Last lounge...

Well I was well annoyed that according to Amex and Priority Pass, all the lounges in Beijing were closed at 10pm. We did immigration with relatively no problems and found ourselves in the right area at not too long after midnight with nowhere to wait. But I did a little recce and found a lounge, but they didn't accept Amex, but pointed me to another one. I followed their instructions (in Chinese) and found it but it was bloody closed as expected. I was out of hope but walked around and happened upon another lounge, and with no expectations I asked if they accepted Priority Pass. "对", she said, and with that I found the kids and nearly dragged them upstairs. I asked them what time they closed and they said 3 or 3.30am. 

Last lounge

To be fair the kids weren't that excited. But I was, and went to the bar and asked the lady for a G&T, and she said it was "self-service". I appreciated that but didn't want to speak English so was happy that she spoke to me in Mandarin after that. I hope she was ok with that, though understand if she would have preferred to speak English. But it was my last couple of hours here.

Jeez, it was 47% gin and after two months of mostly 2.5% beer it took its toll, and I was more pissed than I'd been for years. I didn't want to go for the flight so early but the kids suggested I should and we got on last for not the first time. Sorry kids. For a 10.5 hour flight I woke up with 2h48 to go so that's a bonus.

And that was it. We landed safely after a bit of turbulence that by now when tired I don't care about. I'm no longer sad to be back. It's more like waking up from a good dream, or going to sleep. Gosh I will miss it like anything and will try to find excuses to get back. But now my priorities are getting Leilei to uni and Xixi to 6th form. They are so independent now...I wonder if I'll get the chance to be independent in China again. I really hope so.

Last day in Pingguo yet again, but great to meet up and eat with Ma Laoban

I'd bumped into Ma Laoban yesterday, who'd told me to ping him tomorrow (today) at 9am to meet up. I'd bargained with him to make it 11am as I knew 9am would be optimistic. Nevertheless I was up soon after 10am, and as almost everything was packed I pinged Ma Laoban to let him know I was about. He told me he was at his new office and sent a dingwei but it was literally miles away (about three), but the dian dong che was full so I had no worries about not making it.

It seemed to be a new place north of the city where there were a couple of outdoor swimming pools, but I wasn't sure so I pinged him and yep indeed he emerged from a building and we went in and drank tea for the next 45 minutes. Then he said we'd have lunch in half an hour and he'd send a ding wei. Fair enough. So I went home and remembered to get my cleaned Converse from the local place. Not only were they nearly as clean as new, but the owner also noticed the rubber on the sides had started splitting away from the material of the shoe, so fixed them with glue. Now they really were nearly as good as new. All that for 10 kuai. Damn, so many things I'll miss about being here. Not long after I received Ma Laoban's dingwei to eat near A Wu's office from last year. For once it was a relatively simple affair; just him and a woman with her kid and some other bloke (her husband I think).

Fixing a clean shoe

The main course was fish, which I was a bit concerned about knowing that I was due to fly in seven hours, but there was some lovely deep fried pork and nice soup, and I even had some rice this time. But the company was the most important...we ate and chatted till 1.30pm when I said I'd better leave as Tan had already ordered a cab for 3pm and I still had last-minute stuff to do.

Finally a meal with one of my best mates Ma Laoban (right)

We go back 18 years...

So I drove to Li Kun's as you do, as I said I'd leave my dian dong che with him. I hope he or his family can use it, rather than the 80% of its life it's spent doing nothing while we were away. I entered his studio and he invited me for tea. I probably shouldn't, but I did, and I grabbed the guitar for some reason and started playing 有没有人告诉你？ and we both broke out into song for a couple of minutes. Actually it was quite moving...I'm so going to miss this place. Damn, I should have played it at Xiao Bai de Tian but never really mastered it. An excuse to go back if ever there was one. But this lovely moment could only last a moment or two, and Li Kun said he'd take me back. He did and I hoped he'd make use of the dian dong che. Of course I got a call 5 minutes after he'd dropped me off to say I'd left my Converse in the back that I'd just had cleaned and repaired for 10 kuai. I laughed a belly-laugh as you do and a couple of minutes later picked them up and said my final goodbye to Li Kun.

