Trip to Nanning to Ma Daxia lao you huoguo

I'd only bought a single ticket to Nanning, with a vague intention of coming back, but thinking it more likely A Wu would want me to stay a night to packed accordingly, only to find as I was brushing my teeth that my toothbrush was running out of battery. No matter how many times I travel for a night or two there's always something to forget to do, and that can't be done last minute. But I had 20 minutes so at least it should be charged for a brush or two should the need arise. It's just a question of a simple list, but with a column for timing things that need to be charged or dried. I even packed an extra pair of shorts and boxers just in case the trip needed to be extended.

In typical fashion I got a video-call from Nong which I couldn't receive for fear of being late, so said I'd call her back in 5 minutes. But I wouldn't leave the house for another 10 as I'd forgotten to prepare a drink for the journey and had to check medicine and supplements. I made sure Leilei had the second set of dian dong che keys as I knew I wouldn't be able to get a didi che and didn't want to annoy Tan to do it.

20 minutes later after simple security (because I'd taken out my power bank and drinks bottle from my bag), I called back Nong to find she was in a KTV bar with her kids and inviting me over. As much as it would have been quite fun to go over, I explained I was about to go to Nanning, but maybe tonight when I was back. Again, it's so typical this sort of thing. Not an ounce of planning. But she said she'd see what she could arrange with friends for tonight and I said cool but didn't mentioned I actually probably wouldn't be back.

Indeed, A Wu pinged me to ask if I'd arrived despite me telling him yesterday that I was arriving at 3.30pm, and to say he'd arrange a hotel room for me. I told him not to bother (so I would still have an option) but when he called a few minutes later he said he'd already booked it. Oh well, the alternative would have been to find a late-night shared taxi that would have taken an age to get back. I don't know why the trains don't run much later than 7pm here; they're nearly always full and apparently they've stopped the coach service this year because everyone takes trains. Could it be because it gets dark? Of course not. And I doubt it's a question of economics as there is obviously high demand. I will find out. And anyway despite most people saying the coach service has stopped, some people say it hasn't. Blimey, it's got to be pretty much binary...either it has or it hasn't, and surely can't be that difficult to know what the situation is. I will find this out too.

For some reason the security bloke didn't scan my passport out of the exit, and after a couple of phone calls with A Wu I crossed over the road and waiting for him to pick my up in his now slightly aging BMW. We stopped off a few minutes later to pick up a big metal sink-like thing but before putting it in the car. Except it was too sharp so the bloke had to spend the next 10 minutes grinding down the edges before it was deemed smooth enough.

Next we stopped off at the market to get presumably food for this evening, so I got the opportunity to walk around and chat to some of the stallholders. No, they didn't have kong xin cai seeds, yes there would be bee larvae but not at this market, at least not at this time. Though I saw some on sale by the side of the road yesterday so I'm not giving up hope. Half an hour later it was back into the car and we parked on some road a 5 minute walk from Ma Da Xia, A Wu's restaurant he opened a couple of months ago. Interestingly, Ma Da appears to be what I think is called a "loanword" from English, meaning "Martha", so I let the family know. I don't like the term "loanword" though. It sounds like you're going to give it back. Isn't that the definition of "loan"? Surely there is a better term, a bit like homonym but expressing the origin of the word too. "Homotextual term"? Or maybe the term "译音" (transliteration) does the job more appropriately. Oh, ok I've just looked it up, so it seems the term has descriptive flaws: "nothing is taken away from the donor language and there is no expectation of returning anything (i.e., the loanword)". Thanks Wikipedia. So it does seem that "loanword" is the appropriate term.

I helped bring in the food to the kitchen and then helped out with the young ladies at the front door advertising the huoguo wares by means of discount vouchers. Well it was already 6pm so very much time to eat, so I called out "老友火锅！", which sort of means "old friends' hotpot" which is the second part of the name of the restaurant. We, or rather they, managed to get a few punters in. It's not a bad place for a restaurant for although the main entrance is on a fairly narrow pathway, it's full of tourists coming and going in both directions in a central area that's been recently built up in the old traditional style. And I didn't see any foreigners.

