First night in Hong Kong with Leilei

Managed four hours’ sleep thanks to pillow so looking like a good investment so far though wonder if a cheaper one wouldn’t have been so good. It was interesting to see the plane landing from a camera underneath, and since we’d both managed over four hours’ sleep we weren’t complaining. We certainly didn’t complain when the luggage arrived on time (for the first time with Air France). Then the airport Express to Kowloon was only 15 quid for us both (take note Heathrow Express at 37 return when a single tube was 5.60). The free shuttle to Jordan was rather slow in the traffic that could have taken 5 minutes. Then the 10 minute walk in the rain with luggage that the girls wouldn’t have appreciated was ok. And that was that - we had arrived in our Hong Kong destination with no hassle whatsover.

I nearly forced Leilei to have a shower when he reasoned that if we were going out we might as well get one later. He was right, and I was acting as if Tan was there. So we walked out into the busy streets and probably found Temple Street night market, but I was keen to find somewhere to eat. I spoke Mandarin to the woman and she pretended not to understand...maybe it was my accent, or maybe she genuinely didn’t understand when I asked for goose. I relented and went back to English but she still didn’t understand what “goose” was. I said not to worry and ordered beef on rice, and Leilei ordered the dumplings and noodles in soup. He also seemed to recognise the characters for milk tea (奶茶) and ordered that, while I ordered a Qingdao.

When the woman returned with the drinks she asked me in Mandarin if I was trying to order er gou tou before, that sickening paint-stripper of a drink, and I said no I couldn’t abide such stuff, and why was she asking that anyway? Before it dawned on me that the “e” of goose and “rou” of meat must have sounded a little like the first and last words of the aforementioned drink. So I laughed and showed her the word for goose on my phone and then it clicked for her too. Oh yes we’re certainly back in the East now, and this is just the first step. Then, to Leilei’s his disgust he found the dumplings were not only vegetarian but also mostly filled with his most hated food - mushrooms. So after trying to get him to be more outgoing we basically swapped dishes and he did a good job despite the fact I’d already put hot chilli sauce on the rice. He enjoyed what he had and ate most of it, but I didn’t fancy the carby noodles, though for some reason the carby beer went down fine.

Back to China via CDG and Hong Kong 2019

I’m such a wally I should have taken two days off before we planned to leave. Leilei and I really wanted to take the train from Guangzhou to Pingguo and I suggested this to Tan and she came back with the realistic repost that if the plane arrived late what would you do? The trains get booked up weeks in advance. But Leilei really wanted to spend some time in Hong Kong and actually after the relatively smooth journey last year (well, stressless) I was happy to travel at a different time from the girls. So I’d booked them to fly out on the 23rd July and us boys on 19th as we saved over 300 quid on the air tickets although I knew the train tickets wouldn’t be free.

But what it did mean was that us boys could stay in Hong Kong for a couple of days and not worry about missing the train to Pingguo very much. Ok it did mean Leilei missing 1.5 days of school but I did email to explain and they were fine about it, plus I’d booked our Guangzhou to Pingguo tickets a few weeks before. I hadn’t expected such high hotel prices but due to work I had some points that paid 320 of the 340 quid it would have cost to stay in the Novotel on Nathan Road, near to the street markets that Leilei was keen to go to.

But that was the bookings. Now we had to actually get to the airport and annoyingly I had a meeting at 1pm when I’d hoped to be leaving at 2. So it was genuinely last minute. As we left the house to go to the train station I went for a last minute pee and found I’d forgotten my razor plus the interdental brushes I’d just got delivered from Amazon. I shudder to think what else I may have forgotten.

Anyway we rushed off to the station but Awl called to say he’d pick up our spare keys. He met us at Pitfold and we managed to get all our luggage into his little Yaris hybrid and that saved us three minutes and some stress getting to the station. Cheers Awl.

The trip to Heathrow T4 was not that bad but there were a few steps that would have made it awkward had we been with Tan and Xixi. But after a bit of sweating and choosing to take steps rather than wait for the lifts we got to the Piccadilly line and the 50 minutes flew by, and was definitely quicker than going to Paddington to take the Express, and 30 quid cheaper each.