So back home I had half an hour to do any last-minute stuff, and indeed Tan foisted upon me two large boxes of tea to take back. Thankfully my luggage had come to 21.5kg so they just about fitted, but bloody hell dear, couldn't you have asked me a day or so ago? Then she reminded me that the house may be up for sale soon so I put all my clothes and shoes that I couldn't bring back into a black bag, and sent a pic to Li Kun to ask if he wouldn't mind looking after them for a while. How long a while may be I have no idea...it could be weeks, months, years, or never.... But it's important as it will really affect how much stuff I have to bring back next time if there is a next time. Anyway, Li Kun said he'd be able to store it...and more importantly my guitar I'd bought 6 years ago.

And that was it. 3pm came around as did the cab driver, and the three of us got in after managing to get most of the suitcases into the boot, and the rest in the middle of the back seats. I may have had a wee drink on the way to Nanning airport as it was two hours away. But, as with most of the last years it wasn't without a bit of fuss. Both my and Leilei's check-in luggage were stopped, but they found nothing untoward, and let us through after we'd opened them up. It almost seems like a power trip with the security people these days but we don't get angry in any way.

I'd told the kids that one of them wouldn't do the lounge as it would be £20 for an hour or so of wasabi peas and crappy sugary drinks, but when we got there I wasn't that tight and let them both be my guests. We'd spent a cracking couple of months after all and I didn't want them to miss out on a tiny bit of luxury. The flight to Beijing was on time and pretty straightforward, and we arrived before 11pm, five hours before our next one to London Gatwick.

It would have been wrong not to let one of them in...

Another suitcase, some more clothes, and a last supper yet again

Another latish morning turned into lunch of Xiaolongbao for me and Zhu za noodles for Tan. She wanted me to take a load of stuff back but I had to put my foot down a bit, as this time I have more clothing to take back. She actually said to take back all my clothing to the UK as they are thinking of selling the house soon. There's no way I'd be able to do that though.

Predictably, Xixi said she didn't have enough space for her stuff. I told her in the UK we should take a large suitcase each but she said it was too embarrassing for each of us to take a large one. I absolutely knew this would happen so I said she could get one with her own money. We drove down to the centre and found a place selling them by the Zhongxin supermarket. We decided that a hard hand luggage one should be sufficient, which makes sense as we have enough large suitcases between us anyway, but not enough hard hand ones. So we ended up getting a silver one for 169 kuai, and of course I had to send 50 kuai to Xixi so she could actually pay for it.

Xixi got her nails done a couple of days ago

Luckily it was big enough, so next I wanted to go back to the Pingguo Haliao shop and pick up a top for Awl and maybe some more for myself. And this time Xixi accompanied me as I said I'd appreciate her opinion. Unfortunately the dark blue top wasn't available in XXL, so I ended up getting another black one for him, the same as mine. In the 50% off section there wasn't a great deal in XXL/XXXL in colours I wanted but I got a blue track suit top and a black and grey running top that met with Xixi's approval. And when I went to pay I had to pick up a mini fan that when spinning displayed lights to say something like "Fight, Guangxi team", but unfortunately is not picked up on the camera.

Awl's top on the left, my track suit top and running top in the middle and right, and three tickets to the next game they gave us that I won't be able to go to

On the way back Xixi and I stopped off at the place Lu Hai and Lao Ma used to live at, and where Tan and I spent our first days in Pingguo back in 2003/2004. Not that it really matters but I have taken photos in 10 year intervals since then (so three in all), and this time it's not changed so much since 10 years ago.

2004

2014

2024

Next, for the first time in over a year, I posted on Weixin to show the tickets I had for the match that I wouldn't be able to see, and to offer them to whoever wanted them. I instantly got a few replies, mostly asking if I was still in Pingguo (yes, obviously), and to go for a drink later. I got quite an lovely message in English from the bloke whose family I'd shared bbq with a few weeks ago. I'll definitely arrange to meet up with him again if I can.

