A Wu's "birthday" and And's first KTV experience

We went for a walk at around midday. There had been some rain so it wasn't as hot as it had been, however it was still extremely humid. The kind of humidity that dictates that you walk at 1.5 miles per hour. We happened upon a public garden that I'd not been to before. Inside it was full of old people in grey clothes. We had previously been talking about where the old people went and we think we have found an answer. The strange thing was that they were all chanting to each other in some strange harmonies and it seemed like we had trespassed upon some life-size bees nest. I will try to go back and get some video before we leave.

A couple of young blokes from China Telecom came round to sort out some wires for the Internet. I hooked up my modem/router but there was nothing on the line. They told me to wait 30 mins and try again and I did. This time there was definitely a DSL line but no connection. I went to the China Telecom shop and they told me it would still be another day till the service was up. Hmm.

Today was A Wu's birthday. Actually it was last week but he postponed it till we'd arrived as he wanted us to be there to celebrate. We duly went for a meal and duly had more beer and And learnt some more alcohol-related words.

Gan bei'ing at A Wu's birthday meal

A Wu had booked a KTV (Karaoke TV) room for the evening and we went there about 9pm. Andrew had previously been rather worried about the prospect of singing in front of people but for some reason seemed to be rather looking forward to the prospect by the time the meal ended.

As it happened Andge leapt at the opportunity to "sing song" (maybe had something to do with the couple of whiskies he'd managed before going out). We sang "Dreadlock Holiday" and I dare say a few other songs. Later I went home to put Leilei to bed. 45 mins later Tan came home to stay with him so I went back to the KTV bar to find Andge in rather a worse state for wear. In my absence he'd imbibed a few glasses of red wine - luckily here they're pretty weak, but still we'd had a skinful of beer. I got the young ladies to pour him some tea and within half an hour he was back on the beer. I'm sure there's a moral to this story but I'm buggered if I can make sense of it.

And and I at A Wu's birthday karaoke party. Those smiles are genuine (I mean the girls' - ours obviously are)

At least A Wu had the idea to bring some lovely ladies to the KTV bar, who for some reason were happy to have their photographs taken with handsome foreigners (ok, so we would do).


I will probably delete this video