In the afternoon, as had been planned before, we went to the Lotus Flower place I'd been to a month ago, called He Hua. Unsurprisingly, Awl and Venky were not even contactable to see if they would come, not that we had any expectations anyway. I was in A Wu's X6 with Andge and Leilei and we picked up Li Kun too. We stopped at the guangchang for some reason and I said I'd drive. I remembered it as a 25 minute drive but it was more like 45. A Wu kept having a go at me for driving too slowly but Andge appreciated stuff like not overtaking on a blind corner over a solid line, especially when traffic ended up coming from the other direction. We made it safely to He Hua and immediately Xixi set her eyes on the boats on the lake next to where we parked.
So within a couple of minutes Andge and I were in the boat with Xixi, Leilei wanting nothing to do with it since the nightmare capsizing of last year. It was a pedalo boat, and when we'd convinced Xixi that she didn't actually want to pedal we found ourselves in about the most peaceful surroundings you can expect to find yourself as a white man in Pingguo. Andge spotted some birds and professionally trained his Panasonic TZ20 on some lesser-spotted pippets and a rather dapper kingfisher. We were enjoying our birdwatching so much it was a bit of a disappointment to receive a call to say it was time to eat but at least it took us 20 minutes to get back due to the fact that the boat would turn left ok but hardly turn right, meaning we spent half of our time reversing back to the place to get off.
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| Arriving at He Hua in the X6 with the papperazi waiting |
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| A lesser-spotted pippet |
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| Xixi manning our left-turn only boat on the way to the meal |
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| Really good meal with good friends |
The meal was great, with the speciality we first thought was pigs in sheeps' blankets, but later turned out to be some sort of bacon wrapped around lotus flower seeds which were very yummy. Andge and I were offered a 3% beer and looked at each other and thought "why not?" and after a couple more glasses enjoyed the rest of the meal even more. I asked if we could still do a little boating and was replied to in the affirmative. So Xixi and I got into the boat but Andge wasn't to be seen so we set sail for a bit. Then we got in touch with him and he came down and joined us. Apparently he'd been offered a sample of the local rice alcohol. A Wu chucked us a can of beer each and then some dragon eye fruit but Andge wasn't entering into the spirit of things. Then it became apparent he wasn't feeling too well, so we got to one side of the lake and A Wu helped him out over the fence. It took Xixi and I a good 10 minutes to get the boat back to the mooring place due to the lack of turning right but we managed it eventually and went to see how he was.
Apparently that dodgy rice alcohol, which was only around 8%, but unfermented or something, had had a bit of an effect and not an alcoholic one but something much more drug-like. We spent the next hour walking around and drinking water. A Ni offered some special tea to make Andge feel better but he quite rightly refused to imbibe any further new substance. The rest of the men had continued drinking so when 7pm came around and we decided it was time to go I volunteered to drive A Wu's car back in the dark as I'd only had a couple a long time ago. Driving in Chinese country roads is bad enough when you can see where you're going but in the dark and half the motorbikes don't have lights I didn't care that I went slowly. And again we got back safely.
Just as we were arriving I got a call from the badminton shop I'd left some old sport tee-shirts in a few days back to get my Chinese name printed on. They were ready. So I picked them up and paid 30 kuai for four "彭多明" and one "27" on some old Man City shirts that immediately made them look a little fake but made them unique to me. I'm so glad I did this as on my last day last year I tried to get this done but missed out as it was gui jie and all the shops were closed.
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| It may not look genuine any more but I was genuinely happy to have this unique shirt |
Venky and Awl called me around 9pm as Andge and I were taking the kids to the guangchang. We'd all been invited out to some bbq place, but I was also trying to meet Lin Hong's husband to pick up Xixi's rollerblades while Andge was looking after Leilei in the jumping castle. Apparently Awl had gone out first, then bumped into Venky, then gone back to the hotel to make some DVDC although he had been intending not to drink tonight. Apparently. Somehow we did all meet up among copious calls from A Wu and others, and eventually made it on foot to where I thought everyone was. But they weren't and it took more calls before Li Kun came to show us where we should have been. So finally we sat down at a half-finished meal and ordered loads of lovely vegetarian dishes and vegetarian beer and generally had a good time till nearly midnight when I thought it best to take the kids home for a shower. I got a little admonished from Tan for taking them back so late but blimey this was Venky's first night out and it's not like she took them with her.
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| First night out with the lads in Pingguo! Gan bei!! Venky you don't need the shades mate... |
While the kids went to sleep with Chuan Chuan, Andge and I stayed up as he was still feeling the effects from the weird white concoction. We ended up watching "Four Lions" which was pretty good but petered out towards the end. I only had a couple of G&Ts as Andge was clearing his system with some slightly sparkling glucose and soda drink I'd bought in Nanning. I had been saving this for my gin but I was pleased to see that the old-fashioned (and expensive at 250 kuai) soda syphon had arrived together with 12 bullets of CO2 so finally I should be able to make my own soda water (and I have some sodastream tonic concentrate). I didn't make use of the syphon though as it was a rather late 4am and time for bed.
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| Home-made soda water in Pingguo - my life is complete |
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