Promotion meal and drunk-driving gadget

I found out I was promoted a couple of days after arriving in China. Which was nice. So I decided to celebrate by inviting some of our friends out for a meal tonight to an expensive restaurant I remembered from two years ago.

Of course now there is a "better" one - or at least it had a better atmosphere as Tan said. Unfortunately it didn't have my favourite fried bees, or Japanese tofu, or crispy fried duck, but everyone seemed happy which was the main thing. The most expensive dish, and the one no-one let me leave without finishing off, was cock's balls with vegetables. Well, I generally go for anything, but wasn't feeling too in the mood for this but anyway I bit hard and it burst open with a liquid I don't really want to think about too much. Then, the people at the table decided it was underdone and sent the dish back to be cooked more. I could have told them that! Anyway when it came back I did try again and it was much nicer. Apparently a bit of a delicacy that can be used to enhance your manliness. I didn't need any of that as Tan had been away for over a week...

In case I've given the impression that we drink a lot of beer here, we only had two bottles between four men (ok, two didn't drink) over two hours during the meal so that is certainly not the case. On the way back from the meal Xiao Li and I stopped at what I suppose is a gadget shop where he bought a hammer/penknife and a travel pillow, and I bought a machine to stop you falling asleep at the wheel. Not that I needed it but I just wanted to show the photo:


Especially suitable for long distance driving, drunk driving and night driving. Can you imagine explaining that to the police officer? And why does the driver look like Mat?

We don't have any sports channels in our house, lamentably. Two years ago I was able to watch Premier League matches almost any time there was one being played but they have now sold the rights to a backward Chinese TV company called WinTV for 50 million quid for three years. What used to be a great brand of football regularly watched by 10 million people per game is now a pay-per-view affair that has only 20,000 subscribers - not least because it's only available in 5 provinces and you can only pay at certain branches of certain banks.

What a short-sighted move by the premier league - now almost no-one watches in China whereas the other European leagues are gaining more popularity...

Anyway, I wanted to watch England's World Cup qualifier against Kazakhstan at Wembley (where Lisa had brilliantly bought tickets for her future-husband Andge - hint hint Tan). As it looked unlikely to get it at home while we were out having a late night barbecue one of Tan's cousins invited me to come to his house to watch the match. Cool. We got there before midnight (kickoff was 00:15 local time) and I spent a good 20 mins looking for the match (or any football) in the 100+ channels he had.

Then two things dawned on me at once. 1 - there was no football. 2 - my phone's clock was 42 minutes slow and I'd already missed the first half. Damn - Tan's cousin and his elder brother were already cooking duck for me but I explained I had to go home to try to watch it on the Internet. Thankfully they understood, and didn't even accept my invitation to come and watch it with me.

Looks like I did the right thing, as when I managed to get a decent stream of the match the whistle went for half time. I was able to mix a glass of local red wine with lemonade (the only thing to make it palatable) and wait for the second half. The quality on the laptop was pretty good and I had it running through the tv so it was an enjoyable (if lonely) 45 minutes watching us win 5-1. Hate to imagine what the 1st half was like though....