Saturday 2nd August, 2014      1200



Sadly the internet packed up just after midnight so I decided to call it a day. This morning it still didn’t work (I think the router packed in) so I decided to go to reception and ask for a new one after my shower. Before that the chambermaid came to discover me being unable to get power to one of the electrical sockets. Neither could she so she made a call and hallelujah! - someone with a smattering of English arrived to sort it. I seized the opportunity to get her onto the internet problem and she summoned a technician. He did something to my laptop which rendered it able to use the direct connection. I think for the school internet Kevin configured it to only connect to that, all well and good but I am not that au fait with computers! Anyway, it is working now.

I went out earlier to buy liquid provisions and some crisps. It is 37 degrees today but I never broke sweat because mercifully it is not humid. When I came back I decided to investigate the Chinese restaurant, which the book says is on the 2nd floor. It isn’t! It’s on the 1st floor. I may well give it a try another night because importantly photographs of the dishes are on display.

So for now I am just killing time waiting for my lift to Pizza Hut, where I fully intend to fill up.

So later Leslie picked me up and we went to collect Air from work at seven. The Pizza Hut is in a new One Hundred Provinces shopping mall and a near neighbour is Burger King. As I pushed open the door it briefly crossed my mind that there were no queues outside. There normally are any time after five but I attributed that to people boycotting due to the recent meat scandal. I was wrong on two counts. Firstly, the door I went in (which never had a no entry sign) was the wrong one and secondly, there WAS a queue outside the correct entrance.

We waited our turn and a very kind lady who had been waiting over an hour (unbelievably) swapped numbers with us because she wasn’t yet hungry! Thereafter the experience went downhill. Incredibly they had no beer so yet again I ordered a hideously expensive bottle of wine, only to be presented with a beaker, not dissimilar to those which Esso garages were giving away 40 years ago, from which to drink it. My protestations that I wanted a wine glass were met with “mayo”, at which point I nearly had a coronary. Keeping outwardly calm I pointed out that if they sold wine then they must have wine glasses. They did.

There was then a lengthy wait for the food. Air and I had plumped for pizza, Leslie a sizzling steak platter. Except when the latter arrived and he poured the pepper sauce on it, unlike every other I have seen in the past couple of weeks, it never sizzled. The pizzas - when they finally arrived - would certainly never have burnt anyone’s lips either. On the whole it was thoroughly disappointing, compounded by the fact that the bill was 355y (nearly half of which was my wine) and Air insisted on paying despite the fact I had stipulated that I would settle the bill. That calls for a slap up, and hopefully decent, Chinese meal before I depart - on me!