Nice message from the bloke I met the other week

So that was pretty much everything done that we needed to do, at least in terms of buying stuff. At 5pm Tan said we were going to eat bbq but the rest of us reasoned that that was rather early and we'd go in half an hour at least. That gave me time to grab a shower and a beer, and we walked the 150 yards to a relatively new place where you choose your raw food and cook it yourself at the table. It proved to be a fun and tasty experience, and Tan and I shared a single bottle of beer only. We thought it would be 300 kuai for the three of us but it only came to 178 and we were all stuffed by the end. I'll definitely come back here given the chance, but they don't open till 4pm and we need to leave at 3pm tomorrow.

Last family meal together in Pingguo this year

I decided I'd do another last supper at Zhang Hua's so pinged my friends and without exception each of them said they'd make it over. I knew A Wu was in Nanning again so didn't bother about him. I did ask him where I could get snooker gloves though as I'd checked a handful of shops and not come up with anything. After a somewhat lengthy exchange he told me to go to the place we'd played pool last summer, so I got there to find the boss wasn't there, and there was just some kid who found me a single glove. Oh well, better than nothing and anyway I'm sure I'll be able to find some on Amazon. Then Tan asked me to get some fabric conditioner, as you do, but it was already getting on for 9pm so I stopped off en route to the supermarket by the guangchang but couldn't find any after 5 minutes, but bought a little V for the journey tomorrow.

Then up to Zhang Hua's and luckily I was the first one, followed a few minutes later by Lu zong. One by one they turned up, some with friends, and we filled the table until we needed to add another. Nong helped me order more bbq, and at some later stage more non-bbq food came too. Chen had been pinging me since 8pm and I said I'd try to make it down to the oyster place. I would have invited him up but I know he doesn't get on with Huang Lei, and the latter is a better friend, and was with me tonight. I talked to Haiwei's girlfriend, Li Baoli, and got her to agree to come too so Nong wouldn't be the only lady.

My last Guangxi bbq for a while...

A few mates for the last supper of summer 2024

And the view from the first floor where I had a couple of beers with some other friends

It was a great evening and we didn't disband till well gone 1am, when I asked Zhang Hua for the bill. He only wanted 500+ kuai but I insisted on paying 700; there had been a good 10 of us eating and drinking for up to four hours after all. Li Kun and Nong went to Xiao Bai de Tian, and I said I'd try to join them in 20 minutes after meeting up with Chen, but thought it was unlikely. At least I did meet up with Chen at getting on for 2am, and managed nearly an hour there but was getting really tired so left before 3am after saying goodbye to the owner too. I did check with Nong but they had already left for the night, and I was secretly glad, so navigated the way home safely this time and remembered to but the dian dong che on charge as I would be leaving it with Li Kun tomorrow. It didn't take too long to get to sleep after that, and I knew there would be no rush tomorrow as we were pretty much packed.

Finally managed to take the dian dong che to 6000km after nine years

A very, very expensive mistake

After one of the best night's sleep for several weeks I woke up unhungover at around 10am and then Tan called to say Leilei had said I'd changed the flight dates to the 25th. Well I had but I thought I could change it, and indeed she was adamant that I change it as we "had" to be back for GCSE results day on the 22nd. Well we didn't; Xixi had already emailed school to request the results be sent via email， but unfortunately that was a detail Tan didn't care too much about, nor the fact you can enrol online these days. So it was another call to Air China to change back to the Beijing flight they'd suggested a couple of days ago. But bloody hell I'd already used up my one "free" change, and now they wanted 7080 kuai to change again. Shit. There was nothing I could do. I'd made a decision on the spur of the moment a couple of days ago and thought I had an extra five days in Pingguo, and in the space of a few minutes I'd had those days, and £750 snatched from me for a reason I could argue against, but at the same time couldn't. Sometimes life sucks, as Americans would say.

