Man", by Simon and Garfunkel, on my four year old guitar with two year old strings. No particular reason, but it had been going through my head for an hour or so so I thought I'd exorcise it.

Much later in the morning Tan got up. The kids had both stayed at Waipo's so there wasn't too much to do so soon, luckily. But the clouds disagreed, and pelted down one of the reasons why we have such good fruit here. That was all very well, but we don't really have any food to cook in the house, despite having a cooker and everything else we need. So at not long after midday I volunteered to get some fodder and both Tan and Ling Ming seemed grateful and put in their orders for rice and meat dishes, together with soup. I took the umbrella and not the dian dong che and went to a nearby place to get the food. As preparation for a much needed sleep I had a tiny gin just before leaving. By the time I was waiting for the food I'd ordered I was feeling decidedly light-headed, but made it back ok to eat.

I called A Wu to ask about eating tonight with Bak sec Zhai, and we managed to organise that we would do so at around 6pm. This gave me five hours to catch up on shuteye in the kids' room as Tan was chatting on her phone in ours. It didn't take much fark browsing on UC Browser before I was zonked. I did wake up at 3pm to go to the loo, and because the kids have a white curtain that keeps out the light less effectively than a magnifying glass, and I found that I was alone in the house, I moved back to our darker, cooler room and straight back to sleep until my alarm woke me dead on six. I did feel dead, and could have slept far longer, but I would have regretted it.

I had three missed calls. I knew as soon as I called one of them I'd be told to hurry up. So I lay down for two minutes, enjoying the last calm two minutes of the day, before calling Bak sec Zhai, and then A Wu, who sent his driver around straightaway despite me saying I'd be 15 minutes due to needing a shower. This shower did its trick and I pulled on some long trousers and went down to be picked up. We got to Bak sec Zhai's Pingguo house by 6.30pm where he had arrived a little earlier from Nanning. There were a couple of blokes and his family there, and I noticed that the front of his house had a great view of the guangchang. But Bak sec Zhai was more concerned about getting us down to drink and eat, in that order.

A couple of blokes had cooked up a nice feast of local dishes, including a particularly tasty Bangxu dish of raw fish and peanuts. But Bak sec Zhai was still more interested in drinking beer and I was reasonably happy to go along with this as I'd had a long week of work. The kids had eaten already and were suitable amused by the fish tank and a pet bird, so we ate and drank for half an hour or so until Tan and A Ni arrived and did the same. I had to have a break another 30 minutes later so went to the living room to check on the kids who had been suspiciously well-behaved. I spied a piano and decided to torture it by playing The Entertainer and Maple Leaf Rag, plus what I could remember of Bridge Over Troubled Water. I was rather rusty, and the piano was mostly in tune, which accentuated the imperfections, but when I returned to the room to continue the meal I received an unexpected round of applause (from the adults).

Gan bei'ing with Bak sec Zhai

I hinted that we'd better go at about 9pm, after having lost cai ma and being plied with more 3% Li Quan beer. This time it was agreed that the meal was just about over so we said our fond goodbyes, and A Wu took me to the head wash place we tend to frequent. He left me there, and I had a most wonderful 50 minutes or whatever it was...nothing beats a head wash and wet massage after a good meal with friends. Well...almost nothing.

Somehow I got back home a bit later and A Wu and A Ni were there. For the first time this year we actually put my "running dog" tea table into use and brewed up some particularly nice flower tea that the men and women enjoyed together. A Wu got me a nice tea cup and we also brought up a bottle of "Porto", though after having read the label it appeared to come from Spain. From my previous experiences of drinking Spanish red wine in China I advised against opening it up tonight, and said we should save it for another day. So we opened a couple of beers to, ahem, complement the tea, but more to complement the new English football season - hurray! It was more enjoyable knowing that City aren't playing till tomorrow, and when all had gone I did stay up on my own to watch Newcastle beat Spurs 2-1, although a draw would have been the fairer result. I don't know if getting to sleep at 3am was early or late.

