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.

Let sleeping shopkeepers lie

Back to work after a full weekend. Annoyingly for at least two mornings this week we've had drilling again in one of the neighbouring houses. I'm starting to wonder just how many apartments have actually been sold, and how many were sold but with no intention of "decorating" them any time soon. I mean, they've had two years now. I'm trying to think of a rule/penalty for house-owners that do not decorate within a certain amount of time as it's a very noisy business. Maybe for every day beyond one year that you haven't completed your house you need to pay 100 kuai to a central coffer that goes to the other inhabitants who already have finished, and have to put up with that bloody noise.

Having said that, it's only been for an hour or so for two or three days so it could be a lot worse but it doesn't half make your siesta a bit slower to arrive. I still wonder when the four undecorated apartments I can see from our balcony will ever be done.

Since Ling Ming has had his new set of wheels he's not needed his dian dong che. This means Tan has appropriated it. It's newer, and accelerates better than my old steed, but I am not jealous. Now, the daily routine, as per recent years, of getting the kids to school in the morning has been shared by Tan (although I still do it most of the time). On getting back I'll typically make her a cup of coffee and give her a sticky rice krispy type cake for breakfast before checking emails and getting on with some work. Come midday I'll go and get some jiao zi and bao zi from the local place around the corner and Tan will typically go out. I once went out at 2.30pm to get my lunch and found that the jiao zi woman was alseep in a wooden chaise longue. I thought I'd give her a couple of minutes after I couldn't rouse her by talking to her, so went to get some milk tea for Leilei and some friends, who at that day were at home. But the bloke on the counter there was asleep too. I spent the next five minutes going from place to place feeling too awkward to wake either of them up. Eventually I sort of shouted at the young bloke in the milk tea place until he stirred - I reasoned he'd feel worse if he lost business due to sleeping on the job but I could well be wrong. With the tea in my hands I did the same thing to the woman at the jiao zi place and got that too. I did take a video of myself trying to get this stuff but it feels too rude to upload sleeping people.

The late nights had not allowed me much freedom to go out, though I did occasionally do some bbq after midnight. But on Thursday I finished early at 11.45pm and A Wu had invited me to go to "sing song". I wasn't massively in the mood but needed to get out of the house. It was the same place I've been to a few times now, just outside of the town. There were about 10 blokes there and one woman. I was as sober as a judge and they were as sober as judge Pickles. I can really appreciate how off-putting it must be for women to have alcohol-smoky-sweaty stink forced in your direction when a pissed bloke is shouting in your ear as the music is so loud. It was almost as if my right ear had an olfactory lobe.

I did do a few gan bei's just to be sociable, but A Wu too was not too impressed by the people. Within half an hour we'd left, and A Wu was saying we shouldn't have mixed with those poor blokes (poor as in not rich). I didn't push the point that he had invited me and just left it and we ended up going to have some bbq outside the guangchang until A Ni came and a had a reasonably early night at 2am.

On Friday I called A Wu around midnight, after work to confirm that we were going to Nanning tomorrow. There was music in the background, and it transpired he was at a KTV place in Tian Dong. He said he'd pick me up at 11am Saturday but I had a smidgeon of a doubt.

Trip to Tian Yang stonery and Ling Ming's birthday meal

Had a bit of lie-in until A Wu called around 11.30 to ask if I wanted to go to Tian Yang. My reaction was to answer in the negative but had I done this I would have spent the next couple of hours lolling around and maybe getting some jiao zi for lunch, as Tan and the kids were already out. I had been invited to a meal with Boss Hu in the evening, which meant in about six hour's time, so I said I'd go as at least it wouldn't be that long. Then Tan called a minute later to say we were having a family meal with Da Jie this evening around 5.30pm, so I had to call A Wu to tell him I couldn't do Boss Hu's meal due to family commitments, which apparently was fine.

A Wu sent his driver to fetch me immediately even though I insisted on getting a shower first. I'd asked A Wu whether I should wear long trousers and he said I should, but with short sleeves, so I wondered if we were expected to attend a meal as Tian Yang is only about an hour away and it could still be lunchtime. In fact we drove two minutes to a place that does great fried food where we met A Wu just starting on a meal. This is a fairly cheap place that is on a corner and doesn't have any walls, so relies on big fans to cool the customers. Once full of beef, pork, greens and rice we got into the car and drove off.

We didn't take the road I expected, which was the quicker toll road, so I asked where we were going. "Tian Yang", was the response. Five minutes later we arrived at A Wu's work where we stopped for a few minutes. I got out to have a look around as is my wont when otherwise I'd be stuck in a car. I noticed that they'd blown away more of the mountainside and funnily there was a huge, three story high very roughly spherical rock that had come apart from the mountain and landed right in the area where the lorries go to pick up the smaller rocks to be crushed in the crusher. I would have loved to be there to see that come away from the mountain - I bet they were shitting themselves wondering how far it would go before it stopped - another 50 yards and it could have been end of business.

The huge rock that had displaced itself onto A Wu's work area

I was shouted at to come back to the car and found it had two more occupants. I couldn't decipher exactly where we were going in Tian Yang but I suspected it was something to do with mangoes as per the other times I've been there. In Pingguo, A Wu's driver had told me it would take an hour to get to Tian Yang, so I was hoping (not expecting) to arrive at 1.30pm. After taking country roads for half an hour we finally got onto the toll road, wasting about 30 minutes I reckon. Instead of paying at the tollgate, Driver just looked at the woman there and she let us go. A Wu has done this before and despite asking, I've never quite understood why they get through free as if he was China's answer to Derren Brown.

We finally got to Tian Yang but didn't exit there, waiting for the exit after. There we stopped behind a black pickup and one of my fellow back seat passengers got out and started talking to the driver. Then he got in the rear seats of the pickup. It felt like some dodgy drug deal, and then to make matters worse the other bloke sitting next to me still said we had another 20km to go. I'd been checking where we were all the journey on my phone thanks to the downloaded maps and GPS. The only road looked like a very minor one and 20km would take some time. In fact it was not just a minor road but one that was in the process of being turned into not so minor, which meant it was being built and there were plenty of road works to delay us further. At 2.15 I asked when we'd be there, wherever "there" was, and I was told 2.30. I might as well have asked at what time GB would win their first gold medal. Indeed at 2.30 we were still meandering through roadworks, although it was quite beautiful scenery, except for an old ex-village whose inhabitants had probably been forced to depart due to the large rocks that had tumbled down the mountains unwelcomed into their houses rendering them derelict.

What is now a ghost village due to gravity and rocks

Finally at 3.15pm we got to a part of the road that A Wu's Toyota Camry could not navigate, so we pulled over and noticed that there was nearly no petrol in it. Driver was told to go and get some, and that the nearest pump was 30km away, before we all got into the pickup. There wasn't enough room for my backseat fellow passenger so he did some pickup surfing on the back. I was a bit jealous until I saw the state of the road and became worried that we were going too fast and would skid off and that would be the end. But we managed the next 1 or 2 km until reaching a stone works similar to A Wu's. The blokes spent the next half an hour chatting and taking some photos, while I took in some of the lovely scenery before succumbing to my male desire to throw rocks down the steep mountainside, which kept me more than amused until it was time to go back.