We may have been 25 minutes early for the drop-off of luggage, and I was sorely tempted to go to the arrivals lounge for a bite to eat and drink, but we did the self-service baggage tags and when I asked the bloke how long we’d have to wait he said we could go along now and drop off at the VIP place. I’m glad I asked as we dropped them off good’n’quick and the gaggle of Chinese students only cottoned on after we'd done that.

Both of us enjoying some decent grub - makes the journey part of the adventure

Is that how much they really charge? Now I know it's worth it...

Security was fine except for me being an idiot and leaving the fourth laptop in a bag. That wasted 10 minutes but we were in very good time and we found the lounge after I bought some duty free presents for friends in Pingguo. I’m slightly sad that the kids have grown up for the last six years pretty much expecting lounge access. For me it’s still a luxury and I get a buzz every time we get accepted even though I’ve bloody paid for it…. I also know it pays for itself in so many ways, but this year was annoyed to get a fancy cardboard thing in the post telling me of the amazing new features (none of which apply to me) and in the small-print telling me the price has gone up by 125 quid. Why not save on the postage and up it by less, or at least give the option?

Anyway the short hop to Paris Charles de Gaulle was pretty much that and the short delay was made up for in the air. We probably had the time to have a quick drink in the lounge but thought better of it as the risk of missing the long flight was not worth thinking about. Annoyingly, after passport control we did have 50 minutes, and I wondered about going back to enjoy the lounge but thought better of it again. To my shame I hadn’t bought a neck pillow, and based on my recent experiences going to and from Egypt I wish I had. Now I was prisoner in an airport with the prospect of a 12 hour flight and all I could see were 30, 40, 60 Euro such neck pillows. I made a decision I may well regret. I paid a whole 40 Euro for one that could be squashed down to a fraction of its size....lord I hope I live to justify this decision...if only I’d done it on Amazon last week.

Leilei on the way to Paris

Gosh the mix of my noise-cancelling headphones and the neck thing did seem to help - I didn’t get through the first film and then after dinner I started playing “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” and after losing the first few rounds (well, making 32,000) I hit the jackpot!

I hit the jackpot, and probably no-one cares! Well I'll be in Hong Kong soon so there....

Thankfully Leilei and I were both so tired we didn’t need to make a fuss of things, and we both got to sleep for a little bit after about three hours. Hope it lasts.

Beijing delay is kids' ok

As I had stayed at this hotel before I hadn’t ordered breakfast as 1) it was crap, and 2) it would have delayed us. So much to their chagrin I got the kids up at 6am (at least they’d had six hours’ sleep as opposed to my three and a half), and got us checked out by 6.15 to get the 6.30 bus to the airport in preparation for the 9.20 flight to Beijing. As luck would have it for the first time in years the check-in went without a hitch and we got to the landside lounge in good time. Having said that there was nothing much to entice us in this lounge, though from experience I knew there was nothing much more in the airside lounge. So we took advantage of the lounge’s own security path and got through half an hour before the flight after the kids had had their fill of shitty sugary drinks and wasabi peas. I was hours away from wanting a drink so braved it onto the flight, which could have been worse.

Oh the lounge in Beijing is one of the best we’ve been to in the world. Great food, comfortable seats in our own area, and a decent choice of drinks. Well, by now it was well after 1pm and our flight wasn’t for another four hours or so. The kids were in their element, with wifi and electricity, but we still found time for actual communication. Tan was coming back a couple of days later so we made sure to video chat with her.

While we were going through our second course of food we got the “terrible” news that our flight had been delayed one hour, and the kids cheered! I’ve justified it a thousand times before but when you’re obliged to travel as much as me (and hate it) then these little luxuries (although paid for) become incredibly worthwhile - it’s like an insurance for delayed flights and indeed it somewhat literally is. And then when our flight was delayed another half an hour I joined in with the celebrations and got myself a G&T because why not?

Lounge lizards

The flight was stress-less, maybe because it was just the three of us, and we arrived at Heathrow more-or-less on time anyway so who cares? I was really tempted to go to the arrivals lounge but the kids were tired so after unsuccessfully trying to get a local cab we tried Uber, which I feared would be much more expensive, and got a price much better that we’d been quoted for the cab that didn’t turn up.

