Strewth. All that walking yesterday must have taken it out of me because I went to bed before midnight and never surfaced until nine. Even better, for the first time in years I never had to get up to use the loo.
Admittedly I felt like death on legs but after a cup of Twinings breakfast cha I felt able to make Her Highness a breakfast seeing as she didn’t want to go out and buy one. Handy as it happens, for, seeing as I never had any dinner there were some sausages left over which; combined with fried mash, beans and an egg; made a passable English breakfast. It did help that she found my sausages “delicious”.
It’s a grey day outside and the forecast says it will be similar tomorrow which was disappointing as I really need a bit of sun for the colours tomorrow. However the forecast for Zhangye says the sun will smile, I hope so.
At long last (after 7 months!) my new bank card arrived from the UK. Complete with a new PIN, which helpfully I can change the next time I go to an ATM operated by my bank. Ain’t many of those in China!!
No mad rush today with luck. Dinner will be served at three, departure at four for the train station. Dishes to wash and a small case to pack before then and I shall be shamed because Alice will have far less luggage than me. But then I do like to go well equipped and she doesn’t need to pack wine or jing jo.
2320
No journey I make would be complete without its setbacks, now would it?
For starters, Alice bought tickets from Lanzhou Station to the airport. I did remark at the time she booked that they were more expensive than on the websites I use and the departure time was different but she insisted she was right. She was indeed, if we intended to depart from Lanzhou Station instead of Lanzhou West! Only 8y the difference but of course it meant the tickets wouldn’t activate the automatic gates and we had to find security to let us through. I know I’m just a stupid foreigner but very occasionally I am the one who is correct.
Despite having cooked an early dinner, by the time we got to the airport I was unusually hungry. A BK Whopper - much better than a MacDonald’s - sorted that nicely. We wasted a bit of time before going airside so I could dispose of my jing jo but checked in anyway. With our joint suitcase having left my hands not a minute before, Alice was called back and told we had to go to “baggage check”. I knew what the problem was, I had tried to sneak a lighter through that normally gets overlooked as it doubled as a keyring. This time I was rumbled but they also made us take the spare battery pack for charging mobiles out. Quite why I have no idea, seeing as we were able to take it aboard with us and it certainly isn’t a Samsung Galaxy exploding phone. So having been caught and denying having done anything deliberately, we went eventually to security only for them to tell us there was something wrong with our bag and we had to go back to “baggage check”!
Now my blood pressure was rising. Unless red wine, cigars and jing jo had suddenly been prohibited in checked baggage the only things they could possibly TRY to complain about were my clasp knife or waiters friend. Now I had the hump and went into the naughty room with an expansive spread of my arms and a “what now???”
“What now” was that they had failed to lift the embargo on our boarding after everything had been resolved. Fair enough, mistakes are made but this meant we now had to go and queue for security again. After pointing this out our boarding cards were stamped so all we had to do was find an official, who whisked us to the head of the queue. They “found” metal on me where there was none and failed to spot my metal implants in my shoulder so now I started to calm down, unless the flight was cancelled due to “traffic congestion infection“ (and there were a few) we would be airborne in due course.
Still no sign of any alcohol for sale either before or airside (as expected) but at least there was a smoking room and the flight, whilst being billed as 1h 05m actually takes 45m - just the length I like them. Not even a cup of tea was served it was so short, so not having a cold can was scant inconvenience.
It’s always nice to watch someone’s reaction the first time they ever take off and Alice never failed to disappoint. She wasn’t demonstrative but it was plain she thought it was wonderful. I’m not sure how much smaller an A319 is than an A320 but sitting on the runway it did look rather foreshortened. The return flight it seems is on an Embraer 195, never heard of it and by all accounts it is a flying pencil, interesting.
Our room is much as depicted on the website although Alice (now fast asleep) failed to locate any cable channels on the TV. Not that she would have watched any for more than 10 mins but probably will want to tomorrow night, doubtless we will find out how to get them if there are any.
So apparently beef noodles for her and a couple of baozi (steamed dumplings) for me - or her to take away if I’m not hungry - are being delivered to the room in the morning. Then we shall be off to visit the coloured mountains. Pray for sunshine!
The bedroom
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