Yesterday was just another stock up trip for wine, enough for my stays away for the next week with a little to spare for when I get back. It was also freezing cold.
This morning Joan and I readied for the journey to Nanjing. She will leave for her hometown at the conclusion of this break so accordingly her suitcase and backpack were stuffed full and heavy. My smaller suitcase in contrast held but four changes of clothes and should in theory have been much lighter than her luggage but add in four bottles of wine, two of Jing Jo and a 5kg laptop and suddenly it was handle-breakingly heavy! Sometimes in that respect I can be worse than a woman but I am glad I brought the laptop because despite Ctrip telling me there were cable channels (ergo western films) there are none.
Anyway I had to ferry Joan and her stuff to south gate and return to get my own case. Just before we boarded the bus Antony called. The school would like me to be interviewed on TV and say nice things about them. Apparently I am very popular in the city, why I have no idea given my pedestrian rage episodes in queues and at pelican crossings. Well I can’t do that until late next week when I am back.
However I sense an opportunity here. They want me to promote them as being a terrific place a mere one term before intending to boot me out due to my age! Now, I will do it for them regardless because in truth up until the last couple of months I had on the whole a wonderful five and a quarter years here. Plus of course I will need a release letter and reference if I do have to leave. But no harm in pointing out the obvious and asking them to reconsider, surely? I have been thinking a lot and I feel I might be foolish to roll over and die just because of one person, who it transpires doesn’t actually hold that much sway over my future here anyway. Time will tell what the coming months hold for me.
For the first time here, our train left from the ground floor. Previously it has always been a case of going upstairs, waiting, trundling across the overhead bridge to whatever platform and then struggling down about fifty yards of steps with the cases. I knew I couldn’t trust the telescopic handle not to snap were I to use the slipway, nor myself not to fall headlong after it - it really was that heavy. The high speed train (208kph) leaves from platform one and it was well worth paying for first class seats. It also took just over an hour and a half as opposed to the cattle trains at four and a half hours. You also don’t have millions of people standing everywhere either, although to my bemusement people still do squat in seats until ticket holders turn up.
We even managed to negotiate the Metro in Nanjing. The south station is enormous and you buy tokens from a machine. I had done my homework and knew we needed to specify six stops but although the machine had a button for English (great) whenever we pressed the line we required it reverted back to Chinese with no English option! Eventually Joan figured it out and we got our tokens for 2y each. Sneaky moo let me exit first on arrival so I would be the one collared if we had underpaid, her thinking probably that the silly Laowei would get away with pleading ignorance.
Check in at the hotel started off badly. One of the girls decided I was an illegal because she spotted an entry stamp for 2013 and assumed I should have one for each year as opposed to what I do have, which are residence permits, the current one being valid until 31st July. That got sorted after she called the manager down but then when I asked if we had been given a river view we were informed that would cost another 30y a night. I bridled at this because there was no mention of it when I specified my preferences when booking online.
It all ended rather well as it happens as we have a river view and they have only taken just under 150y as a deposit. I was expecting 500y. The river view was important to me firstly because the room will be quieter than facing the road and also from the publicity photos it looks as if everywhere is lit up at night.
The room is pretty basic but everything is here bar razors (I brought my own in case) and a TV with no English channels. I have the wi-fi so we will be fine. I even remembered to bring teabags and milk.
Joan was given four choices of restaurants for dinner (I want to do a different one each night) and has elected to go for Indian this evening at the Taj Mahal. In fact we will leave once the film on her phone finishes because I am starving and I reckon I need an early night tonight.
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