Dog meal

The last week has been particularly busy with work and not much sleep or fun.

I had been invited out by Uncle Yellow for lunch somewhere "outside Pingguo". As I had already arranged to go for a meal with Tan's friends at 5pm I had clarified with him that I'd have to leave at 4.30pm.

Uncle Yellow turned up with a friend at around 1pm and took me to the main Pingguo market to buy some greens and a dog. Unfortunately I had to leave them to get the dog for themselves as I had to let A Wu into our house for...I can't remember what...but we are brothers so it is ok - my house is his house apparently.

I was expecting a long drive outside the town but in fact we only drove across the river to a quiet spot. In fact this was a beautifully serene location that I had forgotten existed a mere 5 minutes away from the hubbub of central Pingguo. I even got the opportunity to take myself on a walk for the best part of an hour across the railway to an unknown village where I was offered the cutest puppies for 10 quid.

Our lunch (a dead dog so click to see - don't want to frighten anyone)


Cute puppies asleep


Pleasant countryside

When I got back there were a few more blokes; two who I'd met fishing on my walk, and 6 others who'd turned up for the meal and beer. It turned out to be a very nice meal consisting of mostly dog meat and chillies. I learnt a hard lesson there: don't eat neat chillies then drink non-diet Coca Cola to cool your mouth. I had to keep cold beer in my mouth for ten minutes afterwards and could barely speak.


Eating dog meat and drinking beer

We ate dog and drank beer from 3pm (it was a late lunch) till 4.30pm when I got a call from Tan reminding me I had to come back to go for a meal with her friends. I hadn't forgotten, and was already preparing to go. Anyway, we had another sumptuous meal with her friends and some of their husbands, and some kids. Noisy, but fun and extremely good nosh. The bill came to over 70 quid and I wanted to pay but they were having none of it. Ok, there were 15-20 people but that is still a lot of money compared to wages here. I still can't understand the prices of things here; why you can't get a decent jumper for less than 40 quid but you can get an hour's massage for 1.50. I will look into it.

Tan and the girls at yet another wonderful meal