Well Pingguo was over for a year...we all accept and mourn it a little. My main concern is that the kids won’t want to come back next year. But it’s been another lovely summer and we should concentrate on that, and the fact that within a few days the kids will be back in school and it will be all go again…. But I really hope we’ll be back next year.

Last day in Pingguo 2018

It was a good idea to do the Last Supper last night as tonight we had to head to Nanning to stay at a cheap hotel in order not to have any stress tomorrow getting the flight. Not to mention it was just the kids and me. But first there were some things to do, like feed the blighters. So, sadly for the last time this year I took them to get some jiao zi and bao zi from our local shop, and thanked the woman and said we’d look forward to coming back next year, not sure how much the kids might be looking forward to it.

An important picture that I should remember in order not to bring back too many toiletries next time

Visiting Waipo for the last time I was a bit shocked to see Er Jie had bought a new tv and simply stuck it in front of the old one - I could do with that!

Note to self - see if I can get the smaller tv next time...

Sooner than we thought evening came around so I decided to take the kids to Boss Zhou’s for something decent. He was happy to see us and I ordered some “normal” pork with rice and some jiu gui yumi. While we were waiting we spotted a delightful grey kitten/cat that responded to the kids’ lasers as you might expect, which made waiting for the meal that much quicker. Afterwards the woman only asked for 20 kuai, which I felt was too low, so I remonstrated with her and after a while she came back to me saying 50 would be ok - it was like something out of Monty Python.

Lovely last meal at Boss Zhou's

Cute kitten that couldn't resist lasers

Trying to make sense out of this but I think it's how much we owe for water, despite there being a character for electricity (Tan says)

As per every last day for the last few years I entertained the thought of going for a massage but there was a supermarket trip to make and other boring stuff like packing that got in the way. I had tried to insist that the three of us get a train to Nanning, where the hotel was a five minute walk away from the train station, but Tan and her cousin told us that was a rubbish idea and we’d never get the luggage on board, and insisted that A Heng drive us. Oh bloody hell I really wanted to argue but knew it would be futile, so rather than a 7.30pm train we were picked up at 6.30pm by A Heng and a mate in the old people carrier we’d been used to for the last few years.

Just outside of Pingguo was a urinal for "special children" - well that was something we wouldn't have got on the train I suppose

What ensued was the most annoying journey ever. Well at least we weren’t due to arrive at the airport any time soon. The drive to Nanning was ok but as soon as we arrived A Heng got lost. Worse than that, I had the map on my phone and tried to show him where to go but out of pride (?) he would not look. Which meant he got lost again and again, and with Nanning being the metropolis it is now it meant being stuck in traffic jams that wouldn’t apply to trains. Jeez, by the time we finally arrived at the hotel it was nearly 10pm, and the train would have got there by 8. I shouldn’t be angry - they were trying to help I suppose - but it was the most frustrating moment of the whole summer - next time I will just take the train and not tell anyone.

What was nice was that the hotel was the same as one I’d taken a few weeks earlier to go to Canada, and the receptionist spoke Mandarin to me, and as I’d been before I pretended I understood every word as I knew where the lifts were and there wasn’t much more new information he could give me. So as soon as we were up and dumped the bags we set off in search of our last bbq for 2018. It took no more than 10 minutes to find a suitable place on the road, and I got the kids to eat a bit at least while I managed a quick beer. We got back at close to midnight and I was still bloody annoyed about the lift we had as otherwise we would have got the chance to go to Zhong Shan Lu and experienced proper Nanning bbq.

Finally enjoying a bit of bbq on the last night in Nanning

There were two single beds so I got the kids together and apologised, but luckily they were too tired to argue. I had to do an hour’s work while they fell asleep, then organise baggage as we would be up in four and a half hours’ time. Not complaining any more though.

And finally sleep while I spent some time working...