So it was back to exchanging some crypto for ugly fiat, then sending the said fiat to Li Kun again and within 45 minutes it was sorted. I received an SMS with a link to pay from Weixin, and got a call from Air China (this time in Mandarin for some reason) to confirm. So now I was poorer, and would be getting the 7.40pm flight from Nanning to Beijing. Trying to be positive at least it meant another few hours in Pingguo, and potentially another meal, if expensive.

I made the most out of the midday checkout by staying till gone then (and maybe had a little bit of V as it was now nearly the last day), and walked back via racist Huang's place, where I saw him and his wife and younger daughter eating. Of course they bade me come over to join them, and having not eaten anything I was more than happy to. It does make a change to have a sober meal with him, at least in the sense of not drinking with the meal, and I knew it was likely my last time with him this year. These family meals where I'm invited mean the most to me; it's so nice to just have a normal chat and not have to ganbei or caima sometimes.

Lunch with Beihai Huang and family

Half an our later I was comfortably full and went home and had a quick beer before falling asleep for an hour or so about 3pm. I wouldn't normally have done so as I'd slept ok but maybe I'm becoming a bit more Chinese now (or maybe it was the drink). I must have needed the rest as felt much better when I got up. Zhang Hongping then pinged me soon after 7pm to ask what I was up to and if I could go for a drink. Well I had no plans so told him and he said to wait a minute then go for a midnight snack. He literally wrote that in English and it wasn't yet 8pm. And then said to go back quickly before my lover would scold me. I guess he was referring to Tan's curfew, at least I hope so.

So, a haircut at Lao Ma's later, he sent me a dingwei of the place we'd met up at before, and an hour later I turned up after first stopping off at the supermarket to get some last V for the trip back in two days, and trying to find some fabric conditioner but unfortunately failing as I'd not got it before at this supermarket. As I pulled up I found Zhang Hongping and A Hoc, together with the owner of the alcohol-selling place. It was a rather fun evening and I also invited Haiwei and Huang Lei to come around and of course we ended up caimaiing. I guess around 11pm people left (some people have work the next day), so I ended up going to Zhang Hua's bbq place for what might have been a last bite there.

Haiwei, Zhang Hongping, A Hoc, Huang Lei, and the boss of the alcohol shop for a nice drink

I didn't care too much about the time...Li Kun was there at least, and three women turned up too which made it a bit more fun. One of them said she wanted me to find her an English boyfriend...this is not the first time I've had such a request, and I still don't know quite how to deal with it, so I said I'd look into it. We stayed till around 2am and thankfully no-one had locked the door when I got back. So another delightful evening and again I didn't pay although I wanted to. So I resolved to go back to Zhang Hua's tomorrow for my last supper.

Back to Zhang Hua's bbq place for a late snack

Football tops and football starts

Managed to be up by 11am at least, and bought a couple of portions of xiaolongbao for the umpteenth time and had all but two of one portion. I wanted to pick up a non-football-looking Pingguo Haliao top from the official shop but rain again delayed pay. During the meanwhile Awl called me, and said he'd like a dark blue Pingguo Haliao top, so I said I'd take a look. The rain stopped so I eventually got there around 2.30pm under scalding heat...it's normally cooler after a rain storm but not today. Of course I overshot the shop by 1km at least as I realised the road was turning left and I'd not seen that before. Had I had much more exposure to the sun this could have been a problem but I've not come close to getting sunburn here for years.

Arriving at the shop I picked up the other red top in M size for Weiwei, and found a black top I really liked for myself, though the largest they had was XXL and only just about the right fit. I did find a navy blue one for Awl but annoyingly it was 349 kuai and I'm not sure the largest size would have fitted. Still, if it's a birthday present I'm more than willing to get one if they have the biggest size.

I'll get this for Awl if they have XXL

Today was the first Man City game this season after last week's Charity Shield, so I definitely wanted to watch it, and thought watching it outside would be better. But it would end at 1.30am and I had the risk of Tan locking the door again so I thought "sod it" and booked a hotel for £19. It was worth it. I'll never understand a lot about China, but the thing I'll most not understand is the hard beds. The hotel bed was so shufu I didn't even end up going out to watch the footy, only to get a chicken and duck leg to sate my appetite.