Beyond Tian Yang to view another stoneworks

This time I joined my back seat passenger on the back of the pickup and enjoyed surfing it back more than I should have. We got a couple of bottles of green tea and cans of Red Bull and set off back in A Wu's Toyota again as it was nearly 4pm and I needed to be back before 6. We seemed to take an even slower way back than the way to get here, and stopped off for petrol too, meaning I must have misunderstood Driver's instructions to pick some up, or he misunderstood their directions.

Yet more setbacks on the road - this time I was unable to help

On the way back A Wu passed me a showroom brochure for a Porsche Cayenne - a top of the range beauty, of which I've already spied a good two or three this year in Pingguo (to add to the couple of Porsche Panameras I saw last year). Then, to my surprise, he pulled out a receipt and said he'd bought one. I didn't know whether to believe him or not, but it looked genuine, with a price of 1,390,000 kuai for the car, bumped up to over 1,550,000 with all the extras - a full 530 times more expensive than our car, not that they compare in any way beyond having four wheels. Well, selling stones does seem to be good business (if you're the boss).

A receipt for a GBP160k Porsche Cayenne?

We got home just after 6, with every other passenger having slept most of the way, probably not helped by having drunk my first Red Bull for over 10 years. I freshened up and drove to the restaurant near Waipo's house. Luckily I wasn't the last to arrive, and there was an amazing array of food for such a relatively small table seating no more than 12. There was a lovely hot pot of frogs and cauliflower, my favourite dark eggs, a great choice of meat and vege dishes and two delicacies I hadn't yet had in China (or anywhere else): goat testicles and cow spinal cords. The goat testicles were sliced, and rather nice. The spinal cord tasted and had the texture of pig brain to my uneducated palette, and left a little to be desired. Both were supposed to be very healthy for you, and in an infantilely simple way the testicles were supposed to be good for "men's health" and the spinal cord good for keeping your back healthy. I asked why they had ordered the balls when other than Ling Ming and me everyone else was female. I got a half-arsed answer that tailed away and I didn't push for fear of bullying in what was a very enjoyable encounter with so many family members.

Er Jie came a bit later and said "Happy Birthday" to Ling Ming. Of course, it was his birthday today, so I ordered a couple of beers and had a couple of gan bei's with him, and sips with Xiao Nong and Tan. Although the frog dish was barely half eaten, Er Jie took it away and plonked a different huo guo pot onto the table above the gas fire in the centre of the table. This time there was a spicy section and a non-spicy section, and when it was hot enough we proceeded to cook lots more meat and veg. Honestly, that hot pot alone could have fed everyone and I was aghast to see that waiting on the side was yet another hot pot of cows ribs. Chuan Chuan explained that she had to go to work. It's funny as last week I asked if she was working and she said "no", but it transpires she is now working in a clothes shop "run" by Lin Xue, who I remember from Bangxu back in 2003. She's 18 now (and Chuan Chuan is 20), but it still seems rather young to be running your own shop.

Clockwise from left: Chuan Chuan, Er Jie, Jiuma, Waipo, Da Jie, Xiao Nong, Ling Ming, Tan

I took the kids back after a bit as they were getting restless after having eaten already. A Da then rang me to ask where Leilei was as apparently he was close to our house. So we trundled to what looked like a furnishing shop by the guangchang to see him and his parents A Wu and A Ni. Naturally, we drank tea while sitting on a plush sofa with the boss of the place. Thankfully there were some kids bikes and stuff to keep Leilei and Xixi amused with A Da and some other kids outside so I was able to drink some tea in reasonable peace.

When the kids got restless I took them for a ride to get some pearly milk tea. The place was opposite A Xia's shop and a couple of doors away from where Chuan Chuan was working, so we popped in to say hello. The kids insisted in having some jelly crap in their milk tea, and we went back home to give A Da his portion and eventually get to bed.

Chuan Chuan and Lin Xue at the latter's shop

Chuan Chuan and Lin Xue are on the left in this pic from early 2004

Dreadful "big water"

I'd forgotten that I'd agreed to go to "piao liu", which literally means "drifting", and although somewhat accurate, it would be accurater to say "dinghying" if such a word existed. It is more like white water rafting but without much white water. The idea is that you start upstream and go down over a number of kilometers. I had been invited to go to one in Baise a couple of days after we arrived but I'd decided not to due to the early start. This time was a relatively new one just outside Pingguo, which was much more gentle and kid-friendly.

I was not really too happy to be woken at 9am to be told Ling Ming was waiting downstairs for us. It was a quick getting dressed and quickly grabbing a change of clothes just in case. Ling Ming was taking his new car but didn't feel too confident driving on the unfinished roads outside so we swapped over and I drove after having gone to pick up about 11 women who had come with Da Jie. They all drove behind us in a "bread loaf car" and instead of the 10 minutes I'd been told the journey was I drove for a good half an hour through roads that were in the process of becoming roads, including places where there should have been traffic lights as you get so far but then have to back up as someone else has got further than you down the one half of the road that is open.

We arrived around half ten but then were subjected to the foreign game of waiting around. It was ferociously hot and we cooled ourselves down with a couple of cartons of tea while wondering when something would happen. It took nearly an hour, but Ling Ming had bought the tickets, and we were to wait for the next couple of buses to take us to where we would start. Leilei stated time and time again that he wasn't going, but Ling Ming had bought his and Xixi's tickets anyway. Strangely, although over ten women from Da Jie's town of Pinxiang came along in their van, none of them seemed to be going boating, only Ling Ming and us four. Finally the bus arrived and luckily it was air-conditioned as we waited in it for 15 long minutes before setting off, all to the tones of Leilei complaining that he wasn't going to go on the boat.

We eventually left. We'd left our valuables with Da Jie, and it was actually quite liberating to have in our possession only clothes for a while. Ten minutes later we arrived somewhere higher up the mountain where we would start our rafting from. Not so soon though. There were around 60 people who had come up in the two coaches, and there weren't enough lifejackets, helmets, or oars for all of us. So we sat around waiting in the heat and humidity, some of us in lifejackets that we soon undonned as it became clear they were heat magnets. I asked Tan why we were waiting so long and she said it was because the previous group had not moved far enough down the river hence it wouldn't be safe. Looking around at the dearth of "jiang", one of the few words I've learnt this year - paddle, I suspected otherwise. So I went to one of the women who worked there and asked why we were still waiting and she said that we were waiting for the paddles to arrive, and that they were "zhunbei dao le". Now I love the Chinese and the culture here but I don't like hearing "zhunbei dao le". This means something is just about to arrive, but in reality "just about" means something other than it does in any other language I understand it in. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but in near 40 degree heat it is slightly annoying.

Thankfully it only took another 10 minutes before a pickup truck sped up and stopped. Despite the worker woman with her loudspeaker telling everyone to not take the paddles from the pickup as it was yet to park properly everyone stormed to it and grabbed whatever paddles and lifejackets they could.

Leilei was still telling me he wasn't going on the boat although it was obvious he was. And finally we were allowed to get into our dinghies. I insisted that Tan and Xixi went with Ling Ming as I wanted a father and son time together, and got him onto the dinghy. I was to get more than I asked for. The tranquil water seemed to chuckle at our helmets and lifejackets as we lifted off with our single paddle. Although we were one of the latter entrants into the water I soon worked out how to use the paddle to reasonable effect, and set upon catching up the rest of the people (who didn't know they were in a race). We made good progress and by a couple of hundred yards at the first corner we were first!