Last Supper 2018

As it’s sadly nearing the end I took the kids out for a bike ride and Leilei had another go by himself in the hotel car park again. We went to the west side of town and found A Wu’s old house that we’d lived in for three months 13 years ago, at least Leilei had. He may not have remembered, but it brought back memories to me as it was our first real living experience in Pingguo, meaning doing the trivial chores like washing and drying clothes, cleaning the floor etc., the things that make you feel more a part of somewhere you are staying. Well the kids didn’t particularly care for my reminiscing and we made off again back to town where I had the idea to get a print out of the stitch-picture I took the other day. We found, after a couple of wrong attempts, the advertising friend’s new shop which is 2-3 times larger than her last place.

I have a sad fascination for how many km our dian dong che does

Printing out my stitched picture of the view while waiting for our lift - at least she didn't question why

Of course it was fine to make a print-out, and of course she wouldn’t take anything so we had a couple of cups of tea until the kids got bored and said thank you again. The previous time we’d got such a print-out was about 10 years ago. Back at home I found I still had a pack of face mask cream from The Body Shop so was able to reciprocate the favour.

Now there was one more thing on my list of things to do before we went back - seeds. I’d looked in a few shops but none sold them, but was told that the market in the centre should have them, and indeed they did. What would have been an even more boring trip for the kids (what kid wants to buy seeds?) was made a little more interesting by watching market vendors plucking out soon-to-hatch baby bees from their hexagonal sleeping quarters to be sold on to restaurants and fried up deliciously.

The bees that made the trip to the market more interesting

Rather than leaving The Last Supper to the last evening I decided to message my mates for tonight to meet at Huang’s Beihai seafood place, as has become customary in the last few years. I IM’d each one to come from 9pm and without fail they got back to me to say they could (though those with kids may be along later). It seems that the Chinese penchant for turning up early to eating events is more a female trait than male, or maybe if the food is being prepared for you then there’s not so much point turning up early. Certainly no-one did as I got there late myself which would have been frowned upon.

I’ve grown more in confidence about ordering food myself recently and did so before any xiong di turned up, and I think I did a good job. One by one they all turned up a great meal ensued. It had that typical Chinese flavour of people coming and people going and always maintaining around 75% of the total number of invitees. At some time before midnight it was decided that we would move on so I paid the reasonable bill of 900 kuai, said goodbye to Huang, and we moved on to another place to continue. I have no idea why - were they concerned I’d have too big a bill? Anyway, for the first time in a couple of years at least I had bbq pig’s penis washed down with more Li Quan pijiu. For some reason Li Kun wouldn’t let me drive home later so I took his car and a mate accompanied us on our dian dong che.

Last Supper 2018

Post-Last Supper 2018 with pig's penis

Ah it should have felt sadder than it did, going home, but I rationalise that each year is a smaller percentage of my life and that therefore it will feel like less time before the next such excursion.

没洗头

Well it was bloody work all afternoon, but I got to take the kids out to eat at the Yumi Tang place in the evening, although for some reason it was really busy. We did some shopping at the shenme dou you shops and I got a cap with 没洗头 (not washed hair) written on it as it was the only one I could find in Chinese. Back home at work I worked out that my fingernails were too long on the right and had calluses on the left. This made it rather difficult to type, resulting in 30% slower words per minute including fixing mistakes, by my calculations. Would I cut my nails and dip my left hand in baby oil? No way...guitar is more important when no piano around.

没洗头

I went to the market supermarket to get some drinks and noticed it was the supermarket’s 11st anniversary. I thought that might mean something but apparently not. Lunch was jiao zi and bao zi with the kids. They wanted to buy stuff so we went around on the bike but didn’t find much until Xixi spotted a huge spider behind some advertising over a shop. She seems to have an eye for detail. But so do I as I noticed a flask in a shop adorned with “Your title here” ok it’s not really that interesting but it did remind me of the Polish road sign in Wales where it was the content of an out-of-office email which was much funnier.

Horrid arachnid shape just above the "o"

Your Title Here

.
Finally finished work at 10.45 to go to the waterman’s friend’s shop opening, where they’d been badgering me to come for ages. They were already pissed and welcomed me like a long lost friend. Apparently the girls were all friends of Chuan Chuan so I should be ok. Almost stereotypically, the girls doing the bbq were rather chubby, but less so the girls eating it were smoking and cai mai’ing, and I had to join in the latter.

