Sunday 15^th December, 2019 1215

Last night I was invited to Deniro's home for dinner. I was concerned I might be given food that was too spicy or worse, something hideous such as pigs' intestines. My fears were not realised, for his wife prepared a mix of meat and vegetable steamed dumplings.

I was convinced the meat filling was not pork and because they aren't Muslims I had to ask. It was mutton. I don't like mutton but the herbs and spices involved meant they were actually quite tasty. I swear their two-year old daughter put away double the amount I did, plus peanuts, bananas and mandarins. The family only cooks at weekends, neither are keen on it and so dine out every weeknight.

And then I witnessed another “first”. I don't know about my readers but my entire life I have peeled bananas from the stalk down. Deniro does it from the bottom up!

We also had a conversation about flying times from Shanghai to California. I said that as LA was further than London it was probably a couple of hours longer, approximately fifteen or sixteen hours. With no computer readily available it was left at that. Intrigued (as Deniro was doubtful of my claim), I went online this morning. Yesterday was the CET (college English test) and as usual the internet was switched off the entire day.

To my surprise, despite the distance being 1300km further, an eastbound flight to LA can be as short as 11½ hours, two hours shorter than to London! I can only assume prevailing winds play a hand in it but I learn something every day. The return flight takes two hours more.

Speaking of aviation, I read this in China Daily this morning:

The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush for 2020 will begin on Jan 10 and end on Feb 18.

According to the release, the civil aviation sector will handle 79 million passenger trips during the travel rush, a projected year-on-year rise of 8.4 percent.

The administration said there will be over 16,000 flights in service during the rush.

With an all-time record number of passengers one might logically expect prices to be reasonable but it is all but guaranteed they will shoot through the roof, as they do every year.

That haircut I have been threatening to have for ages? Still not done. The temperatures have deterred me and with just two weeks left of commuting to work, I shall leave it until I finish. I won't need to venture out as much wearing my earflapless ushanka. 2° high here today, Chizhou will be 19°, When Alice visits she will find a bit of a difference – today in Guangzhou it will be 26°!!!

Is it nearly summer yet?