Around the corner I saw a sign in blue saying "big water, be careful". I also saw two or three blokes on the riverbank - ah, I thought, they will be taking the photographs that they'll be charging extortionate amounts for when we get back. It wasn't as easy navigating a corner as it was the straight water and we sort of got moved to the outside lane as it were. I noticed a rather deep drop of about three feet which was sort of exciting but our dinghy was revolving a little and by the time we hit it we were going backwards with me at the "front" and Leilei sitting in front of me.

I don't think we did anything wrong as we both grabbed the rope on the side of the boat, but after the drop the dinghy was on its side and didn't want to get back down. I had no control and the next thing I remember was that we were capsizing in the middle of very fast water. Now you should get a panic when you're shoved underwater and you can't breathe and the current is controlling your movements and all you can feel is the occasional buffering of the rocks below on your body. But when you know that your son was in the same boat you are not aware of yourself at all. I could think of nothing but Leilei and tried to force my head above water to shout "er zi!" (son). It took a few seconds of being treated like an empty bottle by the ruthless water before I could even surface to shout, let alone for air.

I was able to glimpse that a couple of yellow-shirted blokes were moving to do something and when I got my head above water again I just shouted at the top of my voice "wo de er zi! wo de er zi!" (my son! my son!). I was still being swept by the current and could see our boat stuck about 40 yards upstream, but no sign of Leilei. The water was shallow enough now not to drag me under any more but I couldn't move so I made what effort I could to grab on to any branch that would allow me to stop myself being dragged further downstream and move myself toward the bank, and finally got there. I had visions of Leilei being dragged further than me down the river due to his smaller size, and worried about a myriad of other things that could have befallen him such as being snagged on something or even being knocked out.

As my eyes and ears began to focus more I could see a bloke in a yellow top holding on to our boat upstream shouting "bu yao jin!", which means "don't worry". That was not great advice, but I then saw a Leilei-sized boy on the boat he was holding on to. The fact that he was kneeling up meant he was ok and I waved at him and he responded by moving his arm in some way, though I could make out he was in a bad state.

It took a couple of minutes to make the 50 yards upstream to the boat, holding on to the various branches to pull me there, but we were reunited. Apparently he hadn't had as bad a deal as me in terms of getting dragged by the water, but this maybe because the bloke had fished him out quickly or something - I'll never know. The point was he was seriously disturbed by the event and was sobbing profusely.

Despite being within the first couple of hundred metres of the "course", there was literally no going back. The length was 4.8 km and we had 4.6 to go - try telling that to a kid who has capsized in rushing water. I'd lost my helmet but luckily Leilei hadn't - he'd just lost his shoes. So I used his helmet to pour out most of the water that had accumulated in the boat and said I was sorry but we'd just have to continue.

It didn't make it any easier that just about every other boat had passed us during this time, and even that at least one other boat had capsized too.

Leilei cried a river for the next half an hour or so but I guess ran out of energy later. Every time we came across any slightly white water he called out "big water, big water!" and I too feared it might be like the first one. I made a clever move to avoid one "big water", despite it being relatively calm compared to our first one; I managed to cut across some trees to avoid some white water and triumphantly told Leilei we'd found a shortcut. Unfortunately where we ended was a quite nice little lagoon but outside the flow of the river. Try as we might though we couldn't get back into the normal flow, and Leilei noticed this and was worrying again, "we're stuck!". I told him we were fine but after a couple of attempts I realised we were not going to get out easily. I held on to branches to pull us into the current but we kept getting pushed back. Then, as I held onto another Leilei shouted "spider!" and panicked again as a house spider-sized arachnid landed in our boat. For once I didn't give a shit about an eight-legged friend and stamped on the bastard. After nearly giving up hope of getting out of that place we found that the last two boats had workers on them, hopefully for safety, who, without not a little effort, were able to drag us out of the lagoon my shortcut had led us into, and back into the river again.

Now that Leilei had no more tears left, he kept asking me when we'd be back. I made my best estimations and said we were "nearly there". Thankfully, although this was a bit of a lie, the rest of the water was either calm or safely ripply, not that that helped with Leilei until we finally spied the building we'd driven to a few hours earlier that day.

I was seriously worried that Leilei would have a water phobia after that experience. It's bad enough as an adult to experience the power of white water currents, but as a seven year old it's worse than a nightmare. Or maybe it's one of those experiences that turns one into a man.

The kids and me after having braved the 'rapids' of Pingguo County

I'd had the wherewithal to bring spare clothes for me and the kids, but Tan hadn't. So Leilei and I showered and put on dry clothes, and Tan, who hadn't capsized had to put back on her wet clothes. Xixi had had a great time on the "rapids" apparently and also had a change of clothes. Ling Ming had already ordered food so it should have been ready for us by the time we were ready, but it took a good 45 minutes before our tables were cleaned and served. By this time it was well gone 3pm and I was quite tired, though the adrenaline of having witnessed my son have the scariest experience of his life (and one of mine) kept me well awake. We had a nice meal but I was looking forward to getting back and having at least an hour's kip. At 4pm I drove us back and we were home half an hour later. The kids said that they'd slept in the car (despite playing I-spy for most of the time) and decided not to sleep, which left me allowing Tan to sleep while I got them amused doing drawing and seemingly playing nicely together for a bit. I was hopeful for 45 mins of shuteye myself but that was dashed due to them keeping on coming in to ask me for things. Well, there are worse reasons for not having a well-earned siesta.

A Wu had already called me to let me know that I was expected to go out for a meal with an old friend from Baise, who I hadn't seen for about five years. With this in mind I didn't struggle to sleep much longer as if I'd succeeded I wouldn't have made that or anything else in the evening. Tan was still weary and not feeling particularly well, so didn't want to come. A Wu had said not to bring the kids, which I appreciated, and they didn't put up too much of a fight as they were busy drawing at home. So I took the dian dong che to the usual restaurant "Li Jia He Xian" and met A Wu there.

I've called this bloke "Bak sec zhai" since I've known him, and I thought it was simply a way of calling him "Baise bloke" in Cantonese, i.e. bloke from Baise, but today realised his surname really was "Zhai". As I entered the private room I immediately recognised him from some years ago and we hugged like old friends, which is not something normally done here when sober. His wife and daughter were there, which was nice, and I did ring Tan to come but she wasn't feeling up to it. This didn't stop fags from being smoked of course, and I was happy that at least I hadn't brought the kids. But we had a good time catching up on old times.

A lovely meal with 'Bak sec Zhai' on my left and the restaurant boss on my right

While Zhai tried to get me to drink many beers, Jiefu arrived. Jiefu means "older sister's husband", and I think in this case it really is A Wu's older sister's husband and not some unrelated person given a relative name. I hadn't seen Jiefu for a couple of years and we embraced like long lost friends when he came in. He said we'd need to gan bei many beers as we hadn't seen each other for some time and I told him that was just an excuse, which he found rather funny. We ate for a while until Jiefu excused himself, saying it was his dad's birthday and he had to go and see him. I don't know how long he was away but after a while he came back again. Then I got a phone call from Lin Hong asking me to go to karaoke. I wasn't really in the mood but I thought it might at least give me a break from the gan bei'ing of the meal that I'd been in for nigh-on three hours.

I called Tan but she was still too tired to go out, and anyway didn't know the people who would be there, so a little while later I said my goodbyes to Bak sec Zhai and A Wu gave me a lift to the KTV place a little outside town. He was embarrassed to be there "early", as in 20 minutes late, as not everyone was there, but the room soon filled up with people I didn't know, I guessed mostly Lin Hong's junior colleagues. Lin Hong seemed in fine spirits and was getting me to do my usual three songs in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, before the evening descended into a sort of disco.

