Tuesday 13th August, 2013         1415

And the unrelenting heat continues.

I turned up at the kids school yesterday afternoon and was informed by the owner that as the summer school was finishing soon these would be my last two lessons. I think he was a trifle embarrassed to tell me, at least until he saw my beaming smile! That solved the problem of juggling times with Angela the IELTS candidate so now I just have her to fit in.

In my break I walked to the bank. It is probably only two hundred yards away but in the heat it felt like miles. I used an interior cash point and when I asked for cash nothing happened for ages and I thought perhaps the same thing was happening as when I put my card in and the bank staff removed the innards! I didn’t want to leave the machine in case there was a scam going on (although nobody was near me) and so I had to wait until a manager, presumably curious to see what the laowei was doing that was taking so long, poked his head around the corner. Their ATMs were down. No problem, he got my card back and put me straight in front of a teller.

Kevin’s cigarette/wine shop is still closed for refurbishment - has been for over a month now - so I am constantly on the lookout for places which sell my cigars. A nearby shop stocked them so I cleaned them out by buying their stock of fifty.

Final lesson over, I went to meet Angela, not at the Japanese restaurant but the Lotus Bloom because she had sent a message asking if we could go there as she was shopping with friends. No problem, lunch tomorrow will be Japanese instead. Against my experience of them in this city, I ordered a pizza for my dinner and I have to say that barring my own home made ones, it was the best I have had here. It was edible, not too spicy and the only real criticism is that the dough (as always) was too sweet. I gave her the good news that henceforth we could make arrangements for lunches seeing as she probably wanted to be with her friends in the evenings. She cried off for today though as she wanted to go to a Chinese hospital (with Chinese medicines) as her face has erupted in a bad attack of acne. Personally I doubt powdered seahorse and pickled lark’s tongue will have any effect, but you never know! Oh and this time Mum turned up.

That gave me the option today of going downtown to see if I can order more remote fobs or staying holed up in my room, which of course is still cooler than outside - except oddly, late at night! So far I have only ventured out for Pepsi’s sake, although I am toying with the idea of bussing to town this evening for my dinner.

Wednesday 14th           1615

And indeed that’s what I did. The sweet pork place was closed yesterday otherwise I would have eaten there, so I took the bus to the Korean place. It was absolutely heaving. I thought “Great, I came all this way for a KFC!” and duly went there. Equally full. Well if I was going to wait for a table it certainly wasn’t going to be in KFC so back I went to the Korean. All the while I was eating there were people coming in and waiting for tables and I’ve never seen that before.

When I got the bus back and we passed Lottemart and East & West streets it was as if the entire city was out, much as I imagine is the case at Chinese new year. Then it hit me. I had forgotten what Angela said on Monday - it was Valentines Day here! And there was me without a Valentine but at least Kiki sent me a message……

Angela and I went for lunch at the Japanese place, which was also quite full considering it was a midweek lunchtime. I wasn’t particularly hungry and so plumped for sweetened cucumber and a “pastoral” seafood salad. Very healthy and not something I eat often! She confined herself to noodles and dumplings as yesterday the Chinese doctor told her to abstain from meat or seafood for ten days - personally I should have thought better advice would have been to steer clear of oily foods but what do I know? After lunch and some IELTS testing I did my own shopping and went to the bike shop. It took all my skill in body language to get through that I realised they couldn’t supply a duplicate alarm fob but I was concerned at being left up a creek if I lost the other one. Eventually they cottoned on and for 100y (exactly what Helen gave me - maybe it happened to her?) they replaced the alarm unit and gave me two new fobs.

I shan’t see Angela again until Friday so tomorrow I have nothing more onerous to do than maybe ride to town, look for more cigars and visit Sonya at the bank to cancel my two accounts with them due to the school switching. I never knew until she told me that even if you don’t use an account the bank charges you money to keep it open!

Oh yes, the other night when I took Pepsi out for her last tinkle, I spotted movement on the road outside our accommodation. The lights are off at present to save money and anyway normally it is only a frog crossing. If they don’t appear mature enough to jump up the kerb on the opposite side I pick them up and stick them in the grass. What for I don’t know as I would probably see them in Lottemart later on sale for dinner. My phone has a built-in torch so I switched it on only to reveal a yard long, deep scarlet coloured snake! I have no idea what brand of reptile it was but my thought process went along the lines that black or red usually mean it’s not nice so I resisted the temptation to give it a cuddle. My biggest concerns were that I was only wearing open rubber sandals and that my dog might come and investigate. Thankfully she was “straining” some distance away and the snake was more frightened of me than I was of it. Henceforth I shall now be very wary of any pieces of rope, wire or similar if I am walking in darkness!