Friday 14^th August, 2020 Crowne Plaza, Nanning 1020

Sichuan Airlines are another one off my list. No food or booze in their lounge at Chongqing airport and a single bottle of water on the actual flight. Nice surprise before we left the hotel though – the GM had sent the chef out to get pork sausages for my breakfast!

By the time we got here last night we were too tired to go out and so had snacks in the VIP lounge. The plan was to go to Yangmei today but that went out of the window when I woke up with nausea and a horrendous belly-ache and Joanna slept late. I have a terrible feeling I won't be leaving this hotel until it is time to leave for Shanghai. I am not happy.

So not a lot to write about except Joanna's boss has been setting questions for prizes.

Sunday 16^th 1300 Xiamen Airlines NNG-SHA

Sadly Nanning was all but a write-off. Felt under the weather most of yesterday. Not a morsel passed my lips on Friday so I asked Joanna to bring me a croissant and a yoghurt from breakfast. Didn't want them but I at least wanted to take her for dinner in the evening.

Which indeed I did. I had researched three places (the original intention was to visit one each night but now we were down to just the one). “The best English pub in Nanning” trumpeted TripAdvisor -The Queen's Head.

Great start, we arrived in a taxi at ten to six to find the shutters down and some sign in Chinese about the virus. Ok, back in the taxi for her to get on her smartphone and find the number two choice – Mars. That one sounded interesting as it starts out being a bistro/cafe but then later they open a secret “speakeasy” out the back, apparently a cross between a Yankee prohibition bolthole and a Victorian pub. Except neither she nor the driver could find any trace of it. I know it exists. But, just as we were going to leave for a French place they found, someone came and opened the shutters. Joanna asked when they opened, seven.

Fine, we went and found a restaurant fifty yards away where we could sit outside and I could have a beer while we waited and she could take a stroll. Now the best English pub in Nanning is nothing to write home about. Small (no problem with that) with a large TV screen and pool table and little else. Or customers! We were it!! Apparently their clientele don't come out to play until ten.

But we both wanted a drink and some food so got some wings for Joanna and later, fish and chips and sausage and chips. Again nothing special, with the exception of the bangers. They are home made (whose home I have no idea) 100% pork with herbs. And I have to say, they are the best sausages I have ever found in China. But we left and we were still the only customers and that was Nanning in a nutshell.

I was beginning to lose all faith in flying business class here ever again seeing as there was no alcohol in the airport lounge. However, Xiamen have given us a choice of chicken, beef or seafood dinners plus I have a decent glass of red beside me as I type. And refills kept coming.......

Next stop Shanghai.

Monday 17^th 1130

I have arrived at the conclusion that six cities, five flights and a train ride in the space of ten days is probably the prerogative of the young. This old fart simply cannot handle the pace any more. As I remarked to Roland yesterday, they say old age creeps up on you but in my case it rode up behind me on a Harley, clobbered me and proceeded to kick me all over the park.

So Joanna and I parted at Hongqiao, she to take the subway and me to get a taxi here to the Pudong Ramada Plaza. Joining us last night were Tutu and boyfriend (who didn't get drunk this time – I think he was warned by her), Mulan and Mr Mulan and of course Mini-Roland TJ. A few happy hour drinks in the Big Bamboo and I suggested the seven of us tottered (in my case at least) over the road to Bollywood for a Ruby.

Being, for the first time in a decade, in a position whereby I may just actually have enough money to avoid going overdrawn at the Bank of Orange, I showed my largesse by saying I would pick up the tab.

I think the meal was good but as is so often the case with me, I never ate anything myself. Not a bad thing methinks, given my digestive health of late. Of course, that never prevented my consumption of copious quantities of a rather delicious (and cheap at 200¥ a bottle) chilled chardonnay.

I have no idea when we finished up there and sadly I forgot to take my camera so no pics but Roland, TJ and I went to a bar close to my hotel for nightcaps, or more accurately breakfast-caps. Maybe the lack of paparazzi was a bonus hereafter.

Now I do have an immense capacity for alcohol intake, after all I do so from morning till night, but sometimes – and we've all been there, more usually in youth than pensionable age unlike this dodo – the brain is perfectly lucid but the body is errant. I love dogs. Well I love animals but dogs are special. There was a small, fluffy, black dog sitting on the decking outside the bar with its lead anchored under a chair leg. Too cute not to bend down and stroke and all the usual things we do with man's best friend. I couldn't resist but now wish I was more heartless.

As I bent down saying “Hello boy” and whatever other endearment I could think of, to my horror I never stopped bending down. I have been really good of late but what ensued was a full-blooded SPLAT face down. For a split second my mind wondered if anyone had noticed a minke whale had beached but of course the world had seen. Helping hands arrived and pulled my 82kgs upright despite my idiotic protestations that I could get up myself. I know damned well without a block and tackle I can't any more! But that's the wonderful thing about drinking – embarrassment is a fleeting emotion, long-forgotten after all of a second. And so endeth day one of my five day stay in Shanghai! The dog? Swiftly gathered up by a concerned owner and spirited away somewhere to recover from the traumatisation presumably.

At three Roland is coming to collect me to take me to get my eyes tested and for me to order new goggles that this time will hopefully work. It's a pity opticians don't offer a trade-in service for your old bins, the current ones haven't even been run in yet.

Tonight I think we will have just one lady with us, Rinka. Who knows, I may just stay upright tonight! But hey – I never started a fight, just gave a few locals something to tell their children about!

Apologies for what seems to have been a problem with the previous post being empty and if I am repeating photos.