End of work for this summer and Tan back

Hopefully last day at work. Yet again had not enough sleep so after waking up Leilei and picking up Xixi I came back from the school run and lapsed into dreamland again.

Later in the evening A Wu called to invite me out to sing song. He knew I was working and he knew that Tan would be back late but still asked me when I could go. I said probably not at all but if so 12.30am at the earliest. I think he got the message I wasn't going.

Tan came back at 1am, A Ni having driven back from Nanning airport after minor delays. The silly girls hadn't checked the temperature in Qingdao and hadn't brought enough clothes so had picked up a bit of a cold. It didn't help that all three walked to the car in the pouring rain in Nanning, rather than one of them doing so and picking up the other two (and presumably putting the air-con on inside). I think us blokes would have been more practical.

It has been the hottest week though here in Pingguo. Although it has rained a fair bit, when it hasn't it's been particularly hot and humid, so much so that for the last couple of days I've been working from our bedroom as it has air-con.

Well Tan was tired and complaining of flu-like symptoms, which didn't please me either so I let her sleep. Unfortunately, this did not extend to me. I have had a dodgy tummy for the last couple of days and spent too much time travelling to and from the toilet.

3 hours' sleep and morning siesta

Leilei had got to sleep at around midnight, and Xixi was at Waipo's. I nearly fell asleep about 2am but for some reason didn't, and it was 6am before I finally managed it, after remembering to set my alarm. Even getting up to 100 in German hadn't knocked me out by 3.30am. I'd gone back to reading fark.com comments on my old Nokia E71 using UC Browser. It's a bit like Opera Mini in that it reduces page sizes by around 90%, but even better, it has a "Night Mode", which is really just turning the background dark blue, with the text a slightly lighter shade of blue, but it generally works for not disturbing Tan (or Leilei tonight) and also for tiring the eyes before beddybyes. Not last night though.

Anyway I did get up three hours later at 9am and managed to get Leilei up a few minutes later. I called Waipo to get Xixi prepared but when we turned up 15 minutes later she was just stirring, in the makeshift bed on the floor with Chuan Chuan. We'd brought some breakfast but it took some time before the kids had eaten and washed and brushed and it wasn't much earlier than 10.30 before they were at school. This meant it was nearly 11am before I was home and ready for a much needed siesta (if you can do so in the morning).

But it was worth it and I slept like a baby till 3pm! Then the rest of the day was work work work....

Minor accident on the dian dong che

I did wake up at 10ish, and called Nong Kaicheng to see how Leilei was. Of course he was fine, and wanted to play more and not go to school. Well, it is his summer holidays, and I was tired, so I said ok and then phoned Waipo to say that Xixi wasn't going to school either before going back to sleep for a couple more hours.

As per normal I went to Waipo's for tea at 6pm, and both the kids were there so I got some baba time with them. One of the weird things about this country for me is that suddenly I hear my name being called by loads of kids "baba!". It really took a lot of getting used to as in the UK when I hear that it's inevitably one of mine.

After the meal I took Leilei to Nong Kaicheng's again, before doing a little bit of shopping for some fabric conditioner. It was now gone 8pm and dark, but I didn't expect what happened next. Right in front of me a van pulled out from being parked and started a u-turn manoeuvre. This is quite normal but normally they see you and let you go. But this bloke despite the driver's side being close to me just carried on. Unfortunately I don't have this reflex of bibbing all the time. In fact Leilei has counted every time I've bibbed this year and has only got up to three. Also unfortunately the brakes on my steed are random/non-existant on the front and pathetic on the rear, so although I slowed a little, I could not avoid hitting his front left bumper at which point he finally noticed me. It wasn't a big bump and I hadn't fallen over or anything, but I told the driver to use his eyes. He didn't seem offended, or in anyway surprised, and just said that there was no damage. I drove off, remembering that I no longer had a front headlight on the bike and quite possibly he wouldn't have seen me even if he had looked.

