Breakfast soup, photos, pool, meal, guang chang and a City win - nice

Got up at a leisurely 11am ish and reflected that I'd had pretty much zero jetlag, justifying the efforts I made to stay up on Friday night. A Wu was calling me and it was for lunch. That seemed fine so I set off to the place near the wood carver's shop with the myriad of soup accoutrements. This time I didn't even bother putting any noodles in as the accoutrements were enough in themselves. It looks like there were 14 plates, but that is more than enough for a lovely and fairly healthy brunch. A Wu asked if I could go with them to do some rafting at the place I'd been to with Leilei a couple of years ago. Sure, I was up for that. Apparently we were to go at 2pm and be back by 5pm as we'd been invited to a meal by Huang Xiaoyun's husband. A Wu's car was in the wash next door, as was A Ni's, so he asked me to give him a lift back to the office. Luckily, A Ni's car was finished just in time as I hardly had any juice left in the dian dong che and A Wu would have squeezed that out of it before we got back.

The accoutrements for my brunch soup - no noodles required

As A Wu had a matter to attend to I went home to digest the food and think about getting the photos from the DVD to the laptop. Neither Tan's nor my laptop have optical disk drives, so I'd have to find someone who did have one. As luck would have it A Da called me to see if Leilei was around. I was alone in the house as the kids were with Chuan Chuan and Tan had gone out with friends presumably to eat as everything is centred around that activity here. I asked A Da if he was at his dad's office and he was, so I said I'd be over in a tick with my DVD. I found we had 64 high quality photos from the shoot last month, plus the ones they'd made into the pages in the glass-bound book. I saved them off to a micro SD card and to my phone for good measure. I know they're rather fake poses but there are some rather nice ones, and some of the kids' smiles were certainly due to Mr Eight Willies.

Tan chose this for the small frame...

...and this for the huge one we can't bring back

I quite like the ones where we're not looking straight at the camera and so does Tan

A nice one of Xixi and Leilei

The poses were as natural as the smiles and the flowers but the colours are quite nice

A couple of hours later I came back at around 2.15 to find A Wu sound asleep on one of his benches and A Da playing Minecraft on his computer. I threw a few pillows at him to wake him up and when he eventually did he asked how long the rafting took. I had already three-quarters hoped, and half expected that the rafting plan would not go ahead, as most things planned over two hours in advance do not. And indeed when he realised we didn't have four hours to spare he proposed to "wash head" instead, and I gladly agreed.

Zzzzz

A Da came with us for a haircut to the place under our building that I had not yet been to. We had a few minutes to wait so had a look in the new German beer shop that had opened since we were last here. It had a pretty good selection of non-German beers, including Boddingtons and Guinness, plus some decent Belgian ones. The German ones all seemed to be Paulaner, not a brand I'm particularly familiar with. I said it was too early to imbibe now, but the thought of a Duval before a head wash did slightly appeal. We said we'd come back of an evening.

The head wash was one of the best. Partly because I had a bit of pain in my back, but mainly because of the most important difference between this and any other form of massage here - warm soapy water. We chose the 30 kuai version, which wasn't the cheapest, and when it was over I managed to pay - it was 160 kuai, meaning A Da's haircut and style must have been 100 - I suppose that required more skill than a massage....

We then left A Da in the office and drove to a bank where we retrieved 50000 kuai in 100 kuai notes, and then drove to another bank to apparently deposit it. I thought, in fact I know, they have internet banking here so I wasn't quite sure why we had to go in person. The only obvious reason I saw was to use the VIP room and flirt with the assistant while helping oneself to free drinks and fruit. Come to thing of it that is quite a good reason!

What 50000 kuai may look like

Next, as we had time before the meal, was to go to the snooker place by the guang chang. Every time I go I hear new rules - this time although they play the two-shots-after-a-foul rule, if the foul involves your opponent downing one of your balls you don't get the two shots. I found this really annoying as it spoilt my tactic of leaving balls over the pockets. I hope Andge and Awl agree that this is a bad rule. Also, they played that at least one ball had to hit a cushion - how are you supposed to roll up behind a ball and snooker someone then? Anyway, A Wu rang si ji to come and play. I hadn't seen si ji this year as now A Wu drives on his own, but apparently he is a mean shot at snooker. I also shouldn't call him "driver" any more as I guess he's not that any more, but I've forgotten his name.