I needed an excuse to stop drinking so I sneaked out and went for a walk around the building. Finally a little time by myself. I found my way to the roof of the building and walked about in the humidity, checking the view of the lights of Pingguo a small distance away. Normally I would have had a phone call by now but I guess the others were too busy drinking and dancing and that suited me. I eventually went downstairs, but this time to a different floor, and peaked through the tiny windows of some of the doors to see the song-worshippers in some of the rooms. I happened upon one which was fairly full, and had a good mix of blokes and women, not looking too drunk or dressed up. I thought "why not?" and and pushed the door open and walked in. I had a look of surprise, as though I'd accidentally walked into the wrong room, but I was invited in before I could even feel the guilt. As is normal, at least one person knew about me, and knew Tan, so there was something to talk about. I then restarted the ritual of gan bei'ing and realised my plan of leaving the previous room in order to slow down was at risk of backfiring. So I used plan B, which was to offer to sing a song, of course the "Ni shi wo de mei gui hua". It went down very well and I must have spent half an hour there before going back to Lin Hong's den.

Due to the early start and lack of siesta I was feeling tired and a little the worse for wear so I made my excuses and said I'd need to get back home. So Lin Hong kindly drove me back and dropped me outside of our building. I waited till she had gone then slightly sneakily popped around the corner to grab some bbq and chat with the locals, and by the time I got home at 2.20am I had A Ni calling me asking where A Wu was. Needless to say I slept in the spare room, very easily.

Ling Ming's new car

Ling Ming got a new car Sunday. It is a Chinese automobile with the brand name "Haval" and the model name M2. It`s not the prettiest thing on the streets but it's pretty practical and at a snip under 8 grand I wouldn't worry.

Ling Ming and his new car

On Tuesday I came down with flu-like symptoms which caused me to fall back asleep in the late morning before work. The same happened Wednesday, but there was too much to do on Thursday and Friday so I got up a bit later and worked through the day. Leilei has alternated between sleeping here and a A Da's, with Xixi mainly sleeping at Waipo's.

On Thursday I was invited out to a meal with A Xia and friends. I said I couldn't go, but her husband Lao Su said he'd pick me up and drop me back. As luck would have it my meeting was cancelled so I was able to go and have my first multi-person meal for nearly a week. I did only stay an hour at a new restaurant near the university area, but had plenty to eat before going back with the kids and A Da, to let them play more on the Wii before going to Waipo's to sleep.

On Friday the kids didn't go to school for some reason, and got taken out and spoiled by whoever was at Waipo's place - Xixi had yet another set of clothes and Leilei had yet another set of some sort of battle cards. My evening was chockablock with meetings and when finally I'd finished at 12.30am A Wu, who had been calling me to go out all evening despite me telling him of my meetings, was already home.

Tan's eldest sister, known as Da Jie (big sister) had arrived in Pingguo in the evening and her son Ling Ming went to meet her. She stayed at Waipo's with the intention of seeing us all on Saturday

Tan was tired and in bed, so I decided to go out and get a little bbq. I went to the same place as Monday evening but before I managed to get there I was shouted at to come and drink a glass at a table of people at the next door place. One of the blokes knew Tan's sister and apparently I'd eaten with him a couple of years ago, which I pretended to remember. I ended up spending about 15 minutes there before reminding them I was supposed to be at another table and they let me go. I spent the next half an hour or so eating and drinking with who I now know as Mr Chang, and his son Chang Hua. His small place is called "Xiao chi da ai" (Small eat big love) - I think the translation loses something. This time they let me pay the 64 kuai and I took a couple of small cans of beer back to watch the Olympics. Well, watch the Olympics and also catch up a bit on some work too. Got to bed unguiltily at 4am.

Back to work and more Mario Kart

Oh well back to work today. I did wake up 9am but got a little more sleep as Tan took the kids to school. 

A beautiful hairy caterpillar at the kids' school 

Later, when back, Leilei and the kids were playing the Wii while I was working. One of Nong Kaicheng's friends was there too so there were four of them playing Mario Kart. I was quite happy to see them together. 

The boys playing Mario Kart Wii with rare footage of Leilei speaking Mandarin

There was a lot to catch up on after two weeks of holiday but I managed to pop out in the evening (lunchtime in Europe) to buy some stuff I'd been meaning to for a while - a dustbin and a tissue holder for my study and another clothes hanging stick. Rather than go to the supermarket I went to the actual market, which for me was more super. I had a chat with the boss, who remembered me from various years gone by, and everything came to 15 kuai - cheap!

As I didn't feel like going home just yet I popped into another local shop to buy some dried squid, which is a tasty snack without too much carbohydrate late at night. Unfortunately the young lady said they didn't have that, and I should go to the supermarket. I said it would be hard as I had the dian dong che with a four foot stick and a dustbin and a tissue holder, but she said she'd look after everything. Well ok then, so I walked over to the supermarket by the market, which I'd been hoping to avoid, and went and got some dried squid. I happened upon the alcohol section and decided to get a small bottle of "yao jiu" (medicine alcohol) for 4 kuai, as apparently it's good for you. Then, when nearly at the checkout I changed my mind and thought I'd buy it from the shop where the lady was looking after my bike. I went to put it back and found that the space I'd left it was no longer there - someone had evidently watched me take it and filled the shelf appropriately. I wasn't particularly happy about that and thought my choice to replace it was vindicated as I pushed the bottle back into its former place.

Back at the local shop I thanked the lady for looking after my bike and dutifully asked if she had "yao jiu", which she certainly did. She gave me the option of three types, and I asked what the difference was. "They are different brands", she answered, slightly unhelpfully. So I opted for the middle one and was charged 10 kuai for the same size as the 4 kuai one in the supermarket.

I still had a little time before meetings so went to the guangchang to call the bloke I missed seeing a few days ago, the one I used to get breakfast from when we were here for three months in 2008. So I gave him a ring to ask where his shop was but I didn't recognise his voice and feared I'd called the wrong number. I gave my phone to some bloke doing bbq next to me and he chatted to him and said someone would be around in a bit. A couple of minutes later a young bloke in his early 20s came around and seemed to recognise me. I didn't recognise him properly until he spoke and I realised that was who I'd just called. I was a bit confused as he seemed to be expecting me but I was expecting someone else. We walked for a minute or two before coming to a bbq place I hadn't been to before, and I immediately recognised the breakfast bloke who'd scratched my number on a cardboard beer box a few days ago.

I said I could only stay half an hour or so, but that "so" became well over an hour as I ordered some fatty beef and duck tongues and shared a few beers with the bloke and his son and the son's girlfriend, who was cooking the bbq. It was pleasant but I really did have to leave and said I'd be back soon when not working. They wouldn't let me pay for the food, so I took back the fatty beef and gave it to the boys who wolfed it up in no time, including Leilei, who even asked for more. Oh no! It's not just Tan but both our kids are now bbq addicts too!

Mountain banger and more dog

Got up a little late and missed morning sports yet again before A Wu rang me to drink tea at Lao Tu opposite our place then have lunch. Apparently there were going to be some bangers, so I imagined it would be for some celebration somewhere.

