Writing school twice

Happy Birthday Mama! Up at 9am and did some more 7 exercises before a writing teacher I’d met a couple of days ago outside the supermarket texted me to ask when to meet up. So I said we would do after lunch, but she then proceeded to invite us to lunch anyway. I picked up the kids at midday from making cake for Tan, to take them there. As is quite normal, when we arrived all the adults wanted to take pictures of them, and they were not really happy about this, but I tried to explain that they should see it from their eyes but I don’t think seeing anything from others’ eyes counts for much for 12 and nine year olds.

Making mama's birthday cake

Well it was lunchtime and I wondered what they had, but they asked us what we wanted. I was a bit taken aback by this and asked the kids. They just said “jiao zi” so that’s what we asked for. The teacher looked almost a little bit disappointed as if we could have asked for something a bit more challenging, but made a phone call and said it would be on its way. Well maybe it was but it may have started its journey in a different town because about half an hour later one of the newly ubiquitous black and yellow mopeds turned up.

Xixi practising at the handwriting place

So another of my dreams of getting some afternoon sleep evaporated with each passing minute of the afternoon and although of course I wasn’t really angry I was slightly annoyed. But we got home around 3pm and actually I did manage between 20-30 minutes of less-than-awakeness as I recall not getting further than 13 in German counting.

The kids had no intention of sleeping so I took them out a tad later to the Golden Horse table tennis place but strangely there was no-one there. But I needn’t have worried; the writing teacher place had already invited me to go to theirs for a drink this evening so I thought I should take them up on this offer, though the kids weren’t too excited. When we got there they were in full swing and there was more than beer going around. I stuck to the former though, while one of the blokes was drunkenly going on about how his beef jerky was the best in the region. To be fair it was bloody good, especially on a nearly empty stomach. But pissed people often just get a bit more boring and that was the way the evening went, so we didn’t stay that long….

Getting a bit of fresh air from the boozy inside of the writing place

Too much red wine for me....

Thankfully, Yang Haiwei called me later in the evening to go for a drink with some of his mates. I dumped off the kids and went to what normally would be a pleasant evening. But for some reason it wasn’t. Maybe it was people getting drunk on red wine, and the fact there were blotchy-faced women that didn’t do it for me (nothing against women, just those drunk on red wine with similar coloured faces, as for blokes). So after a bit I went downstairs to the tiny tobacconist where my mate Huang works and I spent a few minutes with him having a chat and a weak beer, which was much more preferable.