Wild cat or wildcat

At 5pm Jiuma said she was going to the house to have a look at progress so I said I'd come with her. Xixi had been asleep since 3pm but Leilei had just fallen asleep half an hour ago so was impossible to get up. So I went on the bike with Xixi to check on progress. Most of the walls have had their first coat of white paint now, which makes a significant difference to concrete colour. The main toilet is mostly tiled and the ensuite bathroom is in progress so nice to see. Still no chance of the three weeks work that Tan reckoned, unless they finish in four days' time.

Bathroom coming along nicely

Living room looking better in white

One of the workers doing the ensuite bathroom

A Wu called while I was at the house to invite me to "eat snake". It was a family affair apparently instead of a mafia one. I told him that would be nice, and that I'd need to go home and get a shower and do the same for Leilei, then we'd take the bike over to the snake restaurant. Must have been called five times in the next half an hour asking where I was and telling me to "kuai yi dian!". He hasn't learnt that if you want to invite someone for a meal you don't do so fifteen minutes before it is being served. Embarrassingly I got a little lost on the way there so we turned up fifteen minutes later than I thought. But it was fine and I was treated to a sumptious meal of snake soup with snake balls (not testicles, more like normal meatballs), a plate of snake skin and another of snake meat from the tail end. The snake was good but the highlight for me was the "ye mao", or wild cat. I think they meant "wild cat" as opposed to "wildcat" which sounds like an American Football team. I imagine this was more of a stray. Also the minced "hong mao ji" (red-feathered hen) was really nice.

Got a call from Tan at 10pm saying she'd just arrived at Nanning 90 minutes late so would stay the night there with friends. Then Lu Hai rang up and asked if I wanted to watch the footy with him. I said I wasn't sure I would make it but would call him later. Leilei didn't sleep till gone midnight and as I was still awake I rang up Lu Hai and we arranged to meet at the seafood place outside our house after 2am. There were still quite a few people outside on the streets watching the telly on projected screens or large LCD tvs, and I managed to stay up to see Spain defeat Germany 1-0 exactly as I had predicted, while at the same time enjoying some nice prawns.