Drinking out of a chemistry set and karaoke in 3 rooms

Went to a friend’s house for evening meal at 5pm. When we got there four of them were playing mah jong which, as far as I can tell, is a bit like rummy.

The food, when it arrived, was fantastic. I especially liked the tofu square pancakes, onto which you put some cucumber and spring onion, some sauce and some meat, a bit like Beijing roast duck. Unfortunately the only drink available was white alcohol, which I steadfastly refuse to drink (this was immediately remedied by ordering a crate of Li Quan beer). Amusingly, they drank the white alcohol out of what looked like measuring glasses from a chemistry class – they were conical and measured in cl.

The effect of drinking white alcohol from a conical tube.

To add to this, when my beers arrived, I was given another chemistry class glass but this time in the form of a beaker. I can’t remember what we used to call them in school, but they have a spout. The whole effect was quite weird – it only required a Bunsen burner and some test tubes and pipettes and I would have been right back in school. We actually drank very little, and got back 8ish at our house.

Today is Tan’s and my 3^rd meeting anniversary; I mean it was three years ago that I touched down on Shanghai and met the girl who became my wife. So I gave her a card. Unfortunately, Leilei wasn’t letting me write it very easily…then I heard Tan opening the door downstairs. Although I didn’t have a dictionary handy, I hastily finished the card in Chinese.

I should have hidden it and finished it properly. I managed to miswrite the character for “love” – and she made me write it down 100 times.

One of the people I ate with earlier invited us to go out to “drink tea” (a loaded expression), but we couldn’t get a babysitter for Leilei so Tan stayed at home as she was tired anyway. The tea place was of course a KTV place (Karaoke TV), and when we got there there were already about 15 people, some of whom I recognised. I was offered tea, and of course beer, from small glasses that you have to finish in one.

Drinking "tea"

After about an hour, I was whisked away to another room, where another 15 or so “friends” were gathered…they all took delight in meeting me and having yet another beer, and I did my party piece of singing Ni shi wo de mei gui hua much to their delight. After bidding goodbye I went back to the original room for a bit before being whisked away once again to a third room where there were another 15 or so “friends” wanting to meet me, and yes, share more beer with me (and yes, sing that song again). Well, actually it was a lot of fun…my Mandarin is coming on and I always manage to have a laugh with these people.

Enjoying the karaoke!

We got back at hmm….1ish?….but before we went to the house we stopped for some fantastic noodles really close to Xiao Li’s house. There were still a fair few people up at this time and it reminded me a bit of Spain…why not if the weather is good and you’ve had a nice siesta? Which is what I feel like having now….

Lovely late-night noodles