I managed to stay up only till 2.30am and welcomed the comfort for the last time in Pingguo. A tiny bit of luxury at the cost of three pints back home. And a decent well-deserved 2-0 victory at Chelsea to boot!

Rearranging flights, meal with Huang Lei and back to Xiao Bai de Tian with Li Kun

I woke up after 3 hours' sleep at 8.30 and confirmed with my Zepp app that that indeed was the case. I went out but wasn't hungry so ended up coming back and managing maybe an hour and a half more sleep before it was lunchtime, which was the usual portion of xiaolongbao. More rain meant I didn't get out in the afternoon, so tried to sleep again, this time with a couple of beers. It did the trick, although I chased them with a wee V and cola while chatting to Awl as he was up early after a horrid three cases yesterday.

So I'd managed to sleep from about 4.30-6pm, meaning a grand total of six hours since 5.30am, not too bad. Tan and the kids got back around 7pm after having had a cracking time in Chongqing by all accounts, and spending a lot of money. 

A couple of days ago I found out that our Nanning to Shanghai flight had been cancelled on 21st and I'd been in contact with trip.com but they said as the flight was so soon I'd need to call Air China myself. Fair enough, the internal flight two months ago was also cancelled and trip.com were useless then anyway. So I called Air China and sadly chose the "English" option as I didn't want to risk screwing up stuff. The lady suggested we could take an evening flight to Beijing instead, and then a 3am flight to London. Actually that would probably be better than the original 11.15am flight to Shanghai, despite it being too late for lounges. But then I had the idea of asking if it would be possible to change the date, and indeed it was, so I asked to move it back two days, which she did, and then I realised Pingguo were playing on Saturday at home and could we move it to Sunday? Yes. Wow, I may have "bought" a few more days here! Except I told Xixi and she said no she wanted to get back and see her friends and also do her 6th form induction. Bollocks, I guess I need to call them back tomorrow to go for the Beijing option.

At 7.30pm I realised I still had the bottle of Gordon's gin. In previous years it wouldn't have lasted nearly two months at home, but I've mostly been avoiding anything stronger than beer recently. I had planned to give it to Huang Lei but the two or three times I'd seen him were with other mates and it may have been a bit awkward giving something to him but not them. So I pinged him to say I had this bottle and he asked if I was drinking. Well I may have had a beer but I said I wasn't, and he said he'd just arrived at Li Jun's house and could I come over? Well yes I could, though it was next to the police station where I register us, and Leilei had taken the bike. But as Tan was home I sent her the location and got her to order a didi che, and was there 10 minutes later.

I do like these unexpected meals, and they do like my company, but again, did it have to be me to trigger the invite. Yes, I suppose so. Inviting me to every meal might look a little desperate or something, probably why they normally wait till they're drunk and don't care so much. I called Huang Lei when I arrived and he turned up to take my bottle and put it into a car, before leading me to a newish complex where we took the lift to the fourth floor. Inside were about four families, the wives and kids as usual in the living area eating and watching tv, while the blokes were around the table. A Ning was there, as usual, as was a kettle of gongwenbao in which there were actually two types of gongwenbao - mostly a white one but with about 10% brown one. I still find it quite funny that regardless of the colour, they always call Chinese spirits baijiu, even if they're dark brown.

The owner only had one bottle of beer in the fridge, but by the time that had gone down, one of the wives opened the front door with a crate of more. Strangely, I don't recall playing caima for once. And I was feeling a bit more tipsy than normally, despite checking the beer % (3.7% for the first Russian one, 2.5% for the delivered ones). Maybe that was because we weren't playing drinking games. Li Kun then pinged me at 8.20pm to ask where I was, so I told him and he said he was taking Leilei to have bbq and for me to come around. I thanked him and said 等一下 (wait a bit) I would, but I'd barely been with Huang Lei for 45 minutes. 40 minutes later Li Kun pinged me again simply to say Xiao Bai de Tian, so I guess that's where he'd taken Leilei to eat. I said I would 等一下 go over there.