I left Xixi with Tan at home, and Leilei was with A Da, and drove the 50 yards to Lao Tu. We spent about five minutes drinking tea before A Wu's driver drove us to A Wu's work. I thought we were going to see some bangers but he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. Then when we arrived at the stone place I found that there were some blokes unwinding some thin red wire, and one blowing a whistle now and again. It transpired that they were getting ready to blow away part of the mountain to provide more stone fodder. Ah, so I wasn't completely wrong about bangers - just the size and reason and...well yes I was very wrong about them.

It took a bit of time to get organised, and A Wu left his camera perched on a chair facing the side of the mountain. He said I could turn the switch to cause the explosion and I was rather excited at that, but suddenly there were a couple of shouts and A Wu started filming then told me to run down the track to the bottom as stones could fly anywhere. We got down to the entrance of the place and crouched behind one of the pickups as other employees crouched behind other vehicles. I had my camera filming too. We waited for a bit, then a bit more, getting more and more excited as to how loud it may be. Eventually after two minutes like this A Wu announced that there was a problem with the wire, so we all went back up.

I was a bit annoyed that I wasn't going to do the explosion, but they'd decided someone needed to be closer to the mountain as the wire must have been broken nearer to where we were. After 20 minutes faffing about they were ready and once again A Wu turned on his camera and we sprinted down to our hiding place. This time it worked. It was not particularly loud, or even that impressive, but it did the job. No stones flew anywhere within 200 yards of us but I suppose it's better to be safe than stoned.

Blasting away part of the mountain, second time lucky

It was now 2pm and I was getting rather hungry. A Wu said we'd go for lunch but at that moment about five blokes turned up. This meant we all had to traipse upstairs to the office to drink tea. One of the blokes was from the police. That meant he was probably a friend of A Wu's so I helped pour out the tea for the next half an hour or so before getting up and going for a walk as I don't understand the local language they were talking in. Maybe A Wu got the hint because a couple of minutes later all the blokes went downstairs and we finally started on our way back to Pingguo.

I got in touch with Leilei, who was with Nong Kaicheng, and we all went to the place that is now known as the "toilet bucket food" place since I apparently named it that last week. As it was well gone 3pm I didn't eat any rice, so as to be hungry enough for later, but I did have everything else. By half three I took Leilei and the boys back home to play on the Wii.

I had received a text from Uncle Yellow a bit earlier in the afternoon, when the explosion was going on, asking me to call him when I'd woken up (it was thoughtful of him to think I was sleeping during the afternoon). I was just calling him when he called me to ask me to come and eat dog again. I explained I needed to sort out the kids, and would come when possible, and would they still be there at 7pm? Yes they would. The boys had to go so I took Leilei to Waipo's, Waipo invited me to eat but I said I'd already been invited out and she didn't seem to mind. I actually got to the cold cave by around 6.30pm but judging by the amount of beer bottles underneath the table I was very late. I asked, and was told that they'd started at 4pm. I don't know whether that meant eating or drinking or both, but it seemed rather early. But it sort of made sense as most people had to work the next day (myself included) so an early start meant an early night.

We had a great time and I ate quite a lot of dog again, though I went easy on the beers as knew I'd be picking up Xixi soon. I made a joke about making love in the local language, which got rather more laughs than it deserved. And to show that he understood what I was talking about Uncle Yellow made a ring with his left hand and then put the index finger of his right hand through it rather vulgarly. Then the bloke to his left made a ring with one of his hands and the first bloke "entered" it with his finger to laughs all round. I told them they were homosexuals, which was neither clever nor funny, but it really brought the house down. I was with good mates as there was no pressure to drink up quickly etc., and I left around 8pm to great smiles, though I could have happily stayed longer.

Some of the empties by the time I came to eat dog

Uncle Yellow's car (I don't know if he chose the colour)

Well Xixi was out with someone, so I went home for a bit. Then A Da and Leilei came, the former announcing he was staying the night. Fair enough, I got them both showered and into bed by 11pm though I'm sure they went to sleep much later. Tan then came home with Xixi at midnight, meaning Xixi was sleeping in our bed. She actually fell asleep reasonably quickly considering she'd already slept during the day, leaving us a bit of nice time together. As tomorrow I'd be back at work I decided to use the last of my free time watching some Olympic footy on the Internet as I'd happened to leave my UK proxy server on by mistake and the video worked ok.

Mafia meal

Managed to get up lateish again and yet again do no sports. Lunchtime wasn't too far away so got some more jiao zi and bao zi from the local shop before Leilei and his mates came around to play on the Wii again. That was fine and enabled me to geek about a bit as one does, before A Wu called to ask me to play badminton at 4pm after he'd had a kip. That sounded good to me after having missed out this morning. He also said we'd be having a meal with "friends" at 5.30pm.

At 3.45pm A Wu called to tell me to hurry downstairs to meet him and he would take me to badminton. The dian dong che was running low on battery but I wanted to use up more juice so that charging it up would be more effective overnight, so I drove it the one minute to the front of our building to meet A Wu. It was still raining but I'd found a sou'wester under the seat so put that over it while I jumped in to A Wu's car for the 30 second journey to the badminton place.

Pingguo Olympics about to start

After virtually no warmup I played A Wu and this time only lost 21-15. I am hopeful that I will have beaten him and his new-found skills by the time we have to leave. After a little break, not quite so knackered as usual, I played some practice shots with one of the blokes I have been playing with in the morning in the guangchang recently, who happened to be there. After a while, some teenagers who were also there, and cheering me one, asked to play with us. So we ended up playing three games of doubles, swapping partners each time. It was incredibly good fun, and smiles were abundant! I may have only won one of the games but I didn't feel that tired - doubles is four times less tiring than singles for sure. After the matches we swapped QQ numbers and the teenagers promised they'd send some of the many photos they'd taken of this sweaty foreigner....

A convenient place to have a nap while daddy`s working (or playing pool on the pc)

Although it was getting on for 5.30pm A Wu was still playing badminton. I told him I'd go home for a shower so he said ok. That sounded a bit weird for someone who's normally at meals before time. He rang me a bit later to pick me up at nearly 6pm and we proceeded to go to his place where he changed clothes and had a shower himself. During this time I found a young couple wrestling with a couple of beds they had just taken home on a san lun che. I jumped out of the car to help them and they really appreciated me getting their beds into what appeared to be their new home. Even A Wu's driver got out of the car to help them with the second bed. It was just a few minutes of my effort but I had a small warm glow about having unnecessarily done some good.

Tan called to ask where we were and for once I could lay the blame squarely on someone else. We waltzed in at 6.30pm with a huge table resplendent with lovely nosh, and everyone started eating as our bottoms found our seats. I didn't know most of the blokes. But Lu Wen was there, and I apologised for not having gone out with him the other day, due to my run-of-the-mill excuse of diaorrhea. His new wife was also there, six months preggars - that's one way to have more than one child I suppose. Tan (other than the new wife and A Ni, one of only three women there) said that most of the blokes were mafia. I wasn't going to ask them directly but they seemed reasonably friendly and after eating we dissolved into typical gan bei's and cai ma. Feigning drunkenness, I said I'd need to leave and got a lift with a number of the blokes to a new coffee place that had just opened today - apparently that meant the drinks were free.

