Tuesday 24th January, 2017                     2200

Before going to bed last night I decided to have another bash at getting to RT Mart today. Despite getting up much earlier I found myself leaving a scant hour sooner than yesterday. This was because I was searching online for western food shopping in Lanzhou and trying to figure out how to get places.

I think I have figured Google maps out now, in particular the bus part. So I spent ages researching different shops and routes and before I knew it, it was one o’clock. By then however I had decided to hell with RT Mart (seeing as I’m not sure any of the connecting buses actually leave from the train station and I have no idea where they do), I was going to try Bai’an department store. At that time it meant no more to me than it does to you at present.

It seemed simple enough, just take the number 15 bus from here and 15 stops. The bus had an electronic sign with flashing lights along the route map to indicate where you were or what the next stop was. All in Chinese of course but I counted 15 stops on the map as we set off and checked thrice more. I wanted the stop two stops before the terminus at five streams mountain. Easy.

I think we were at about 9 stops when I suddenly realised that the big fat stop which I thought (because the writing was so close together) simply had a log name, was in fact two separate stops. I counted again now they were both fully illuminated and it appeared I wanted the third stop from the end instead of the second. I wasn’t entirely sure, not even if the shop still existed - the internet has told me lies in the past - so I tried to remember what I had seen on the map online in the vicinity of where it was supposed to be. Then we passed the Grand Soluxe hotel which I remembered was just before the stop I needed.

Sure enough, I recognised the building when I got off from the photos I had seen. The other side of a diamond-shaped  “roundabout”, it involved underpasses and plenty of stairs but I hadn’t made the effort just to give up at the death. Access to the supermarket (which is in the basement) wasn’t easy the first time. I ended up in a jewelry emprorium initially, then took the lift down to -1 and -2 but discovered only car parking.

By now I was beginning to think I had been sold a pup but persistence paid off. I found it. Not a big place by any means but some western goods in there such as dressings and dips, pasta sauces etc and oh boy, cheese! Expensive but importantly they had extra mature cheddar. I only spent 100y but I also bought a tin of proper peas, unlike the pea impostors I usually have to buy and then boil to death. Now I know where to go for cheese anyway, even if the bus takes an hour each way.

Getting back home was a different matter. I knew from the map where I needed to get the bus but again this involved underpasses and at some point I must have lost my bearings, for when I eventually boarded a 15 bus I found myself continuing in the same direction I was going when I arrived! Only 3 stops and yes a wasted fare but when it only costs 1y all I really lost was time, plus I got to stay on the same vehicle and bag one of the single seats I prefer. Earlier I’d had to share with an unkempt chap who by the smell of him had eaten a field full of garlic.

Slowly but inexorably and because I have no assistance, I am beginning to find my bearings in this city which is so much bigger than Chizhou.

Tomorrow the plan is to go to BHG to do a big shop before it become too manic in the run up to Chinese new year. Buy enough provisions for a week and then there will be no need to venture any further than my beer shop, given that the buses will only run limited hours for who knows how long.

And of course that will give me ample time in which to cook as many brown and crispy roast potatoes as I like, in contravention of the latest nannying and crackpot advice from HM Government……………