Saturday 6th August, 2016                         1425

Idiotically I thought that with it being the weekend I would get some respite from the barrage of bad luck - after all, they won’t refuse my certificate on a weekend as they don’t work.

Last night and this morning I tried to buy my flight to Shanghai online and also over the phone with the firm I usually use. No joy of course. A five minute ride to the bank and fifteen minutes later I was told I was good to go. I thought Christ, if I had known it was that easy I would have done it years ago.

Went to the supermarket and then the new temporary office for a couple to slake my thirst (33C today) before returning to the hotel, confident I could now book my first class ticket if they hadn’t bumped up the price in the interim. My confidence was misplaced because when you try to buy online the bank sends you a verification code by text to enter on whatever site you are using.

No such verification code was received.

I phoned the travel company for help and they said to return to the bank. Good job it isn’t far from here. On this occasion nobody at all spoke English and to be honest I don’t think any of the staff knew how to set up internet banking!

We ended up with one of the women calling her 16 year old son and asking him to come to the bank. He spoke English and knew the system better than anyone else! He guided me through the process and set up online transactions. I then asked if I could buy my ticket on the bank computer to save me having to go back to the hotel and maybe yet another return trip if it failed. No, the computers were only connected to the bank network.

However, one of the girls had a laptop which she connected via her mobile phone internet. The lad helped me buy the ticket and it worked, much to my relief. I am now flying first class on Saturday so at least if the plane is delayed I will be given alcohol to keep me happy, rather than having to make do with the water, tea or coffee they serve in cattle class or at best warm cans of beer I bought in the terminal to take on board. If this hadn’t worked I was going to the train station to buy a business seat on the train - which isn’t much less than a first class flight. One day I will take one of these seats, you get free snacks, meal and presumably non-alcoholic drinks and they lie flat if you want to sleep.  Just for the experience, you understand.

Last night I went to Yumeics coffee bar and bakery. Not for coffee (in fact I took my own jing jo since they don’t flog beer) but because through Kevin I had discovered recently they do pizzas. I had their smallest meaty one and only managed just over half of it but I was sated and  I took the opportunity to read through the menu. They do Bolognese, wings, Mexican platters and other things suited to my palate so they will be seeing more of me before I leave, it’s only a ten minute ride even at rush hour, mind you I will cheat tonight as there are horrendous road works at a really bad point so the dedicated bike lanes off-road will prove invaluable.

I am (perhaps naively) rather hoping for a trauma-free day tomorrow.