A Wu's new huoguo place Ma Da Xia

The one of the blokes who works there, and takes care of A Wu's car, decided to take me on a walk around this part of town, and gave me effectively a guided tour. This was much appreciated, but there was just a bit too much new vocabulary to take on in that half an hour. But one of the places we passed was apparently somewhere where Deng Xiaoping's wife lived for a while, and there were some old ladies in army uniforms taking photos there. We went to a small booth where they sold a traditional style of spring roll and deep fried leaves, and he ordered three of the former. It was one of the more popular booths and we had to wait for them to be cooked after some leaves, and I told the bloke I was with that this was a good sign and he agreed. Slightly annoyingly, without asking, the cook poured a load of sweet chilli oil over the otherwise delicious spring rolls (well I only had one in order not to spoil my appetite).

Tan had been texting to ask with whom I was to eat, and not to do any business with A Wu or his boss friends as they were all millions in debt. I take this with a small pinch of salt, but I'm sure there are some dodgy goings on going on. But as if I was actually going to do any business with them! I would be his friend of 20+ years, and the "uncle" or "older brother" to most of the rest of his friends and their families. And indeed it was all friends and families that turned up around 6.30pm, although A Wu was nowhere to be seen.

It's delightful to be greeted by a six year-old who remembers you as "英国叔叔" and takes you by the hand to see her other friends. I'd met a couple of the friends and their parents before, and they wasted no time taking copious photos of us. After the photos by the entrance I noticed the little brother of one of the girls with what I thought was a box of condoms but, for better or worse, turned out to be a box of matches. I naturally thought I should take them away from him, but instead his older sister did. And then started lighting them and throwing them to the floor. I did try to tell them it was dangerous, but was it really? I found it as fun as they did and at least it wasn't bangers. Probably shouldn't have thrown them onto the red carpet though.

One of the daughters who grabbed my hand and started comparing it with hers

A Wu sent me this one of us

Playing with fire is fun whatever adults say

We went for a walk in the old-style newly built up pedestrian zone and despite the fact we were about to eat, the wives ordered some street food from the same place I'd been to half an hour ago. But this time I had one of the deep-fried leaves and it was pretty good. It was explained that a long time ago this was a poor region so they didn't want to waste anything. I keep saying I really appreciate this, especially in terms of what they don't waste when it comes to meat. Then one of the wives got me a white drink and my heart dropped a little when they told me it was 椰子. I've felt almost allergic to coconut all my life except for once in Kenya when I drank some milk straight from a fresh one. But I didn't want to be rude, and figured it would probably be full of sugar, and anyway I was really thirsty, and the six year-old with her own glass was telling me it was delicious. So I tried it and yes it was rather sweet, and managed a few sips but would have much preferred water as already I was feeling slightly sick.

It doesn't take much to amuse me

Deep-fried leaf, apparently called 甲篓, or Armor but I don't think that's a translation, rather it sounds a bit like Jiǎ lǒu

A Wu and a couple of dads eventually turned up and we went to a private room to eat, and it was very much a family affair, but would have been more so had Tan and the kids accepted my offer for them to join me here (not that I really expected them to). Almost all the meat was either fish or pork innards except for the brain which I suppose technically is not an innard (it doesn't appear that word is allowable in the singular but hey). I was feeling decidedly sick now and went to help myself to a water from the fridge and downed half of it there and then. The only thing I could bring myself to eat was a bit of fried tofu cooked in the huoguo. Mum had asked why the place was named after Martha so I did ask A Wu about this. Oh, I'd got it wrong (at least Pleco had), Ma was just a surname (horse) and Daxia was the second word, which means "swordsman", or "knight", or maybe it just means "Horse swordsman". Oh well, I hope Martha isn't annoyed. Oh, and to attempt to avoid another lady being annoyed I pinged Nong to say that I was booked to stay tonight (which is typical Guangxi style really) and she said she'd see if she could sort out something for tomorrow, which I somehow doubt will come to fruition as would imply planning.

Nice family meal at Ma Daxia lao you huoguo

It took the best part of an hour before I started feeling a little better and managed a couple of 3% beers with a couple of the blokes. Then I felt brave enough to partake in some pig brain and it was actually rather nice, if a little soft. A couple of glasses later I managed a few rounds of ganbei and my nausea had mostly gone. I even managed some fatty beef and a small amount of skinny chicken (as in it had a lot of skin). I told A Wu it may be that my stomach wasn't used to the coconut water but he pointed to my half-drunk glass and said it was certainly the fault of the drink and not me. There was no point in arguing that I might be allergic.

