Breakfast out and dog at the cool cave

A reasonably late 8am saw me up despite earlier possibilities. It's nice that when you are not working, and not changing nappies or doing other kiddie things you can eventually learn to go back to sleep for a bit. Even that extra half an hour can mean so much more quality to your day.

Despite not getting to sleep till 1am Xixi came in to our room at 8.30, followed a minute later by her big brother. Annoyingly, Leilei had come into our room at 4am and 4.30am and both times I'd accompanied him back to their room. And both times I'd tried and failed to sleep on their wooden-ish mattress as the hairs on my body tend to get caught in-between the fittings and trap me a bit like Gulliver. So I got back to my bed at 4.40am and thankfully managed mostly sleep for three more hours. At least I had some dreams. I dreamt that team GB were one goal up, then allowed in three goals, one of which was an overhead kick, before being pulverised by a fourth unstoppable one. I suppose I should put a bet on 4-1 against us tonight.

The dou jiang place we go to most mornings 

For once sitting at table nicely

Kids eating a hearty breakfast of dou jian, jiao zi, bao zi, eggs and man tou 

Breakfast was again at the dou jiang place and because the kids weren't going to school they were happy to go to Waipo's place afterwards. I spent the rest of the morning geeking and then got some lovely jiao zi and bao zi for lunch. Just as I was about to drop off I got a call from Uncle Yellow asking me if I could make it for some dog tonight. I said of course, but I needed some sleep first, so he said he'd call back at 6pm.

At 5.45pm I got up and had a shower. I'd barely finished at 5.53pm when I got a call from Uncle Yellow beckoning me downstairs. As I was stark naked I told him to give me five minutes, during which I shaved and washed my face properly, and put some long trousers and a top on.

Sure enough he was there in his tiny yellow car waiting for me. I was very happy that we drove to the cool cave place, and met a few blokes I knew from years before. Indeed there were many plates of dog meat and they were all delicious. I'd eaten dog with most of these blokes before, and we chatted and cai ma'd till about 10pm, during which time various people left and others joined. From time to time someone would get up and fry some greens, or refry some dog or chicken. The beer we drank was Suntory brand from Shanghai. It had more flavour than its 2.7% might suggest, but I'd take Li Quan any day.

Lots of lovely dog meat

So good that even the locals were taking snaps

Anyone for some sliced paw?

Uncle Yellow gave me a lift back and on the way called his wife Xiao Chong to ask if she wanted some noodles. Indeed she did so we stopped by a bbq place to pick some up and when we got back into the car I found myself behind the steering wheel. It was a short drive back and in fact it was a very easy to drive car, though I half expected to put a coin in the dashboard to make it go, it was that small.

Once home, Tan announced she was hungry so I offered to go out and get some bbq - 10 chicken feet, 10 duck tongues and five pig intestines, which is pretty much par for the course. As soon as I arrived at A Yi's place I heard "Xiao Peng!", and saw A Hua calling me over. She was sitting with her husband A Dong and another bloke I didn't know. It looked like they were drinking tea, but I should have known better as they produced a bottle of "medicine alcohol" from under the table. I allowed myself a little sip as I don't find this as foul as the rice alcohol, but they knew me and ordered a couple of beers as I ordered Tan's bbq.

I was stuffed with dog so could hardly share what they were eating, but allowed myself a couple of rounds of cai ma to their delight. Then, A Ni turned up, announcing that A Da and Nong Kaicheng would be back soon from their summer camp in Beijing. Then Lu Wen turned up. I hadn't seen him for a couple of years, but had lived for three months in the same house as him when in A Wu's place in 2006. His girlfriend was pregnant at the time, and today he had brought along his lovely six year old daughter with him - it was the first time I'd seen her other than a photo of a baby. So we caught up on old times a bit and I played with the daughter, before A Da and Nong Kaicheng turned up in good spirits, and Lu Wen and his daughter went home. Finally, nearly an hour after I ordered it, the bbq was ready, but when I went to pay for it A Yi said that "that bloke" (i.e. Lu Wen) had already paid. That was nice of him.

Lu Wen and daughter

Finally got home around midnight and it didn't take much for me to get to sleep while Tan was chomping on her chicken feet.