Later in the evening I got a call from Leilei, who wanted to stay with me tonight. Fair enough, as long as he did some homework - he's supposed to be writing a diary but he's very behind, and very reluctant to do it. But we made a deal and he wrote a few sentences with my guiding.

Tan to Qingdao but "normal" working day for me

Tan left to go to Qingdao this morning with A Ni and A Xia. Apparently they'd arranged this on the fly a couple of days ago. So I took the kids to school and arranged with Ling Ming that he'd pick them up and take them to Waipo's after school so as I could do my work. This worked ok but it wasn't great not seeing them all day. Still, it's only till the end of this week that I'll be working and Tan will be away.

During the evening I got a call from A Hua, Nong Kaicheng's mum, saying Leilei was with them and was going to stay the night. Apparently theirs is one of the many houses in Pingguo that have a Leilei toothbrush and a change of clothes. No problem for me.

After work at 12.30am I went out for a bite to eat at Chang's place "Small eat big love". There was a table full of blokes I'd met before and we spent the next hour and a half chatting and gan bei'ing as you do. Although I'd ordered some bbq, and eaten some of their lovely baby fried shrimps that you don't have to peel, they wouldn't let me pay for anything. I said I needed to go at 2am, as I had to take the kids to school, which is a reasonable excuse so a couple of gan bei's later I walked back to the bike. No sooner had I got on that I was called over to a table with a few blokes and girls. I thought, "sod it, why not?" and went for just half an hour for a tad more gan bei'ing and chatting. It's sort of justifiable as it's genuinely good for my Chinese (I kept telling myself). Then, at 3am I got a call from Nong Kaicheng's number. Unsurprisingly it was Leilei, a bit upset. He'd woken up and wanted me to take him home. I told him it was too late, and to get back to sleep. Quite frankly it would have been a bit irresponsible of me to have done so on the dian dong che after a few beers, and maybe worse to have walked him for the 10 minutes it would have taken. He seemed ok in the end, and I said I'd see him in the morning.

BBQ paid for again...

Back to work...boo! I got a call at 10.30pm from a "friend" I'd met at some previous time one evening probably at the bbq place. He asked me to come out to eat and drink. I explained that I was busy at work and wouldn't be able to make it till 12.30am at the earliest. That was fine, apparently, and I should call him then to meet him. I finally finished at 12.45 so called him but got no reply, so I texted to say I was ready, only to receive a text back saying he'd gone to bed! Life's like that sometimes. At least it's easy to find somewhere else to eat, so at 1am I popped out to the guangchang bbq place and before I could make my order I heard my name called from two tables. I recognised Lu Wen and made a quick order of five duck tongues and five fatty beefs before sitting down with him and about eight mates. Needless to say there was much gan bei'ing and cai ma but sometimes that is nice after a hard day's work. Needless to say too was that I found my bbq paid for by Lu Wen before I had the chance to do so myself, not that I was able to eat much of it as they already had enough food on their table.

Expensive shirt before train back to Pingguo and meal with Boss Hu

There was no particular plan for today, so we got up lateish and moped around the room getting our things ready. The kids had left sweets and biscuits everywhere and it was quite messy. Also the towels hadn't dried from last night so I had to dry myself with not much more than a facecloth after my shower. Only around midday did we finally arrange to check out. A Wu had left at 8.30am apparently - he'd been called to do some business at a local hotel. So I called him and he got Driver to pick me and the boys up, the girls begrudgingly accepting to take Xixi with them.

