Sunday 1st October, 2017                              1515

China’s 68th birthday

It turned out that Annie could have travelled after all. I don’t know the entire truth of the matter but either there was a misunderstanding at the visa office or she changed her mind. We had a chat and I think for whatever reason it was the former rather than the latter - especially as she wants to eat my cooking - in particular garlic bread! Notwithstanding, Brenda took the passport receipt (no idea why because that is the only proof of ID and ability to travel) so were we still going tomorrow it would have meant demanding it back.

Doesn’t matter, too late now. I got cash back and won’t need to delve into the UK account.

Late yesterday afternoon I went to buy some lightbulbs as spares for my bathroom. As I have a light on each night in there I do seem to go through them. I went underground and whilst there had a new battery fitted in one of my watches - the one that saw an incident with Janet. I also bought a digital bedside clock that lights up on command (handy when a pee break in the night is called for) and if set to, will tell you the time verbally but in Chinese! I doubt I shall use that particular function.

Afterwards I decided to go for sweet pork. Yesterday was a make-up day for the school due to Thursdays lessons needing to be done to enable an entire week off. I had forgotten as I don’t teach Thursdays. It also meant yesterday afternoon was when the kids got to travel home.

There was the most enormous “crocodile” of students waiting for the 131 bus - all going home for the holiday!

Well to get my dinner I had to pass this queue. As I walked I could literally FEEL hundreds of eyes boring into my back and I could almost hear their thoughts - “That bastard is going to jump the queue because he’s a foreigner!” It’s exactly what I would have thought too!

In the restaurant I texted Annie to warn her as she had said she was visiting her host family. She had already taken a different bus. I’m not sure why the Peace Corps feel the need to have a host family for each volunteer given they have the foreign affairs school office and other foreign teachers to assist, not to mention the students. The volunteers are required to go and stay periodically with the family during certain holidays, indeed she is still there today.

I only found that out because I asked if she wanted to go out for dinner tonight. Instead we will go to the Japanese place where the abortive dining attempt was carried out in Dragon Boat festival except we will go in the early evening when the chefs are unlikely to be just about to knock off! After all, I still have nearly 300y on my VIP card so it won’t cost me money I have not already spent months ago.

Half of yesterday was wasted anyway, waiting in for repair men. First I had people to look at the door lock just before lunch and then three hours later when they had eaten they returned. Of course the damned thing worked perfectly for them even though twice recently it took me half an hour to gain access! They thought I was barmy but I insisted they investigate further because if it happened during the holiday the school would be paying for an hotel. Eventually they did find some faults inside the assembly, mostly I think because things were loose. It seems to work ok now but time will tell.

Then later they came to sort the drip under the bathroom sink. I would have taken a look myself but I thought the doors to the cupboard were sealed shut and didn’t want to rip it off the wall. Turns out the hinges were rusted solid! They also left and returned later. In contrast to the reluctance of the locksmiths, these guys replaced the entire tap assembly rather than use some plumbers tape to seal a very small drip!

They also dislodged a wall tile and smashed it in the process, although I never noticed it was missing until this morning.

Today is another day I shan’t set foot outside. I have something unidentifiable defrosting for dinner (maybe pork, maybe chicken with peppers and the like but I cooked it so long ago I have no idea what it is) because if tomorrow’s plan eventuates then I will be busy.

I’d like to visit the market at Five Streams to see if I can find any decent potatoes en route to the Japanese and after dinner see if we can’t find a bar with some decent live music. I might even remember my camera.