Up at 4.30am - badminton and sing song and bbq

Somehow woke up at 4.30am and couldn’t get back to sleep.
I looked after the kids until Lin Hong came to take them out, which I appreciated but wasn't able to take advantage of by falling back to sleep.

Our flat is on the 2nd floor (3rd if you are foreign)

At some stage I went out to play badminton with Xiao Li, followed by a meal with a couple of his friends. I was dog-tired but he wanted to go out and “sing song” (karaoke). I said I needed a rest so we compromised by going to “wash hair”, which is an excellent way to spend one hour, being pampered by a young lady who not only washes hair, and face, and ears, but also massages all over too.

Xixi with Xiao Li (A Wu) and his wife Xiao Wei (A Ni)

I could have slept after that but we got up and went to see a number of friends in what looks like a new karaoke place. Our room already had about 10 drunk men and 5 sober women in it. I had to drink about 20 glasses of beer but the glasses were more like shot glasses so it was a relatively sober affair. Luckily Tan called soon after I’d arrived and said there were some people at the barbeque place who wanted to see me so I had an excuse to leave.

Bbq was very nice. Around 11.30pm Lin Hong came back with the kids from the town square. They’d had a great time apparently, playing fishing (plastic fishes) as you do. It’s strange that there is so much more to do here for the kids than in London. Not because London doesn’t have places to go, but I think it’s just down to the hot weather and the fact that everywhere is a short, cheap ride away. Xixi fell asleep in another aunt’s arms – and we went home around midnight - sleep followed shortly afterwards which was a good thing as we needed to go to Nanning the next day to be with the family for China's National Day.