Yep, I managed to eat a whole pig brain after joking that I shouldn't as I was a pig. According to Chinese tradition it should help me be more intelligent...

Then, around 9.30pm it was decided that we would stop and go for a walk again. Ok, fair enough, we just left our newly-poured beer glasses on the table and did exactly that, after A Wu made me video talk to some bloke who was apparently going to pop round later. And indeed we did drop everything and go for my third walk of the day, around the same places. A Wu told me that the building I thought was where Deng Xiaoping's wife stayed was in fact where the wife of some famous military leader stayed, and called the other bloke an idiot. I have no idea, and probably never will. We went into a "Huawei" store which, while selling phones, also had three electric cars on display which we had to check out. The first one was nice but A Wu's wife correctly pointed out that the front was rather low, and wouldn't cope with the roads of the more rural parts of Guangxi.

We didn't end up buying any cars, and eventually went back to the private room in A Wu's huoguo place except this time the kids stayed out with the wives and there were other blokes in their places. The table was cleared of everything except the drinks and the huoguo, and new bowls etc. were brought. We'd just started ganbeiing again when suddenly the lights went out. But no-one seemed to batter an eyelid (not that I'd have seen). A Wu put on his phone torch but it wasn't enough to caima. I asked if this was a planned outage and indeed it was as some bloke was working on the fusebox upstairs, and it didn't affect downstairs at all.

Well it may have been planned, but it wasn't planned to be more than 10 minutes so then we started taking all the stuff to a table downstairs and a few minutes later we continued as blokes here tend to do. The bloke to my right was asking about chat apps in the west and I confirmed we use WhatsApp and Telegram more. He showed me he had both, plus Instagram and YouTube etc. So I asked him which VPN he used and he showed me eVPN, which seemed to work perfectly. Note to self: download while Mullvad is still working. He talked to me about doing business with Ghana for mining gold and I showed some sort of interest without being committal lest he think he could use me for something. But I did move the subject onto digital gold and he seemed to know something about it.

I've had pig eyes as bbq before but couldn't bring myself to have them huoguo style, despite them being technically part of the brain right?

Earlier one of the young women who worked there had given me a tiny bottle of sour plum wine, so A Wu brought it and we finished it off, then after a couple more beers it was decided that the night had ended at 12.45am. I had tried to scan a QR code for a battery pack as I'd left mine in A Wu's car earlier. But it required face ID so one of the young ladies who worked on the door had done it for me. I'd gone up from 30% to 90% in a couple of hours so well worth it just in case the night had gone on longer. So when I replaced the battery pack I made sure I paid her back the 6 kuai. Then we walked slowly to A Wu's car and said our goodbyes to a couple of the other blokes. The kids were still wide awake and running about.

When we got to the "Bless" hotel I asked A Wu's wife if I'd need my passport. "No!", A Wu's sorted everything. A minute later they asked for my passport of course. When I'd told Tan A Wu had booked the hotel she said I'd need my passport, as if I'd not brought it. I reminded her I wouldn't have been able to take the train if I'd not got it, and she didn't respond. I noted that there was a small shop by the foyer, then went up in the lift with A Wu's biaodi (little brother but not literally). My heart sank a little while in the lift. I had a card for my room but he didn't appear to. Surely we weren't going to share were we? Oh yes we were, and the beds were so close it wasn't that far off from being a mega-king bed. Shit, we'd had a few beers but I wasn't anything close to drunk really. Luckily I had Tan's sleeping pills and then I made an honest statement that I would pop downstairs to get more water than the two bottles on offer.

I would much rather have had a room to myself...it was ok thanks to sleeping pills and a couple of beers

I did buy two bottles of water, and two cans of beer, and a small bottle of jing jiu. When I got back to the room at 1.30am I made no attempt to hide the beers (I did hide the jing jiu) and said despite having stayed in hotels a lot I found trouble sleeping in new places so I would have a beer and would he like to have one with me. No he was fine, and fine with me having both of them (well I also a little bit of the jing jiu in the toilet first). I hope I didn't snore too much, but the extra beer and pills did their trick and I was asleep well before 3am.