There was one really interesting game the three of us played. We ordered a pack of cards and pulled out all the diamonds and the jokers and got five random cards each. Starting with the ace as 1, up to the king as 13, the black-and-white joker as 14, and the coloured joker as 15, we each had the numbers of the balls we needed to pot. The interesting part was that you didn't show the cards to the other players, and only put them face up as and when you potted one. This could lead to various strategies, such as hitting opponents' balls in an apparent attempt to pot them but actually leave them worse off and put yours in a better position. During the game, if you can concentrate, it's good to estimate who has what cards so you can make really tactical moves. I really hope to import this version of the game to the UK, especially as it's good for three people.

A Wu had to go off to attend to a "matter". I reminded him about eating later, but he said we weren't going as there would be only women there. I didn't believe him, so stayed and played a couple of games of normal pool with si ji. He's an excellent pot maker and walloped me in the first game before I got a touch of shot-confidence and came from behind to win the second. As we were due to eat at 6pm I said I had to leave at 5.30, so si ji gave me a lift on his dian dong che back to our place so I could put on some trousers. Of course Tan called me to "hurry up!" a moment later.

I got to Waipo's by 5.45 and the kids and Tan were there. Apparently Chuan Chuan really likes the hand-pumping fine water mist sprayers I got the kids from France, so I promised we'd leave them here when we went and made a note to ask Andge to get a couple when over there next week. Chuan Chuan wasn't going to the meal with us, so we waited for A Ni to come and pick us up. I'd given a bottle of duty-free Baileys to her earlier as I know she likes it and was going to give the other bottle of Pernod to Huang Xiaolun's husband but Tan said it was better not to in front of everyone as we didn't have more to give.

Xixi and Leilei with their hand pump fine mist sprayers that will be left here

The meal was of course excellent and the kids were ok too, and at the end I took them out for the evening. We went home to drop off some stuff, then picked up A Da from A Wu's office. I'd wanted to try out the "5D" ride next door, and the kids were well up for it. I got the 3D was the film and the glasses, that probably the 4D was the actual motion of the thing you sat in and were buckled into (probably the only seatbelts that were used in Pingguo). I couldn't fathom what the 5th dimension was though. We wanted to get on with a couple of other kids but we were told to wait. It was only when it was our turn that I realised the reason we had to wait was that we could choose what theme we wanted. Leilei chose "Natural Disasters", which seemed like it could be fun in a not-actually-there sense. But unfortunately that one wasn't working, so I suggested a car driving one. It was quite good fun until a minute in we hit a pedestrian who flew into the air with spots of blood everywhere. At least it was a crappy animation but it was pretty nasty. It was repeated a couple of times too; the last one flew into the air in front of us and landed with crappily drawn round drips of blood spitting out of his or her neck.

From there we hung out at the guang chang. A Da buddied up with Leilei so I went with Xixi to let her go rollerblading, which she enjoys and is getting more confident at, though not as good as some of the three-year-olds bombing it along. After that we went to the new soft play area very close to A Wu's office. I let the kids play as I surfed the net on my phone as most of the parents did there. Leilei looked a little big, but sod it he's on holiday. I was rather surprised at the 50 kuai cost when I told them it was time to go, but I suppose that is the cost of new stuff like this, which was air conditioned and very clean.

Leilei and A Da at the guang chang

Xixi in her element at the guang chang

Haiwei had been getting in contact with me for the last few days but I'd not had time to meet him of an evening so I called him to let him know we'd go for a little bbq at 10pm. Typically, he wasn't around, but we went anyway as I expected him to call back soon. I ordered 10 pork chest and 10 duck tongues but by the time they were ready it was gone half past and I had to be back before 11pm to wash the kids and watch the footy. As A Wu was nowhere to be seen the four of us all came back and A Da had some bbq as I washed the kids, doing so just in time to sit down in front of a not-bad stream of the Newcastly-City match, and letting the kids watch too. Of course Haiwei then called me back so I said we'd try to arrange something for tomorrow instead.

Tan then called to say she'd be back soon and said A Da could come downstairs and wait for A Ni, so that was him sorted. We played a good first half and got an excellent goal by Silva from a Dzeko backheel and I got the kids to sleep at the break just in time to get back for the second half, by which time Tan was back too. Another solid half, and a late goal for Aguero sealed a good win for us. Next game is 8pm next Monday though, meaning 3am Tuesday morning - not sure my body's up for that sort of thing any more but we'll see. As it was 1am I checked and found our light was out, which meant I'd better take Xixi's room even though I'd had relatively little Li Quan.

The second half and finally some time to myself to crack open a beer and enjoy the match