We went to a posh hotel with a huge foyer, and found A Wu, with Er Jie and rich uncle, the same three who had delayed our departure for Nanning yesterday. They had had a bit to eat, and now Er Jie and rich uncle were leaving. As it was lunchtime I ordered some stuff for us and we had a reasonably civilised meal in rather splendid surroundings. We were just about to leave when my tummy sent a signal that it would require the accompaniment of a "ma tong" (sit down toilet) within four minutes. I thought it much safer to seek refuge in such a hotel than risk a squatter elsewhere. I was relieved to see a disabled cubicle in the men's bogs and sure enough it was the only shitter with a sitter. And I had no phone reception either so I enjoyed ten minutes all to myself - almost worth the price of admission on its own.

A Wu had told me he was going to buy me an item of clothing. Whether this was just a friendly thing to do or a comment on my existing wardrobe I didn't ask. We got in the car and as we were leaving the hotel a security guard knocked on the window and we had to pay 15 kuai to get out. Scandalous that a paying customer has to pay to park in the hotel he's spent so much money in!

We drove to a shopping centre close to where we were yesterday and visited a few clothes shops, A Wu asking me to try on various shirts. Typically they were too small, and we had a bit of a laugh at that. In each shop, the ladies (always ladies) poured us cups of tea and offered us and the kids sweets. I nearly went for a top in one place but they said they only had a size 52, which was a bit tight on the shoulders, and it would take 20 minutes to get a size 54 delivered. A Wu was having none of that so we spent half an hour looking around and ended up at a previous place that did have a blue flowery shirt that fitted me ok. A Wu voiced his approval, and that we would take it. Then I saw the price tag and was aghast. 2580 kuai, or 250 quid. A Wu took out some dark blue envelope that must have been some sort of voucher. He "paid" for the shirt and seemed quite happy that there was still 5000+ kuai on it. Now it is a nice shirt, but there is no way it is worth 10% of its price tag, and I'd love to know exactly what was going on. I know that when you do buy things you get vouchers for future purchase but this seemed excessive - I even wondered if there was some sort of money-laundering happening.

Tightly parked dian dong ches lining the streets outside the shopping centre

Well, the lady took my Man City shirt and put it in a bag as I was to wear the most expensive item of clothing I have ever owned for the rest of the day. A Wu then said he wanted to buy a new phone. Despite its old-fashioned looks, I've been impressed by his phone of the last couple of years; it takes two SIM cards (as so many do over here) and the battery lasts ages. But of course he went straight to the iphone stand. Well, not quite straight - I told him about the Galaxy 3S, and that it was newer than the iphone, and may have certain advantages, but then stopped in my tracks. I'd have to get geeky to show how it might be better and when people have this iphone look in their eyes it's worse than any rose-tinted spectacles. They just want one and that's it. It's a great phone, no doubt. It's just the way it zombifies people that puts me off a little.

Anyway, I didn't have time to stay with him. After the journey down I didn't want a repeat of the lack of safety and discomfort on the way back so Leilei and I were to take the train. It transpired that he wanted to stay with A Da, but by that time the women had joined us in the mobile phone emporium, and Xixi was more than willing to go back with me. It was 3pm and I had already checked the timetable and the next train was at 4.20pm so we were told to hurry and get a taxi to the train station.

It took longer than expected to find a taxi, and we crawled all the way to the station, arriving at 4pm. I realised we needed to rush a little so we found the shorted queue and waited patiently. I lost my patience soon after as the bloke at the front of the queue seemed incapable of understanding the ticket seller, despite the fact I could. I felt like translating to him as he couldn't decide whether to buy a single or return ticket. I guessed it might be quicker to move to another queue, so did, and was promptly followed by a couple of other people. This queue moved faster, but I was slightly concerned that people were waving their id cards while purchasing tickets. Finally at gone 4.10pm we were at the front of the queue. I asked if there were seats on the next train to Pingguo, and was answered in the negative. I thought about it for three seconds before realising I didn't have much of a choice so I ordered two singles to Pingguo, but the woman looked at Xixi and asked if she needed a ticket. I said I didn't know, and that she was four years old. But I was asked if she was over 1m20cm tall. I took a glance at her, with literally no clue, and said she was surely under 1m20cm. That meant she was free, but the teller needed my id card. Ah damn, I said I didn't have one but she said a passport would do. I said I didn't have that but I did have the number (I keep a text file of such important info in my phone). She said she needed the document but I had no time to argue and showed her the number on my screen and said "this is the number you need!" in my best Derren Brown Mandarin. She calmly complied, took down the number and printed off my ticket.

