Fair Go !!!

I must have MUG written on my forehead.

(It’s my own fault for not asking ‘how far’)

After breakfast Alex asked me if I would like to go with them to a small market that sells small things. Always a sucker for a small market I said yes, but ‘how far’. About ten minutes walk. Okay, that was fine.

We set off, and sure enough the ten is fifteen but that’s okay, no problem. It’s a terrific little market, about two street blocks and all sorts of lovely stuff. I found an umbrella for Amanda, and a bag for Julia that she wanted. I have searched high and low for this bag and was delighted I could finally find what I was after. Poor Alex was wondering if I would ever find it, I had such specific requirements. But I did and I’m happy with it.

So after wandering around for about 45 mins and seeing all there was to see, we headed for the exit and home. Ah….but   yes…now we will do what we came out to do.  Zheng Pin needed some bigger clothes. So we start walking…away from home, another few blocks. I had had little to drink and the air was dusty, and I couldn’t find a shop to buy any water anywhere. Finally, I found a little restaurant that sold water. We got what she needed. Good, time for home.

Ah…no…there was one more shop, further again in the direction away from home, not far, just about two more blocks. By the time she was finished it was about midday. Now we had the ten which was really fifteen minute walk home, plus the extra few blocks to the first shop plus a bit more to the second shop. Ah, yes, we got home about 12.30 in time for lunch.

This afternoon I had a rest and then we had dinner. We had just finished when Alex said he had a favour to ask me. He would really appreciate it if I could get him out of a spot of bother. He had committed a faux pas beyond belief and needed to rectify it, but it needed me to do it. Here’s the goss.

At his wedding, he introduced me to Zheng Pin’s grandparents on the mother’s side. They are going to NZ soon, and he introduced me… blah blah blah. I shook their hands and said hello and smiled nicely, but they spoke no English. However, this happened in front of the whole table of 22 who were sitting at the bride’s table. Also sitting at this table were her grandparents on her father’s side, but they did not get an introduction and they were not happy. They were miffed in the extreme. To leave one set of parents out is bad, but if you must do it you do not do it to the males parents, after all the mother’s parents are not as important as her father’s parents. They felt slighted and Alex was in the cart. I was slightly gobsmacked and told him I considered the whole thing to be totally stupid.

Okay, so how can I help? He asked if I would please go with them tonight and visit her father’s parents in their home so they don’t feel so left out.  How far? Only about ten minutes walk.  Haha, I’ve heard that before.

I agreed, because I know these things are important as far as Alex is concerned, and as there is a bit of argy bargy between the families thought it would not hurt.

Actually it wasn’t a bad visit, and the house they live in has to be seen to be believed. I will go back and take some photos. You won’t believe it either.

Then Alex wanted to have a massage. I had asked about a foot massage a day or two ago, and suggested we went today. But today become tonight, after visiting the grandparents. How far I ask? Not far, about 15 minute walking….haha..yes I’ve heard that before too.

We get to the main corner and find a taxi. Well in this area there are few real taxis, that is, car taxis. There are motor bike taxi’s and this one was a bicycle with some sort of motor attached and on the side was a sort of a side car that held two, Zheng Pin and I, and Alex sat on a sort of carrier thing over the wheel. The fifteen minute walk became a ten minute ride on this taxi in the open freezing cold. Haha…..my own fault.

We had a good foot massage, and they lad cut my nails and cleaned off all the dry skin off my heels which was very good. Time for home

How far I ask? About fifteen minutes walk. And this time it was only about fifteen minutes. At 9.45 I staggered up those stairs again for the last time today. It is milo time then I have to pack. I’m off to Suzhou tomorrow where the forecast is for showers, clouds, and zero degrees to a high of about  3 degrees. Oh joy!!!!!

PS. I was told the bus for Fuzhou airport tomorrow leaves from outside.  Well I found out tonight that it does, but outside and a fifteen or twenty minute walk up the road. That’s not so bad, but I’ll have my luggage to cart up there as well, and in the early part of the morning when my dear insides have not had time to do their thing according to my bodily rhythms. And a walk like that is sure to move things along. So it’s up at 6.30 in the morning hoping that by 8.30 when we leave that the matters of nature have been taken care of satisfactorily, because there aint no loo till the airport two hours later.  Lol….

Mug? What mug? Where?