I moved on to another place I hadn't been to before, that didn't have air conditioning, but each of its 10 cubicles were in use and I was told to give them a ring later. So I went down the place I'd been on our first full day, and found it mostly empty. The people there were happy to let me have a practice, so I did for around half an hour until some bloke popped in and started talking to me as if the piano didn't exist. After 10 minutes of conversation I was no longer in the mood so I found the teacher and gave her 10 kuai which she immediately refused and said some places may charge to let you practise we not here. That was nice - not the 10 kuai but the attitude. I'll be back.
We took the bike to Waipo's and had a simple lunch there. Pretty light as is the way in this weather. It's not rained for over a week and every day just seems hotter and hotter so being outside is a temporary option while going somewhere to eat normally. I took the kids to the supermarket and used my other Nectar card I'd left here as I'd forgotten my other one in London.
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| Nasty iphone cover that Xixi found and I got rid of |
Back home I managed to squeeze out a siesta with the help of a G&T thanks to the local supermarket continuing to sell Gordon's export. I needed this as I'd promised to watch the World Cup final with Luwen later (at 3am). I let Tan go out and looked after the kids at home. Tan had banned them from going out tonight as they had been fighting, but it ended up being more of a punishment for us. But in fact the main reason I didn't mind being cooped up was that I'd finally been hit with my first case of la du and couldn't be more than a few yards away from a sit-down toilet. The 70 minute siesta represented the longest I'd been away from the toilet all afternoon.
By 11.30 I had Haiwei and Luwen calling me. I said I'd be some time as was sorting stuff out and ended up trying to get myself in the mood at gone midnight by having a sneaky can of Li Quan. But I knew I was tired and it would be a bit of a mission. I left and got to Luwen's office at 1am. There was another bloke and a couple of girls there, obviously having been there for some time. There were squeals of delight from the girls and they jumped to do selfies with me, doubtless to be distributed on their WeChat networks and probably at some stage for Tan to see. I did my best to look like a captured ally soldier in those videos where they have to say that they are being treated nicely.
There was plenty of beer and bbq on the table, and I was wondering how best to pace myself for the next 1h45 mins until the match started, when another girl arrived. After her selfie with me the three of them descended into a cat-fight of animalistic proportions. Bangxunese does seem to be a language very well attributed for arguing, but this had been taken to another level. Luwen was mostly smiling, and occasionally added a couple of calm words, but mostly let them get on with it. For me it was like watching caged animals without a cage. It culminated in one of the girls smashing her Samsung Note 1 or 2 on the floor, but there was no apparent threat of physical violence between any of them. I suppose they ran out of energy, though not beer, and it eventually fizzled away. Apparently they are all "friends" of A Heng and it was something to do with that night he caught a knife in his arm. They seemed quite friendly after that and lit up fags.
I hope their barks are worse than their bites (I couldn't risk being caught actually filming or I might have found out)
Although there was already a fair amount of bbq on the table, a delivery of several plates of oysters came a moment later. Luckily they weren't raw, but cooked with a bit of chilli. They were rather fat and succulent looking too. I reasoned that if the worst came to the worst I was only five minutes from a proper toilet and it would be a good excuse for going back. So I accepted one, then another, until after four I was actually full. There was still over an hour to go, so as more people turned up, we started playing cai ma but luckily my stomach didn't complain.
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| The oysters were less scary that the women |
Eventually 3am rolled around. By this time I had been watching the pre-game show for half an hour as I literally couldn't stomach anything else. The girls were asked who I wanted to win. I didn't care too much but said Argentina. Wrong answer. Apparently one of them had put 2000 kuai on Germany (and showed me a text message as if to prove it), and the other 10000. Silly. So I said ok then I would support Germany, which seemed to make them happy and high five me. With so much staked on the game I thought they would be riveted to the tv but they continued to chat and the girl with the smashed phone smashed it to the floor a few more times for good measure. Then, five minutes into the game, they left together just like that.
At least that meant we could watch the game in peace. It was an ok half but I was flagging. I made my excuses at half time and they didn't make too much of an effort to make me stay - I guess they'd had the more useful part of my company when we were being interactive before the match. On the ride back I did a little tour and found, not to my surprise, that there were still a few street places open with people watching the footy. I decided to make one last effort and parked near Waipo's house and introduced myself to a group of blokes who bade me sit down and have a couple of beers. Luckily, it was only a couple or three, and it was quite enjoyable bantering a bit with those who supported Man Utd. Unfortunately neither team could scratch up a goal in the second half either and I couldn't scratch up another 30 minutes of awakeness so I left them and got home at 5am. Thoughtfully, I went to the vacated Xixi's room and put on the laptop there. I got quite a good stream of the first period of extra time, but that's all I remember as I fell asleep well before it finished.
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| Watching the second half from the safety of the outside |
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