We had to run to security and put Xixi's new strawberry bag that A Wu had bought her yesterday through the screening machine. I asked if I needed to take out my mobile from my pocket and was told no, only to fail the person-screening machine and have a metal detector search and find my mobile. Why didn't they just let me take it out in the first place? The train was boarding so we ran to the first gate where my ticket was checked and we were allowed into the waiting room. Then we needed to exit the waiting room and this time the ticket inspector told me the ticket was wrong. I said it wasn't as I'd checked when I bought it but true enough I'd been sold a ticket for the later 8.55pm train.

Thinking on my feet I said surely I could get on the train and then pay for a new ticket there. Surprisingly the guard said I could and let us through, where we ran to the first carriage that wasn't a sleeper (as this was an overnight train going to Kunming). There was yet another guard at the door of the carriage and I explained that we would pay once on board. He looked fairly friendly and said "ok" so we got on. I feared the worse when I saw many people sitting down in the aisles between the carriages, and others standing in the same area. I didn't fancy doing that for the journey with Xixi so we got ourselves into a carriage and actually found a seat, understanding that someone would come and claim it soon. But no-one did. We didn't chat that much to the others as I was very tired and I tried to get some shuteye because we'd be going for a meal 90 minutes later with Boss Hu.

There were actually a couple of spare seats, but none of the non-seated people seemed interested. Then another guard came and started asking everyone where we were going, and then writing it down on a pad for some reason. I asked the bloke next to me if Pingguo was the next stop and he said it was. An hour later we arrived at Long An, but I thought better than to say anything. Xixi was more-or-less ok for the journey, though got a bit heavy and sweaty on my lap as the air-con was fairly feeble. No other guards came to us to ask us to pay anything so I was glad that a bit of common sense and politeness helped us out.

When we got out at Pingguo we opted to take the bus into town, rather than a san lun che, which, to my regret would have been quicker and only a few kuai more expensive, as the bus went the long way around to the centre. The driver didn't have change for a 10 kuai note so told us to wait until more people got on. He thought I had a fiver and when I gave him the tenner after three more people had got on he said "oh!", whatever that meant. When we got off I tried to force him to take the 10 kuai but with a smile he wouldn't accept it. Then we ended up getting a san lun che home anyway as it would have been a hot few minutes' walk otherwise. I'd called Boss Hu and knew where to go so after a quick freshening up Xixi and I got on the dian dong che to the university area. We didn't have to wait that long for A Wu and the other entourage to turn up from Nanning.

The meal was in another new hotel and there was just us lot who had gone to Nanning and Boss Hu. The food was excellent, and Hu was pretty quick on the beers, gan bei'ing at a frequency hitherto unseen outside of a karaoke room. Despite her tiredness, Tan managed a couple of gan beis too and got into the spirit of things. We originally had tiny strong alcohol glasses literally the size of a thimble and huge wine glasses. I told Hu that I didn't drink white alcohol because it tasted dreadful and stank, preferring beer, at which point he told the young ladies to bring beer glasses in. A while later, during the meal, he presented me with a gift of an expensive boxed bottle of white alcohol. I was rather embarrassed, but as we'd had a few bevvies I was actually also quite happy to have been given such a present. However, white alcohol is a bit of a white elephant here as if I bring it back it will impact what I can buy from duty-free - I'm thinking I could have it as an exhibit in our house here as at 56% it's not likely to go off in a hurry.

