Fixing the dian dong che and birthday beers at Number 5 Cafe

I'd meant to go to a garage to fix the bike yesterday but the party got in the way. So today, after taking the kids to school in a san lun che, I got the driver to take me to the place I went last year when the bike broke down and they fixed it and only charged 5 kuai. I explained the situation and one of the blokes took a couple of tools and me on his motorbike back to our building "Jun Lin Tian Xia". It's actually very difficult to translate what this means, but it's something along the lines of "The Emperor's kingdom under the sky", although Google has it as "Dominating". Anyway, the bloke got to work taking off the battery compartment and we had a look inside. Indeed, the batteries had become malformed over the last three years and now were trying to squeeze out of the compartment. It looked like we simply needed to change them, which was a relief, but I still wasn't 100% sure as they had been working ok before - I would have expected a more gradual decline in performance than a snuff-out.

There wasn't much we could do at our place, so he asked if I had a tow-rope. Of course I hadn't so he got out a sort of strong-looking rubber band from his bike and attached it to mine, then towed me the five minutes back to his work. Due to the nature of the tow-rope, I was constantly being slung to nearly crashing into the back of him, before being left behind several feet away. It was miraculous that the rubber band did not snap and leave him or me with a nasty scar. He'd mentioned about it being ready in the evening, but when we got to his garage he ordered a set of new batteries there and then. The whole process took a couple of hours, but when he'd finished the bike was like brand new and almost nippy. I had spoken to a number of the workers there during this time, and agreed to come back some day soon at 6pm to have a meal and drink some beer with them. I must remember to do that. The cost of the new batteries was 430 kuai. Only 30 more than when I last replaced them three years ago - so much for inflation.

I would have loved to take advantage of my newly re-found freedom on the bike, but Tan rang to ask if I wanted to go to her newly-found massage place, which is really good, and cheap, because it isn't in a great area. I said of course I'd go, and I took her on the bike to a perfectly acceptable building. I think they may be cheap as the bloke and his wife have just set up business in Pingguo, coming from 30km down the road in Long'an. I refuse to have a man massage me, so the boss's wife did me. I wasn't happy with the boss doing Tan but one thing had to give. Anyway, this is not a "for pleasure" massage as the head wash ones are, but more the professional kind. The woman said I spend too much time sitting down at a computer, which I could hardly deny, and indeed after it was over (and it was rather good I admit), I spent the rest of the day doing just that as I had work to do...

That evening I popped out to Ma Laoban's shop with the kids after school to let them play on his computers. They really enjoy playing some of the flash games on the Chinese sites. I noticed that next door at Number 5 Cafe they were setting up a gazebo outside, with what looked like a bbq underneath. I realised that I hadn't yet been to this place, which I had frequented last year to watch the World Cup and England's demise. The owner recognised me immediately and invited me to come back a tad later as it was his birthday. Of course, I had come to his birthday last year and had a good time although rather too many beers.

Back home I did some more work and some chores until I heard some loud fireworks from outside around 8.30pm. I went to look and they seemed to be emanating from Number 5 Cafe so a few minutes later I got on the bike and whipped round to say hello and Happy Birthday. The owner had already had a fair few, as had others inside. I was just about to sit down outside with the folk eating the bbq but was dragged inside and made to sit at a table with a couple of blokes and a couple of women, one of whom was smoking (a rarish site here, becoming less so, unfortunately).

As per usual I made comments about the wife and kids so as to get their disappointment over and done with early, and I gan bei'd with them a couple of times. But the gan bei'ing didn't stop there, and the owner insisted on me gan bei'ing with others until I myself insisted on playing cai ma in order to slow down the beer intake. Although it's only 3% the fizz can really fill you up and make it uncomfortable if drunken too quickly. Yang Haiwei was there with his wife and son. In fact there were quite a few dads with their wives and kids, all too frequently with a fag in one hand, the same hand that was holding their kid. By 11.30pm I was actually feeling more drunk than I have done in China for longer than I can remember, so made my excuses very insistently and left to the obvious disappointment of my friends there.

I remembered that Tan wanted some bbq chicken feet so I called her to confirm and then went to the normal "big sister" place by the guang chang. Strangely, she was not there...already shut up shop it seemed, so I got the wares from next door instead and got home around midnight. Leilei was not yet asleep so I took him to bed and ended up falling asleep with him until around 3am.