Headwash and another late City match

Yesterday I invited Baksec Zhai for a meal today, but at 8.20am he sent a message apologising, but he had to be elsewhere this evening. I appreciated his prompt response and texted him back saying no problem we'd sort something when we had time.

As Chuan Chuan is on holiday for a few days the kids have mostly been staying with her. To Tan's annoyance she drove them to Baise, and then Lin Yun yesterday, where they stayed the night. The main annoying thing is that she's only recently passed her test and shouldn't be driving on motorways until she's had more experience or is with someone who has had three years at least. So yes, on hearing that I was a little annoyed too, however she seems one of the more sensible 26 year olds here, it's just that she looks literally half her age.

I didn't eat more than a couple of rice crispy cakes, which I always have in as part of a default backup breakfast here. They're not particularly healthy but can fill a gap. Although I could have found useful stuff to do, I decided to have one last (or second-to-last) head wash. Maybe because I'd had a pre-heady tipple, or because I'm just weak, when she asked if I wanted a facewash too I barely prevaricated before ascenting into the obvious, knowing it would be three times the price. But yes it was worth it.

I hadn't expected the mask

I had plans of staying up to watch the second leg of City - Steaua but didn't manage to get the chance for a late afternoon kip. Then A Wu called to say we were going to the KTV place later. At least that might wake me up. Well what he actually meant was Boss Zhou's place behind the KTV place. I took the kids but as I'd already eaten couldn't face the mountain of duck breast kindly put in my bowl. I also insisted on mostly sipping my beer, rather than gan bei'ing, and refused their 30 degree honey liqueur. I took the kids back when they were bored, but came back to the meal as promised. Luckily I only stayed another 15 minutes or so as A Wu and I were to take his son to have his shower. I had to hold his son in the car so left the dian dong che at Boss Zhou's which meant I'd have to be back.

Sure enough, we gave his son a shower, or rather let the ladies do it, then dumped him off at A Ni's and went back to Boss Zhou's. I managed to take it relatively easy though did have to do a fair few cai mas, before I finally said I needed to leave to sort the kids at 9.30. At home, Lu Wen called to say Boss Yong had invited us to eat tomorrow and could I make it? Yes, I suppose I could.

A had a coffee and then Tan got back from the bbq at some time after 11pm. She had a cup of sweet lime tea spare so I took it and drank as much as I could until I couldn't take any more sugar. The game wasn't to start till 2.45am so I had ages and put a wash on and had time to hang it up before I got in contact with Mat, and spent the best part of an hour playing World of Tanks with a crappy ping but it was better than nothing.

Rather than go home straightaway, A Wu took me to a place just around the corner to drink tea. In this case, the people we happened upon were drinking tea, and thought it really weird that we actually wanted to drink tea and not beer. But we persisted. Apparently one was a friend/cousin of A Wu. The tv was on and I noticed it was "Pingguo TV" - I hadn't realised we had our own tv channel so was more interested than I otherwise would be. I said that they should recognise some of the people and they nodded as if to say "of course", but then they said "Baksec Zhai!", and indeed there he was on tv, participating in some sort of opening of something. So when he texted me this morning he genuinely had something more important to do!

Baksec Zhai (on the right) on Pingguo tv!

I got back and had a coffee and then Tan got back from the bbq at some time after 11pm. She had a cup of sweet lime tea spare so I took it and drank as much as I could until I couldn't take any more sugar. The game wasn't to start till 2.45am so I had ages and put a wash on and had time to hang it up before I got in contact with Mat, and spent the best part of an hour playing World of Tanks with a crappy ping but it was better than nothing.

I'd heard that there were more football games available on Chinese tv/streaming now, and was glad to find http://www.livesoccertv.com/competitions/england/premier-league/ where it showed what you could expect to see on tv and online. I installed the bloated PPTV but couldn't find the match, and in the end just used their website to find it and watch it in Flash. It was not worth staying up for but we won 1-0 in an effective dead rubber. What was weird though was that I still couldn't sleep till 7am, two and a half hours later.