Boss Hu, a present of bai jiu, and me in a very expensive new shirt

I'd noticed, after eating enough, that Hu couldn't seem to stop eating, even using his hands to take food from the serving plates, which I imagined was not really done. I hadn't kept up with his drinking either. Driver then took the kids to Waipo's to play, and the ladies left a little later to "wash feet". One of A Wu's colleagues turned up to help eat and drink the rest of what was there before the four of us blokes also got driven to the Ming Dian hotel to have our feet done.

"Washing feet" is actually a rather accurate description of what is done here, at least for the first 20 minutes. We had a room with four bed-like couches, each with its own lady and wooden bucket of hot water with herbs, which we dipped our feet into. It was a relaxing experience and I managed to withstand the heat of the water unlike last time. Within the time it took me to get my feet and legs aclimatised to the temperature I heard a deep snoring coming from Boss Hu to my left. To his left A Wu was also fast asleep. Now I was tired, but not quite enough to sleep, especially as I didn't want to miss this, but all in all it was 90 minutes of luxury - half an hour or so of the feet before a massage for the rest of the time. I found myself dropping off from time to time during the massage, but got roused by Tan popping her head in and asking if I could go and pick up the kids. What was she on about? She had finished and I had half an hour to go, as if I'd just walk away now! No, darling you pick them up and I'll see to them a little later....

We left some time gone 11pm, after A Wu had argued enough at the reception and managed not to pay (was he owed something? I'll never know), and I got a lift to pick up the kids, shower them and get them into bed, having a relatively early night myself.

Not very successful trip to Nanning

I really needed this weekend after the last week of work, and was rather glad that A Wu had suggested 11am instead of 9am for going to Nanning, allowing for a bit of a lie-in as the kids had slept at Waipo's yet again. I tried calling, then texting at 10.30 but only at nearly 11am did he get back to me saying he was on his way, and how long would I need? I'd only need 10 mins to grab a shower but A Wu was on his way back from Tian Dong and would be a good half an hour, after which he'd need a shower etc. So he suggested A Ni and A Da go too, and I take Tan and the kids. Fair enough I suppose, though I would have liked some time to look around on my own.

Eventually we were picked up by Driver at 12.30pm and we went straight to eat just outside our house, not quite the lunch in Nanning with friends I'd been expecting. After lunch we went to pick up A Wu from a hotel, where he was "doing business" with Er Jie and another bloke, who Tan said was a very rich relative who owned some mines. That took a few more minutes and then it seemed we were ready to go, albeit with eight people in the five-seater Toyota - Xixi and A Wu in the front passenger's seat Tan, A Ni, me and the boys in the back. Needless to say it wasn't very comfortable but before we got out of town we stopped again to fix one of the tyres, which took another 15 minutes. Tan said she was too pissed off by all this time-wasting to go, and would go home. I was in half a mind to agree - had I been left to my own devices I'd have been on the midday train and be arriving in Nanning by now.

We finally arrived around 3.30pm and got dropped off by the main shopping centre. My main goal was to find some tonic water, which I'd been told by a barman in a coffee shop earlier in the week you could find in Nanning. Failing that, surely simple fizzy water would be easy to find according to him. So we split up from the ladies and went to Walmart. I had as much luck with tonic water and fizzy water as in Pingguo. For some reason nobody seems to understand what fizzy water is. I'm sure it's not me just being thick. "Qi" means "fizzy" and "shui" means "water". You can't get much clearer than that but whenever you ask for it the women workers always point to the Coke and lemonade bottles. Then I explain that yes, this is fizzy, but I want water that is fizzy. Then they look nonplussed, so I go to the water section and say "this is water, right?" and they agree that the clear stuff in bottles is indeed water. Then I point at the lemonade and say this is not water. Then I always end up having to act out opening a bottle and making a "fzzzzz" sound as it opens. I can only imagine it's so hard to comprehend simply because it doesn't exist - even A Wu wasn't able to explain to the shop workers in a couple of words. To make matters worse, they do have various brands of soda water, which would have done, only it's never fizzy.