Another nice meal with friends

A Wu showing off his seatbelt things to stop the warning sounds when not wearing them

For the first time in a couple of years I actually did drink coffee as I was knackered and I didn't want to have more booze. It was quite nice actually, with milk. A few more people came around, then an hour later so did Tan with Xixi and most of the other ladies. Wine was produced, which was decanted into a wide based bottle and then shaken around in a manner that French people would request the death penalty be brought back for. I had a couple but then took Xixi to go home. But we were barely one minute out of the coffee place when A Wu's driver found us and said he'd take us back. Fair enough, but I'd promised to meet Lu Wen by the guangchang to eat some dog before going home.

As it was, with a four year old who is a bit tired at getting on for midnight I did not have to do too many gan bei's, and after a few mouthfuls of dog was able to say our goodbyes and get home for a shower and a sleep, but not before I got my first glimpse of non-football Olympics by watching some of the table tennis. Brazil vs Poland was actually Japan vs China, judging by the names, but how could I possible deride this? If foreigners were to judge English/GB team members by their names and/or colour they could say exactly the same thing. I wonder how multiculturally diverse some countries will become in the future, and what that will mean when countries with similar diversities play each other in sports. What will it mean if Germany beats Poland in table tennis if all players from both countries are ethnically Chinese for example? I'm secretly hoping that Leilei will turn out to be great at table tennis and represent GB in a future Olympics as he'd have a better chance of making the team. But at the same time, if he's good at football he could represent China and have a better chance of making the team there.

Mario Kart Wii and crap KTV

I woke up to a pair of small feet in my face and gathered very quickly they belonged to one of my offspring, thankfully the female one. It was already nearly 8am which meant it was too late for sporty stuff but my tummy wouldn't really have allowed it anyway. I moped about at home for a bit before going to the local jiao zi place to get some lunch and the kids and I ate it at home. A bit later A Da and Nong Kaicheng called to ask if they could pop around and duly did, and the next couple of hours were spent with the boys playing Mario Kart on the Wii.

Breakfast out and dog at the cool cave

A reasonably late 8am saw me up despite earlier possibilities. It's nice that when you are not working, and not changing nappies or doing other kiddie things you can eventually learn to go back to sleep for a bit. Even that extra half an hour can mean so much more quality to your day.

Despite not getting to sleep till 1am Xixi came in to our room at 8.30, followed a minute later by her big brother. Annoyingly, Leilei had come into our room at 4am and 4.30am and both times I'd accompanied him back to their room. And both times I'd tried and failed to sleep on their wooden-ish mattress as the hairs on my body tend to get caught in-between the fittings and trap me a bit like Gulliver. So I got back to my bed at 4.40am and thankfully managed mostly sleep for three more hours. At least I had some dreams. I dreamt that team GB were one goal up, then allowed in three goals, one of which was an overhead kick, before being pulverised by a fourth unstoppable one. I suppose I should put a bet on 4-1 against us tonight.

The dou jiang place we go to most mornings 

For once sitting at table nicely

Kids eating a hearty breakfast of dou jian, jiao zi, bao zi, eggs and man tou 

Breakfast was again at the dou jiang place and because the kids weren't going to school they were happy to go to Waipo's place afterwards. I spent the rest of the morning geeking and then got some lovely jiao zi and bao zi for lunch. Just as I was about to drop off I got a call from Uncle Yellow asking me if I could make it for some dog tonight. I said of course, but I needed some sleep first, so he said he'd call back at 6pm.

At 5.45pm I got up and had a shower. I'd barely finished at 5.53pm when I got a call from Uncle Yellow beckoning me downstairs. As I was stark naked I told him to give me five minutes, during which I shaved and washed my face properly, and put some long trousers and a top on.

Sure enough he was there in his tiny yellow car waiting for me. I was very happy that we drove to the cool cave place, and met a few blokes I knew from years before. Indeed there were many plates of dog meat and they were all delicious. I'd eaten dog with most of these blokes before, and we chatted and cai ma'd till about 10pm, during which time various people left and others joined. From time to time someone would get up and fry some greens, or refry some dog or chicken. The beer we drank was Suntory brand from Shanghai. It had more flavour than its 2.7% might suggest, but I'd take Li Quan any day.

Lots of lovely dog meat

So good that even the locals were taking snaps

Anyone for some sliced paw?

Uncle Yellow gave me a lift back and on the way called his wife Xiao Chong to ask if she wanted some noodles. Indeed she did so we stopped by a bbq place to pick some up and when we got back into the car I found myself behind the steering wheel. It was a short drive back and in fact it was a very easy to drive car, though I half expected to put a coin in the dashboard to make it go, it was that small.

Once home, Tan announced she was hungry so I offered to go out and get some bbq - 10 chicken feet, 10 duck tongues and five pig intestines, which is pretty much par for the course. As soon as I arrived at A Yi's place I heard "Xiao Peng!", and saw A Hua calling me over. She was sitting with her husband A Dong and another bloke I didn't know. It looked like they were drinking tea, but I should have known better as they produced a bottle of "medicine alcohol" from under the table. I allowed myself a little sip as I don't find this as foul as the rice alcohol, but they knew me and ordered a couple of beers as I ordered Tan's bbq.

I was stuffed with dog so could hardly share what they were eating, but allowed myself a couple of rounds of cai ma to their delight. Then, A Ni turned up, announcing that A Da and Nong Kaicheng would be back soon from their summer camp in Beijing. Then Lu Wen turned up. I hadn't seen him for a couple of years, but had lived for three months in the same house as him when in A Wu's place in 2006. His girlfriend was pregnant at the time, and today he had brought along his lovely six year old daughter with him - it was the first time I'd seen her other than a photo of a baby. So we caught up on old times a bit and I played with the daughter, before A Da and Nong Kaicheng turned up in good spirits, and Lu Wen and his daughter went home. Finally, nearly an hour after I ordered it, the bbq was ready, but when I went to pay for it A Yi said that "that bloke" (i.e. Lu Wen) had already paid. That was nice of him.

Lu Wen and daughter

Finally got home around midnight and it didn't take much for me to get to sleep while Tan was chomping on her chicken feet.

Fixing locks with magic dust

Although up at 8am I didn't go for badminton, opting to have a more relaxing morning with a Carte Noire decaf and a sticky rice crispy style cake. Tan did the same a little later when she got up. As is becoming perfunctory when the kids sleep at Waipo's, I went to pick them up around 11am only to be told they'd already eaten. Fair enough but I bet they hadn't had breakfast. Anyway we went to my favourite supermarket where I have my nectar card for, and spent some time buying a couple of personalised items for the kids such as straw cups (they don't seem to lose their appeal until you're in your 20s) plus "normal" cups and a bowl each. I didn't mind about getting them this as I secretly hoped it would encourage them to eat what I put in it.

On the way back home we picked up some jiao zi and bao zi and I was moderately successful in getting them to eat these out of their new bowls, especially Leilei as his bowl was the same as mine - a 16cm metal bowl with no picture on, but he ate all his bao zi plus one of my jiao zi. Xixi was harder to get full, despite her Xi Yang Yang bowl (Xi Yang Yang is a popular sheep cartoon character who is omnipresent in one of the many children's tv channels here).

Tan was home, and as I said I needed a sleep she took them out after threatening to leave them with me as I should have taken them to school. I got a good two hours kip till about 5pm when Leilei called me to go to eat at Waipo's. This is becoming a bit of a pattern too, and I don't mind it; eating in a house instead of a restaurant. It's definitely become more like this this year than other recent years. Having said that I do slightly miss the big meals with the revolving tables.