Huang Lei and A Ning at another unexpected meal

50 minutes later at 10pm the other blokes had finished their second kettle of gongwenbao and we all decided it was time to go and take the kids back too. For once I sat in the back of a car with Huang Lei, as A Ning's wife took the wheel with A Ning in the passenger's seat. I asked Huang Lei to come with me to Xiao Bai de Tian but he said he didn't like the boss there. Fair enough. At least I got a lift, and found Li Kun with his wife and two younger kids, his actual younger brother with his wife, and his fun colleague Haiyang.

Yet more ganbeis were had and I must have been more tipsy than usual as I can't remember if I table-hopped or not. Either way, Leilei wasn't there anymore so I didn't need to act too sober. One way or another we made it to well past midnight before deciding to call it a night. I think I got a lift home, though I'd have preferred to have the 5 minute walk. And then once back it was another little drink with a chat with Awl, and somehow I didn't sleep till 4am.

Li Kun's colleague Haiyang, his second daughter, his actual little brother's wife

A bit late to a traditional Guangxi meal at Boss Tang's friend's new business opening

Managed to get up reasonably late for a change and they had already sold out of most stuff at the xiaolongbao shop so I picked up five pouches of nuomi fan for only 5 kuai. Ok, a bit carby but I felt I needed that, and three of them were enough to fill me up for lunch. More rain kept me house-locked for much of the early afternoon, and then I received a call from Boss Tang, the other part-owner of the bar with Lu zong that I was at last night. He asked me to go over to his friend's new opening of a business and that he'd come and pick me up in a bit. Oh no, I think we'd talked about this last night and I'd probably agreed to come, but I had a few plans first and said to send a dingwei and I would try to leave at 7pm. He explained that it was far away but I said I would sort it. A bit later he did send a dingwei and indeed it looked to be 10km away, doable on the dian dong che if charged up.

But I needed it now to go and pick up an item of Pingguo Haliao clothing from the official shop, which itself is a good 3km away from our house, so as it had finally stopped raining I went there first at gone 4.30pm. I managed to find what I wanted and got back. But also Jiuma had got back and she was busy folding some coloured paper on the floor for some reason I may never know. I asked Xixi what time they were back and it transpired they'd take the 9am train tomorrow from Chongqing, and it looks like they had a good time as Leilei asked me for 500 kuai "for the last time"...hmm.... Oh well, my tea was the two leftover nuomi fan things heated up. 2 kuai's worth was enough for me.

The kids in Chongqing...no smiles here please...

The monorail Tan and the kids took

By the time I had sorted out the stuff I needed to sort out it was gone 8pm, but at least the bike was mostly charged. The journey took 25 minutes and part of it was on unlit industrial roads with lorries going past. Without a headlight it was a bit dangerous, but I found if I held down the switch I could keep it on for a while. Finally, when I turned up there was a bit of a roar, as most of the people had been drinking for nearly two hours. I was poured a beer, but before I could take it I had to do some Guangxi tradition of being poured two pots of baijiu. Luckily this was much weaker than the normal stuff, and not having drunk before I didn't mind too much. But of course it had to be poured down a sort of chute into a bowl that a lady dressed in traditional clothes held to my mouth, with another bowl below to catch the drips. As they started pouring they started singing, and I just know this was being filmed and uploaded to douyin within seconds. But it was quite good fun.

It actually lasts a lot longer than this as I can testify as I was next!

My turn

And the inevitable caima, followed by "gou rou!" when you win a round! I think it means "dog meat" but I still don't really understand the significance

A new friend

I managed a few rounds of caima with some of the blokes, to their great amusement, and managed to stay a "healthy" 90 minutes during which both Nong and Li Kun pinged me to go out but I had to tell them I was miles away. When I left I promised to drive carefully and indeed did, and got back with I'm sure a few km left in the batteries. But try as I might, sleep would not come, and I ended up watching the Man U v Fulham game to kick off the season and Fulham didn't deserve to lose 1-0. Finally managed a bit of kip at 5.30am.