Eventually I found some fizzy drink that was not 50% sugar, although it was some sort of glucose and salt supplement with lemon flavour. I bought six bottles, considering this not a complete loss, though if I'd been alone I'd have found a few more places and I bet would have been able to be more successful.

After the boys put too many sweets in the trolley, and A Wu put in a few bottles of Er Gou Tou for Venky as a memory from years gone by, we went to pay. For the first time I saw A Wu pay by card for our shopping and then we went outside. We endured a rather long wait until A Wu reappeared with Xixi - evidently the girls had gone off to shop on their own, dumping the last kid with us. Another few minutes went by before Driver turned up and we got in the car to go to our hotel. It was nearing 6pm and we were due to eat so A Wu stayed in the restaurant on the 2nd floor and I dumped off some stuff in our room. I'd already opened one bottle of my fizz to check it was ok and I was reasonably pleased. I wasn't happy, however, to see that Leilei and A Da had also opened a bottle each, only to tell me they didn't like it that much - it wasn't for you bloody kids! Now half of my bottles were semi-flat and wouldn't make it back to Pingguo....

We went down to the table in the restaurant where A Wu was ordering various goodies. It was very difficult with the kids, who had not had their usual nap, and wouldn't eat anything when it arrived. Then A Wu said the wives weren't coming as they were still out shopping, but some friends were. This was just badly organised. He'd only rung the Nanning friends while we were shopping, to invite them to come and eat, and neither had answered their phones. Then I called a bloke I met last year with the same surname as me, who worked for the water company of Guangxi. He didn't answer but later got back to me and remembered me well. He apologised that he was out of town but told me to come back soon and call him. A Wu still insisted that two other friends were coming but it took so long we all started to eat. We'd pretty much finished when two youngish blokes arrived to help finish off what was left, but all in all it was one of the dullest meals I've ever had in Guangxi.

Worse was to happen later, when I realised that Tan and I had both neglected to take the kids' clothes I'd packed earlier. This is one of those things that wouldn't have happened had Tan not gone; I'd carried my and her bags downstairs as hers was heavy, due to being a woman and spending one night away. I did call her but she didn't want to buy new clothes for the kids as apparently they'd have to be washed before they wore them anyway. So I ended up having to get three kids showered and brushed and into bed naked against their will, and allowing them to stay up late watching kids tv till 11pm. They still weren't asleep when the women finally got back at 11.30pm. The blokes at the meal had invited us to go out that night, and A Wu, who had disappeared after the meal, had called me a couple of times to say we'd be going out to watch them singing, which sounded a bit weird. However, when he got back with the women he stated he was tired and we wouldn't go out. This pissed me off a bit as I'd had virtually no time to do anything in Nanning other than babysitting. So I gave up trying to dry Leilei's pants with the hairdryer and walked out of our room to go for a walk and a bite to eat.

I found I wasn't far from the famous bbq road of Zhong Shan Lu. As per four years ago, I walked up and down sort of looking to see if I could join in with people, but I ended up in the same place as the last time I was here, and just ordered a bit for myself. There was a girl by herself on the neighbouring table and I politely engaged in conversation with her, taking care to mention the wife early on lest she entertain hopes of a dashing stranger sweeping her off her feet. Having pictures of the kids didn't hurt either. She was just in Nanning on business from Liuzhou in central Guangxi, and we had a pleasant meal together in the end, with me realising my Mandarin was not that good with people outside of Pingguo or Nanning, or maybe she just had a better vocabulary.

Tan had texted to say it was dangerous in this road but nothing could be further from the truth; there were plenty of females eating alone, and even the woman I ate with thought it was funny to say so. Anyway, I'd had my fill so I made my excuse (the toilet) paid (for her as well), and left to get back at 1am to the sounds of both the kids snoring happily away despite their lack of pjs.