Smoking

Cat head in the toilet

Teaspoons and lovely meal with Chen

I thought I was clever waking up at 9.30am but when I opened my eyes again it was an hour later. I really should be taking advantage of a bit of time without the kids but instead I just slooped about at home, before meeting up with a friend for some watermelon juice. I then started the rather sad task of going to the supermarket for one of the last times to get such things as washing powder and tissues to last us till we go back.

Teaspoons are expensive here - note to self: bring lots of teaspoons next time

I just noticed that they "spelled" 平果 wrong on the card for the fairground - they wrote "Apple" (苹果）tut tut.

I took a stitched view while waiting for the lift

On a positive note Chen IM’d me to invite me for another meal which was nice. Of course it was for this evening and of course I said I’d make it. It was the first time I’d gone over the river bridge to actually go somewhere - usually it’s to look out from the bridge as there is no road on the south side of it. But there is a stony path and it is that that Chen took as he picked me up from our place. This time his son was here. He’s a great kid of about 12 but seems almost too happy to see me and I wonder if he’s “on the spectrum” which is a horrible expression in a way because we all are. He’s one of those people whose Mandarin I just can’t understand so maybe it’s my problem 100%.

Chen had invited quite a few people and there was a huge rotating table. I got the impression that not everyone had turned (haha) up by the time we were due to start, judging by half of the seats being empty and more food had been ordered than could possibly be accepted by the eight or so stomachs around the table. But during the meal some more bosses turned up in various levels of inebriation. One, who was there from the start, had brought a box of six bottles of red wine, and although I said I didn’t drink the stuff I did indulge in a couple of glasses to keep him and Chen happy.

On the south side of the bridge

Sumptious

Not heard of this one...

...but it was ok

I went to the loo and on the way back got semi-accosted by a bloke from another room in the same restaurant and needed to do a few gan bei’s for a bit in their room. Then got back to Chen’s room and A Wu was there, so more gan bei’ing was necessary.

Then I got a message from Huang at the seafood place asking to meet up. Ah well let’s see. First I went home at 11pm to find the kids were back and it was lovely to see them but they were knackered and were going straight to bed. Well as there aren’t many days left I popped out to meet Huang for a couple of beers and had a decent, if difficult, chat with him till I had to go back at 1am knackered.

Football - oh dear

Yay, no work. I brunched with Haiwei and some friends at 10am which was earlier than I’ve been getting up recently. Then brunch turned into lunch and a few beers were imbibed but nothing unreasonable. Despite this I was unable to grab more than a two minute siesta much to my chagrin as I’d accepted an invitation from Zhang Hua to play football at 5pm in the kit he’d sorted me out with last year.

5pm came around and although I knew where we would be playing I hadn’t had a message from Zhang Hua. But I couldn’t really feign ignorance as I could see the guys practising in the astroturf field near our place. I turned up 20 minutes later in high 30s heat and really wasn’t in the mood. It was people in our kits versus people in not-our-kits, but I understood everyone was pretty much from the same team. I asked what the score was and someone said it was something like 6-2, but I didn’t know to whom. I got called to come on but I was still trying to work out if it was already half time, as by now I’d been here nearly 45 minutes.

The view from our house - I had no excuse

So eventually I made the effort. I’m sure I was the eldest, and probably the least fit on the field but it was more a gesture to Zhang Hua who’d got me the kit in the first place. I played left back (I wish it was left back in the changing room ha ha) and immediately realised my trainers were not meant for Astroturf as they had little grip. I was pretty bad too...my teammates were calling out “bu yao jin” - don’t worry/take it easy, and I did. The job I’d given myself was to pass to teammates as soon as I got the ball. That sounds quite easy but in the sweat of the game it’s not so simple to follow the game-plan. I did at least make one good defensive header to get the ball out that received some polite applause so I’ll dwell on that.

My main fear was knowing that we were up by about four goals when I started and I just wanted to remain on top. I think we did in the end, but it was lower than a four goal margin.

They obviously needed some help before I came on...

