No sleep and A Wu's second son's first birthday

Literally no sleep. Gave up at 5am and got up at 6.30 to go for another jog. At least I had a target - three laps, which I just managed but the last one was hard. I did it in just under half an hour so room for improvement. Of course no-one was up when I got back so I thought I'd take the dian dong che for a little ride. Before 10am it can be quite quiet here, but I happened upon a nice soup place that I'd been to before so decided to stop for a sweetcorn soup and a fried egg. For some reason the fried egg request required a bit of conversation to properly imbue what I wanted but that was ok. I had my light breakfast but not before Englishly apologising for not ordering very much as I wasn't really that hungry.

Hardly a full English

Tan took the kids out and I managed to stay up till A Wu called me soon after midday to eat "steak soup". Ok let's do this. We drove a whole minute away from our place to this place that served soup with some beef in it and it was fine. But I was starting to flake. Problem was we needed to go to the boss's place to drink tea for a bit. Well it was ok, I didn't talk too much under the excuse of being tired and A Wu was actually true to his word that we'd leave at 1.30. So I got to sleep soon after 2pm but for some reason I woke up at 4.30.

Not a massive lunch either

I would have liked at least another hour, but Tan called to say we were going to A Wu's son's birthday dinner at 6pm. Well yesterday A Ni had said it was at 6.30, and at this moment the extra 30 minutes would have meant a lot more rest in terms of percentage at least. So I grabbed a coffee, which is about the only thing I can make for myself in our house, and then grabbed another.

There were more adults and fewer children than I expected for a baby's first birthday, and soon discovered it was more an excuse for a get-together as the beers came out. Every five minutes or so another plate or two of steak was served. It was quite amusing watching the locals go at it with knives and forks, and when I had a go they all looked quite surprised at how able I was to cut chopstickable-sized portions with ease. Then it was my job to do all the cutting as the steaks arrived on their plates, as we weren't going to be having a plate each as per Western style - there was already a lot of local food on the table and no space for them.

Oh why do they still chill red wine?

About as successful as most westerners are at using chopsticks

Lads and beer

As other such evenings have worn on, this one saw the kids leave first, then the ladies, leaving the blokes with their beer. I couldn't very well not join in but I was trying to be good and not over-imbibe. Cai ma was followed by a new drinking game which is actually rather fun and simple. The blokes stand around a table (preferably wooden and varnished) and one has to slide a half glass of beer to the bloke at the other end. If it gets beyond a certain point (I never did ascertain exactly where the point was) the bloke you're facing has to drink the beer. If it doesn't go far enough or goes off the end, then guess who has to drink. Needless to say on my first go and slid the glass straight off the table. It reminded me of that school game where you have three goes to nudge a 50p to leave it hanging over the end of the table then you flick it up and try to catch it.

Really poor shot from me but not as bad as the camerawork

Some time later instead of going home as I had hoped, we went to one of the boss's office where there was more beer, and tea if anyone wanted. I didn't want either, so as an excuse to stop drinking I went downstairs and found a foot massage place. My word, it hurt it was so hot, and I don't have the most insensitive of feet either. But my plan worked - for 40 kuai I had not just a foot but a body massage (which are always better when slightly tipsy), and an hour off the booze. Of course I was made to catch up back in the office and somehow we found ourselves in a KTV place later.

Painful foot massage that was worth it