Well given the stops that were pulled out for me re my passport by Sally at Foreign Affairs and Bonnie the policewoman I decided I should invite them to dinner on me. Guangxi (influence) is vital in this country and a foreigner needs all he can get. Sadly Bonnie was busy but Joan and I, Kevin and Vivi, Sally and Molly the teacher I met when doing the TV show all went to the restaurant we went to with the little school a couple of weeks ago. If I can download from that box of excrement I ordered online I might have a couple of photos.
Ordering western food on Taobao is, in my experience, expensive of course but reliable. Every time I have ordered non-food items there have been problems - the bread maker that kept seizing, shirts too small and now a camera that wasn’t even what I ordered. I know I said I would stick with it but that night two brand new batteries lasted for three photos and the next set I put in I may as well not have bothered because the memory was full. There was no sodding memory card! Joan is going to try to return it for a refund.
Anyway we had a good night and although my intention had been to pay for it all, Kevin had insisted we split the bill. Fine by me but he sneakily paid the lot, presumably while I went to the loo, and refused to tell me what the amount was. Very generous.
Yesterday he took me in his car to RT Mart (just needed a baguette, cucumber and tuna because dinner was going to be a “Subway”) and then he went to the bank to withdraw almost all his money. He left for Huangshan early this morning to collect his passport from his new school complete with another year’s worth of residence permit. He was happy because heavy rain was forecast for tomorrow and he didn’t relish driving in it, plus it gives him tomorrow to finish tidying his flat and checking he has left nothing.
In the meantime, despite being told I could get my passport on Friday, Bonnie sent a message saying it would be ready today. Accordingly I took Joan on the bus to McDs for breakfast, taxi to take her to her school (she is teaching for experience) and thence to the police station. Tomorrow’s deluge arrived a day early and it is belting it down outside. Both Kevin and I would probably have been better going where we were tomorrow.
However I do now have my passport with renewed credentials in it but when I asked Bonnie when they actually were given my passport she confirmed it was Tuesday - two days ago. I gave the foreign affairs officer on campus the thing on the 24th June, three bloody weeks ago, and she did nothing. In fact my expert certificate is still in her office. That’s not so important but I must check to see if it is legal to actually work without a valid one. I wouldn’t put it past her to leave me teaching illegally.
It means I can go to Hefei on Sunday. They are leaving at the unearthly hour of eight which means a six o’clock alarm for me and I will get no sleep on the coach seeing as it will be full of primary school kids. Oh joy.
After picking up my passport I went to RT Mart to shop for a salad for tonight. I had been wondering why for the past few days Joan, who is normally a trencherman, has been saying she just wanted a little food. This morning on the bus I twigged and said to her (after she said only a little salad tonight please) that she has been eating dinner at school as well as lunch. Her sheepish smile was enough to tell me I was spot on. At least now I know if I don’t feel like cooking I don’t need to feel guilty.
Anyway in the supermarket I thought I would look at cameras. The one the restaurant stole from me is now double the price I paid for mine a year ago so I ruled that out. There was a Fuji I fancied but then I spotted a Casio. Having had good experience of the brand in the past I plumped for that even though it cost a bit more. Almost a thousand yuan and twenty minutes of trying to ascertain whether it was supplied with a memory card (it wasn’t), I walked away with a new toy plus memory card and an instruction book almost entirely in Chinese. Hopefully I will be able to download an English version online and figure out how to work it before Sunday.
I was booking a domestic flight last night from Shenyang to Hefei. I have a Visa debit from the UK but there is little on it and trying to remit monies from here onto it is quite honestly not something I want to entertain - spending a couple of hours in the Bank of China is not time I can get back - ever. So, having to give Joan the money to put it on her card, I had to use a Chinese website. Fine, Chrome translates after a fashion and the Chinese site shows more flights than the English one but Christ is it slow! The flight itself is two and a half hours and it took half that to actually get a seat! Maybe spending time in the bank isn’t so bad after all…….
1730
So much for an afternoon kip. Downloaded a manual for the camera and even with that it took me half an hour just to change the language to English. So far I have also set the date and time and ascertained it does indeed take photos. Not only that, the memory card seems to be large enough to take 3,500 photos - and the guy asked me if it was big enough!
I have managed to download the entire capacity of the camera I unwittingly bought online and I had to laugh because in all three Joan looks utterly fed up. I assure you she wasn’t, it was just my skill at taking impromptu photos! Sally is on the left, Molly in the middle and Joan is the sulky one on the right.
No comments:
Post a Comment