After eating I took the kids out on the dian dong che. I decided to visit the tea place I've known for several years, but last year was never open when I turned up. This time it was open and of course the bloke remembered me. We were immediately ushered to sit down and I drank an absolutely lovely red tea, from 1997 apparently. If they treated their wine like they do their tea they really could be onto something here.

I talked to the owner about work and stuff, and how we didn't meet last year. He said it was because he had been very busy with his rabbit business. I never knew about that, assuming somehow that he made his money by selling tea. Oh no, he has a place a few km outside the town where he rears rabbits for meat and skin. It was nice to finally have an explanation for how some of these tea shops really make their money. The owner also said that today was the first day of the Olympics and that they'd be watching the GBR women's football game against New Zealand later, and that I was welcome to come. The kids weren't so interested in this though, so we left to go for a ride in the market.

As we parked the bike I got an angry call from Tan: "how the f did you close the front door of the house? I've been trying to get in for nearly half an hour". I told her to calm the f down, I closed it as I always did, try ringing Ling Ming in case he accidentally locked it from the inside. Half an hour? I'd have called within one minute if I couldn't get in. I decided to give her a couple of minutes to simmer down, during which time I went to one of the places that fixes locks. Tan had at least reminded me that I needed to get something to ease the entry of the key into the door lock, as it had become rather stiff this year. In England this would have been a can of WD40 but not here. I remembered a couple of years ago I'd had a similar problem with the lock for the dian dong che. A woman from such a lock shop had sprinkled some magic black dust on my key then put it in and it worked like a charm. I was hopeful for the same when I showed the bloke my key. He went to the back of his area and searched for a small box containing tiny plastic pouches like the ones I imagine drug peddlers use. He opened the pouch to inspect the contents and seemed ok with it. From the outside you would not have guessed there was anything inside, but I was excited about it being magic dust and eagerly paid the 1 kuai.

Before going home I had an experience that is becoming more and more common. One of the blokes on a market stall called over to me and asked if I remembered drinking with him. As I've done so with half the male population over 16 it was difficult to be sure so I used my normal "I recognise your face, but can't remember the name". It transpired that we'd had a meal together some years ago, and he offered me some long yen fruit. Well I couldn't turn down one of my favourites - I though we'd have to wait till August for them but he said they'd just come out. It may have been an early crop but they were still delicious and I bought one jin (about a pound) for 12 kuai.

We got home and before entering I tried the bag of magic dust. I dipped the key into it and indeed there was some there. Tentatively I put the key into the lock and it penetrated it like a well lubricated, err, like a straw into a mango sorbet. The lock turned easily and we gained entry. Tan had just finished a shower and was going to go out but not before I made her try again. She did the same as me, turn the lock a couple of times then just was not able to make the last quarter turn. I told her to slightly nudge the door as she turned the key and it opened easily.

Maybe because she was thankful Tan took the kids to Waipo's and I had some time to myself. I was actually more interested than I should have been in the women's football, but not as interested as I became in the thought of another head wash. I rang A Wu, who said he was on his way back from Nanning, and just entering Pingguo, but wanted to go for a haircut first. No problem, just call me when ready. So I tried a little gin with "apple vinegar" which was as bad as it seemed, before going back to sugary lemonade. Note that the apple vinegar was sold as a canned drink, not a cooking supplement, so I had hopes it mightn't be so sweet.

Not waiting for A Wu, I left our house at about 9.30pm only to hear beeping as I got out in front of our building. It was him in his car outside the tea and alcohol shop. He was in his car talking on his phone and after a minute I said I was going, so he said he'd follow me to the head wash place.

Needless to say this was an exquisite 50 minutes of sheer delight, but I took some time to talk to my young lady about her career etc. Partly I did this as the lady having her head done next to me kept talking to me about how she wanted to learn English from me (and I didn't have the time or inclination). My masseuse was from Baise, an hour or so up the road, and was 22, which I thought rather old for this sort of job. I asked her how long she'd been doing it for and she said one year. When I asked her how much longer she envisaged doing it for she said she was about to finish. So I asked her what she wanted to do afterwards and she said she'd think about it. I pushed her and she said her dream would be to have her own shop selling drinks. Maybe I missed something but that is not the wildest dream I've heard of. Anyway she did a great job and felt a little sorry that I probably would not have her as a masseuse again.

She did mention that a few months ago she'd done a foreign lady. By "done" I mean the same as me - head wash, wet massage, dry massage etc. I think I've seen this person - I've heard there is an American family here with a son and daughter. In fact I've seen a Western bloke with a young fair haired daughter so I gather it must be them. I'll probably bump into them at some time. Grr...yet again I'm not the only gay in the village.

After our head wash A Wu and I went to the tea place I'd been to before. I thought the game would start at 10pm but I had got my BST mixed up and it wasn't till 11pm local time. A Wu had a couple of cups of tea, as he too knew the owner. Then we went to a coffee house down by the river. It was only A Wu and I, as we were waiting for some mate to come, and it was rather boring to be honest, especially when Tan rang up to say that her and her mates were at the guangchang having bbq and invited me over. I said I'd try to be over there in half an hour or so.

A Wu's mate came but they were talking business so I didn't have too much to say and munched on some beef and fried sweet corn and fruit. Eventually Tan rang again to say they'd finished eating and Ling Hong had invited her to a school reunion at a karaoke place, and could I pick up the kids from Waipo's as she was tired and they weren't sleeping? At least that gave me the opportunity to leave, and when I got home with the kids Tan was surprisingly there too. Or maybe nothing is surprising here; she'd decided it was too late to go to see her ex-classmates so came home.

Despite the long hours awake, the kids didn't get to sleep till about 1am so I had no chance to see GBR women beat NZ 1-0 in the Olympic football, in what should be their easiest game. I have been tempted to fly to Beijing to watch Man City play Arsenal on Friday. It wouldn't be cheap, but what an experience. Maybe if it was a little bit closer....

Two days after we arrived Ling Ming had this running machine delivered - in the 10 days since it's been here it's been used once

Much ping pang and no trip to Tian Ping

Woke up after five hours' sleep, which I didn't mind too much as I now have sporty and siesta-y plans for early awakenings. I dressed in my swimming shorts, an old Man City top, white ankle socks and my Nike Air trainers bought in Cleveland, Ohio for $25, packed my bag with two bottles of water, a towel, a smaller bag containing my table tennis bat, two balls, my keys and some money, and finally Ling Ming's badminton raquet.

I walked to where I've now played badminton twice but to my dismay my friends were not there. I'd also noticed that the old people's leisure centre had no-one playing ping pong. With my big bag it was not practical to run so I sat down for a couple of minutes to contemplate the elders doing tai chi with swords. I went for a walk around the guangchang anyway and by the time I got back I saw a couple of people playing ping pong in the old people's leisure centre so I popped in. I soon found myself playing a woman in her 60s who was actually quite possibly worse than me. We played for about half an hour until Mr Table Tennis walked in and grinned like Mr Mischief. He motioned for the woman to sit down and relax as he started practising with me. That lasted all of 10 rallies until he said "five games". Oh dear not this again. Although he beat me 5-0 I had the moral victory that this time at least he played right-handed in every game, and I once got up to seven points. He made it easier by not spinning his serves when he was leading by five or more points.