I had been told that we’d go for a meal at one of the player’s hometown 20 km away, so I said I’d quickly pop home to get my laptop as I wanted to watch City’s game at Wolves in a bit. I was told we’d now be eating at a local restaurant which I was more than happy with as the match was starting soon. I nipped home to grab the laptop then popped to pick up Zhang Hua, but very annoyingly I’d not zipped up my bag properly and the laptop dropped out onto the cold hard floor and I feared the worst, but had no time to check as we needed to go to the restaurant.

Once there the worst was confirmed; the laptop didn’t turn on. Well, there was no time to moan - it was my fault and that was that. I made my apologies and hurried back home to get my old laptop and bade them start the meal. Ten minutes later I was back and turned on the laptop I hadn’t used for weeks. The restaurant wifi wasn’t working well so someone offered to tether to their 3/4G phone. Thank goodness for cheap 3/4G. Bugger. Windows needs to update in 15 minutes - please save any work...not even the option to delay. At least it was getting on for half time by now. We’d managed to watch a whole five minutes of the first half. To make things worse I found I’d forgotten to bring the AC adapter so once again had to make excuses and leave them for a further 10 minutes while I got that, as my now four year old Lenovo Yoga 2, as much as I love it, does not last much more than an hour on a single charge now.

Finally we had a stable stream and good food and most of the chaps were interested in the match, having just played a game. Disappointingly we played out a 1-1 draw but to be fair Wolves pretty much deserved it. It’s only the second game but losing points to a team that’s just been promoted isn’t the sign of champions. Liverpool on the other hand are looking great so far.

We moved on to Zhang Hua’s place after the meal for more beer. Most people left after a while but then the rest of us moved on to some other place - I took Zhuang Hua on the bike. I started gan bei’ing with another table too but even I knew when enough is enough so left at 2.30am and took Zhuang Hua back to his shop to sleep, and did the same soon after.

At Zhang Hua's

The rain

Wii cleaning and Mario Kart

Up at a reasonable 10.30am to have a breakfast of a custard tart the kids had left in the fridge. Worked till the early afternoon but needed a break so played a game of Worms Armageddon on Steam that I remembered doing while living in Portugal 19 years ago or so but why not?

As I was in a sort of gaming mode I decided to sort out the Wii. For some reason before turning it on and making sure it worked I decided to clean it of its 10+ years of yellowing. I took a good 10 minutes doing this including the flexes and each passing minute I became more convinced that it wouldn’t work, yet I adamantly stuck at the task as though I had a speck of ADHD or whatever. But the nice clean Wii did turn on and I did manage a couple of games of Mario Kart which was half fun and half sad. I’d rather be playing with someone else. I’ll have to sort it to work online like I’ve done with the Wiis at our UK home.

I do like a bit of Koopa Cape - almost retro now the console is 12 years old

Then Haiwei reminded me I was going to his place in an hour so I did 20 press ups and a minute’s plank before showering after a quick beer. It was pissing down so I put on the blue overall for the dian dong che and managed to stay relatively dry this time.

When I arrived Haiwei was still cooking so I spent some time with his son speaking English which is really one of the reasons I was here. He spent most of his time playing an excellent looking game called PUBG and pronounced "Pub". It looked more like Fortnite for adults, as there was a bit more killing. I expressed an interest and started downloading the Chinese version only for the download to stop after a few minutes on the local wifi. Eventually Haiwei's son had the good idea of making me tether on his phone and within half an hour the gigabyte or so of data was downloaded. Great. Except I needed to register with a Chinese social media account that had KYC and basically my WeChat didn't have that so I was buggered. Still, it was interesting to watch him play with the thumb-thingies that made his phone more tactile. He said he would sort me out a pair for Leilei.

PUBG - Looks pretty good actually

The meal was a sumptuous family one though Haiwei and I were the only men, but that changed an hour later when some more people turned up. One of them was 2-1, who I remembered from many years ago, and we enjoyed reminiscing a while.

Another sumptuous meal

The fashionable Li Quan beer this year: "1998" Bill Clinton....

Despite the good meal I ended up having to go home to work as my clients were getting to the office on the other side of the planet. Not complaining though - just needed to send a couple of emails and IMs to show I was looking after them. I did prefer when I was on English/European projects working from home in China though….