The joys of gaffa tape

I had a problem with my teeth (no I didn't fix it with gaffa tape). Which led me to several dentists and doctors in the hospital (apparently also called dentists, without the scary looking chair but only able to give out medicine). The short version is that I wasn't entirely convinced that I would escape tooth ache for the next 4 months so I kept attempting to get a second opinion which in and of itself was a mission.



In the space of about 3 days I was cooped up in the dentist's equivalent of a gold fish bowl with the local old people coming in to get a good look at me, the object of numerous photoshoots in local hospitals and then ended up entertaining a bunch of kids in the local English "school". I say "school" because they didn't appear to be learning very much.

How I ended up there is a long story, but as I was there I was roped in to entertain the children. Given that they couldn't really speak English and I don't really speak Mandarin (and what I do speak they struggle to understand up here) it was a slightly painful hour. Some of the kids were very sweet but it was all a bit bizarre - me fully lycraed/waterproofed up 80kms later standing at the front of the classroom being stared at by 50 little kids and listening to a comedy rendition ofhappy birthday.

The teachers were comedy. I couldn't really work it out. Apparently they all taught English, but only one of them spoke enough to be able to have a conversation with me. Anyway, this being CHina, the electronics capital of the world it wasn't long before the cameras came out. Again - 80kms later, no shower, no change of clothes, not so much aye, not so much. It was all a bit awkward, and ended with a photo call out the back....not just one, or two, but a full ten photos at least.

So the gaffa tape I hear you ask. Well, you may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the velo in all of this. It was locked up (with my stuff still on it) at the bottom of the 4 flights of stairs to the school. The guy on the ice cream stall was supposedly keeping an eye on it.

Well he clearly wasn't. By the time I got back to the bike one of the little cherubs pictured above was busy trying to unscrew my bike computer. I shouted, he ran. Luckily for me he wasn't the brightest of the bunch and didn't realise it just unclips (no screwdriver required). Not so luckily for me he ruined an already dodgy screw thread. Thankfully I have gaffa tape...and the bike computer looks a little limp, but still works (for now).