Early morning jog and early evening grub at Jie Jie's

Although I only got to sleep at 1.30am I inexplicably woke up at 3.30am. Try as I might, even counting in German I couldn't get myself back to sleep. I managed 100 in German and Chinese so descended into French where I reached 269 before accepting defeat. Come 6am I decided to make the most of it and go for a jog. I left my phone and only brought my keys with me as I walked out to the guangchang. Despite the early hour, there were a few people with the same idea, and elders just out for the walk clapping their hands together as a means of helping circulation. I haven't jogged for ages but it wasn't hard to remember what to do. I caught up with several people before I realised I was getting very hot and sweaty and tired. I couldn't slow down and let the people I'd overtaken catch up, so I soldiered on until I could see they had taken a different path, then I calmed it down a bit and finished the lap of the guangchang. During the lap I saw some people with personal radios or mp3 players but the main difference was that no-one was using headphones; they all had mini loudspeakers, so I had a little entertainment myself. I forced myself to do a second lap at a slower pace and although I was drenched by the time I got back had a really good feeling about having made it.

After a shower I got the kids up at 8am as for once they had both stayed at home after the karaoke. I took them for breakfast at the dou jiang place we have frequented for the last couple of years where we shared some egg, jiao zi, bao zi, sweetcorn pancake and they drank a warm glass of dou jiang. Ling Ming came to join us as he was going to work, and then Xiao Nong came to pick him up and I took the kids to school.

Outside the breakfast place the kids noticed this cute kitten, and then the lead it was being kept on wrapped around the tree

I was quite tired but stayed awake till 11.30 at which time I rang A Wu and asked if he fancied an early lunch as I was going to have an enforced siesta soon. He told me to wait outside our building and he'd pick me up to go and have noodles. A couple of minutes later I saw the black saloon as it bibbed and pulled up beside me. I opened the door and put my wet foot inside making a dirty stain before realising that it was not A Wu and in fact not even his car. I was rather embarrassed but the driver said it didn't matter. In the meantime A Wu had pulled up behind and seen the whole thing so we had something to laugh about.

So much for noodles - we went to a nice simple place where I ordered sliced fragrant sausage with greens and a fried egg on rice accompanied by a beer to help with the siesta. Then A Wu didn't order because he'd already eaten. Oh well, it was a great meal and the accompanying soup was nice too. The rice was served in a "mu tong" (wooden bucket) and as A Wu explained this to me I asked him if the "tong" was the same as in "ma tong" (western style toilet) and he said that was a disgusting question to ask when talking about food, but that I was correct! The meal and the beer did the trick as back home I managed a sleep till 5pm, by which time I had four missed calls (I never forget to put my phone on silent). I called Tan back and she asked me to dry the clothes before going to a Jie Jie's house near where Waipo lives.

Expecting to take the dian dong che to Jie Jie's I got downstairs after two calls to hurry up, only to find Tan in A Xia's car waiting to take me - could have made that a bit clearer darling.... At Jie Jie's house the air conditioning wasn't working which was a bit annoying as although the rain of the last couple of days had abated, it was still humid and getting hotter. I was still tired and nearly fell asleep sitting on one of the sofas until Tan told me off and Xixi climbed on me. So I went to take a look at the house. It took up the top two floors of the block of flats and the upstairs was even plusher than downstairs, with yet another living room resplendent with huge flat screen tv. The husband of the manor then came in in his police clothes and I gathered he was Treasurer of the police force here. It took another 20 minutes before food was ready when we all piled into the large kitchen (men at one table, ladies at the other) except for the kids and a couple of girls who stayed in the living room.

Two boxes of red wine imported from South Africa were brought out and at least three bottles cracked open. I took one sniff of A Wu's glass and insisted on drinking beer. However, the husband counter-insisted that I have some home made suan mei jiu (prune alcohol) as well which seemed fair enough. I asked him how strong it was and he said 22 degrees. I still don't know what that means really. I know he thought it meant 22%, as others have called Er Gou Tou 56 degrees when they meant 56%, but the most common beer here is qi du, which means 7 degrees, and that is clearly 3.1%. Do degrees equal percentage after a certain strength? I wasn't going to start that conversation at that time. Actually the suan mei jiu was quite nice but I didn't want to start gan bei'ing with it. Unfortunately, during the course of the meal sufficient quantities of beer, wine, and suan mei were imbibed to the extent that even I felt the effects. I once again used Xixi as an excuse for a bit of a pause, and during that time the husband came out and showed me one of the spare rooms where he kept all his home made alcohol, and there were absolutely loads of different types in varying sizes of demijohns.

The ladies having fun (and beer) at Jie Jie's house 

Gan bei'ing at Jie Jie's house with prune alcohol

I got out a little early with the excuse of taking Xixi to Waipo's, then got home soon after 10pm. As I got into the lift I met one of the neighbours with whom I'd briefly chatted recently and said I'd go for a beer with. He asked me to go with him to sing song so I tipsily said I would a bit later and exchanged phone numbers. Upstairs, three minutes later, I got a phone call asking where I was and I realised I must have agreed to go with him there and then. Not wishing any losing of face I put on some long trousers and a shirt and went downstairs where he was waiting outside a car for me. I got in and the driver introduced himself as A Chang, who was a classmate of Tan's in primary school.

I hoped the karaoke place would be close, as in walking distance from home, but it was the one a bit outside town near a lorry park that I'd been to a few years ago and didn't really like. Worse was that the room was empty, and it was now 10.40pm, and I had hoped to just pop in and show my face for a bit. So two of us sat there for a bit while the other arranged his friends. During that time we had a couple of small beers and I sang a couple of songs in a slightly weird atmosphere. Thankfully, within 15 minutes the room had filled up and I only had to re-sing a couple of songs and do a bit of cai mai. I don't particularly like to see women in a drunken state (at least in public) so when the evening fell into a disco state I told A Chang I'd need to leave after having a little dance with the kids. A Chang said he'd take me and that he had to go too. I hoped the latter was true and that this wasn't just to make me feel better, and I got home not that long after midnight.