I found that Tan had already gone when I got the kids clothed - she had another morning driving lesson. So the kids and I walked to the normal breakfast place and I managed to get them to eat some less sweet pancake and some bao zi, along with the quotidian dou jiang. As Tan had taken the dian dong che (electric bike), we took a san lun che to school. This differed from other san lun ches I'd taken before in two important ways. Firstly, it had a small bench facing the bench where you normally sit, meaning it could take 4-5 passengers legally, and three generations at a squeeze, as opposed to the normal one bench/generation. Secondly, it was battery-powered. This I found most interesting as I know petrol has gone up in the last couple of years from 5 to 7.5 kuai, and everyone is moaning (not complaining) about it. The kids are now fine to drop off in school and they run off eagerly to draw and play with their friends. On the way back home I struck up a conversation with the driver about having a bigger, electric san lun che. Basically it all made sense - only the second such conversation this year! Yes, these bikes are cheaper to run, break down less, and carry more people. To add to the win they cost the same as petrol-driven bikes new. There had to be a downside - I asked how many kilometres he got on a full charge and he said 80-90. Not bad. I suppose the downsides are that you cannot work more than x hours a day as at some stage you have to recharge, and every few months or year or so you'll have to change the batteries at a fair expense. Still, I told him I expected to see a lot more electric san lun ches on the road next year and he said he thought I was right!
Once home I rested for one hour with Tan, as she had also just got back and was tired after mastering reversing into a garage.
The rest of the day was pure work, interjected with a smidgeon of sleep which was rudely interrupted by a bloke coming to finally finish off fixing the bottom of the new door and the skirting boards. Thank goodness I brought some decent coffee with me. That kept me up after work, when I decided I would go to the seafood place I frequented last year a lot, and this year hardly at all.
When I arrived, the cook's wife waved to me with one hand as the other was holding her mobile phone. Apparently she was trying to call her husband (Huang Chang) as she didn't know where he was. She gave up and asked me to call him, which I did...the phone rang until an electric bike pulled up behind me and I received a hearty slap on the back accompanied by an "A Ming!". He had just turned up with a mate and bade me sit down at a table with them. And then more, and more, and more mates turned up, all happier than they should have been to be sitting with a foreigner. They were mostly half cut so I was careful about not drinking too much. I stayed for an hour, during which I made polite conversation, but really these blokes, as nice as they were, were a bit too drunk for me to be comfortable. One bloke was particularly the worse for wear and kept trying to gan bei with me, so much so that even the others tolds him to calm down. The cook noticed my slight unease as I made my excuses, and led me away from the table as the others tried to grab me back. I thought he was leading me to another table where there were more blokes waiting to gan bei, but he lead me straight to the bike, and told me to drive safely. He is another of those people I consider to be a real friend here.
I had eaten at the seafood place, but not much. So I stopped off to buy a little bbq on the way home at midnight. I could have joined some people at a table for beer but decided against it, and instead on the way back stopped off at a little shop to buy batteries for our fan's remote control, and a rechargeable torch just in case we get any more power cuts. These are just some of the domestic considerations that have to be made living here.
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