Some Tai chi in the guang chang while I was pondering on what to do next

Normally it's winner stays on but here it's more like "foreigner stays on" so another bloke came and I nearly won the first game, losing 11-8. But I lost the next two more convincingly and apparently this time it was only three games. Then, the woman I'd been practising with challenged me and finally I was victorious 2-1 in games. It was a bit unfair as by then I'd got back into the habit of doing backhand smashes that even the locals appreciate.

I made my excuses at 9.15 as needed to take the kids to school, but when I got home I found that Ling Ming had already taken them to Waipo's house. So off I went to find they'd had breakfast, but Er Jie was still there and insisted that they didn't go to school, reasoning that they'd already spent a year in school and should relax. She sort of had a point but I like them learning some of their culture so we made a sort of compromise: they would go back to school when A Da and Nong Kaicheng were back from Beijing in a couple of days.

But the kids didn't want to stay at Waipo's so we went to Ma Laoban's computer shop where I let them play silly flash games for a bit. Ma Laoban's wife came in (she loves Xixi) and invited us to go to Tian Ping (?), in the countryside where her parents live about 10 km outside Pingguo, which apparently takes 10 minutes. My reaction was to not go but thought it might be interesting so asked them when they were going. "Zhun bei zou le", was the reply "we're ready to go". It was not yet 11am and I suspected a little oriental time-mongering going on. I said that would be good but I'd need to get back early as I'd had little sleep and needed a siesta - no problem we'd be back when I wanted. Half and hour later it was 11.20 and nothing had happened. Another 25 minutes and Ma Laoban arrived with a couple of blokes who seemed interested in buying computers. Another 10 minutes later there were a few blokes drinking tea and Leilei said he wanted to go home. I looked for Ma Laoban's wife but she was nowhere to be seen so told Ma Laoban I needed to take the kids home and he apologised for being busy. I said no problem at all and was relieved as I suspected had we waited for them all to go to it would have been another half an hour, not getting back till 5pm and I was already pretty shattered.

So I took the kids back home but before going in we walked to the place that does the lovely jiao zi and bao zi and bought two portions of the former and one of the latter. Surprisingly the kids ate just about everything I gave them - not bad, three of us stuffed for just over a quid. I had also bought a case of beer, something I haven't done for a long time, maybe two years. I only bought them as I wanted to know what the price was, and surprisingly it was the same as the last time I bought some: 33 kuai, or about 38p for a 595ml bottle. It would have been rude not to try one so I did that with our food. I was ready to try a siesta and Tan was ready to go out but she wasn't taking the kids as she had some sort of heat blisters and she wanted to go to the hospital to treat them. This meant I had the kids and although they were due a siesta they were not in the mood. I wouldn't have minded as they have their own rooms and I was just settling down when Tan called to say Ling Ming was coming with a delivery of some sort of low sink for the balcony so it would be more practical to wash the floor. Fair enough I suppose but it could have been better timed.

Ling Ming and the sink bloke came and he installed it on our balcony but he couldn't manage to fit the plug unit without it leaking. So after half an hour he had to go back to find some material to fix it. He did this by about 2pm, by which time the kids were not at all interested in sleeping so I threatened them with going with Ling Ming to Waipo's house. In fact this threat was not a threat at all as Ling Ming said he'd take them to Yi Xiao too on his way to work.

Finally, by 2.15pm I had the house to myself and tried to settle down for a sleep, which I finally managed with minor help from Gordon, until 6pm. Only eight missed calls this time, four each from Ma Laoban and Tan. I thought I'd better call Tan first and she unsurprisingly told me that everyone was waiting for me to eat at Waipo's house. So I got on the bike as it was starting to rain and luckily this time by the time I arrived I was still fairly dry as it didn't deluge. I called Ma Laoban as I was approaching Waipo's and he too was inviting me to eat at his place. I explained my predicament and he understood ok.

In fact at Waipo's most people were just watching tv, and continued to do so for a few more minutes before we were called to eat. The food was quite nice and simple and the kids didn't join us. I found out a bit later that this was because Chuan Chuan was taking them out to the new place I'd had pizza at a few days ago. So that left Waipo, Er Jie, Tan and me watching some drama on tv that wasn't as interesting as many things I can imagine so Tan and I went home. The rain was still falling, but not at a level that would soak us on the dian dong che on the way home and we managed the three minute journey without getting too wet, except for my bum as the seat is torn and soaks up water at the back. If only I'd listened to Tan and let her sit at the back like most ladies do when with their man on a bike. The problem is I'm taller than most men and if I sit in front my knees stick out like wings.

As if the morning exercise wasn't enough, a little later I decided to go to the old people's leisure centre once more, as Tan had decided to stay in for the evening. I thought I saw Yang Haiwei's car outside so called him to find he was upstairs. I saw a couple of blokes I hadn't seen since last year and we caught up on old times while the maestros played on. Then it was my turn to play Lao Ma. I actually did ok until it was time to play a game and then lost 3-0 but not before getting a fair few points past him. Then Haiwei announced that we'd go to the government building on the other side of the guangchang to play as there were too many people here. So we drove there under the ever-increasing rain. There were two tables, and one bloke waiting for us, so Haiwei and I practised for a bit before I lost 3-0 in games again. Getting a bit predictable, this, but I'm hoping it's for the better of my game.

While Haiwei was playing the other bloke, another bloke came along to play with me - he was more my level, or worse, but for some reason we didn't actually play for points. Tan had rung before 10pm to ask me to get 10 chicken feet and 10 pig intestines as you do, so by quarter past I made my excuses and walked to the bbq place through the rain-sodden guangchang. I'd never seen it so empty at night. For once I didn't make an effort to talk with others while waiting for the bbq - the normal place hadn't even opened so I was elsewhere, but even there it lacked the usual jovial atmosphere. I added an order of five duck tongues and some Chinese leek for me and 20 minutes later paid my 49 kuai and for once the bloke who brought it over accepted a 1 kuai tip with a smile.

Five minutes later Tan was tucking into her feet and I was chatting to Ma and Cat on Skype, or rather trying to as the connection was dreadful. I feared that it was my connection - worried that work meetings might be affected, but when Cat reconnected via tethering to her phone it worked a charm...time to get a new ISP Ma....

Browsing the web, it looks like we are suffering from the effects of Typhoon Vicente, which caused minor chaos in Hong Kong yesterday and is now on the warpath from Guangdong to Guangxi. However, it has probably calmed down somewhat due to being inland and although the rain is still falling quite heavily the wind has assuaged somewhat.

Ling Ming came in some time after 1am and we shared a single bottle of beer. He explained that he was hoping to get a new car in a couple of weeks for his birthday. He's going to get a Chinese brand, a Chang Cheng M2, which is a sort of mini people carrier (or SUV as the Americanism holds here). It looks ok to me: http://auto.china.com/zh_cn/mill/changcheng/M2/ except he wants the white version. I also found out why I haven't seen Xiao Nong's MG 3 on the road before. It's an Anglo-Sino design/build and was only available in China from 2011, becoming available in the UK some time in 2012 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_3

Knackered by 2am but remembered I hadn't put out the washing to dry, and didn't want it to become stinky for tomorrow, so tiredly did it, taking sure not to drop any clothes through the rails to 13 floors below. I did last week with a pair of Ling Ming's underpants and although it was 3am I still went downstairs to look for them in the rain. Strangely they were nowhere to be seen and I must have looked a wally searching by the light of my mobile at that time. I reckon they must have landed in someone else's balcony - oh well, Ling Ming's loss, someone else's gain. I should have told him though.