Horrid foot massage but nice storm

Managed a reasonable 7.45am wake up but didn't fancy running or ping pong and opted for a couple of 7s instead, which made me sweat nearly as much. I've got the Wii here but not really managed the time to set it up. I'd love to but at the same time it makes me nostalgic in an unhappy way. If I lived here I'd probably use it every day but now it's just memories of really great times but not the same people being with me. Except Leilei maybe, who probably won't lift his eyes from his phone now....

We had a severe lack of imagination re lunch and rode around for half an hour before coming back to get jiao zi and pancake thing with some lovely passion fruit drink as we've done a couple of times before. The kids have managed to sort out VPNs on their phones by themselves so I left them to it for a bit but I have become more aware of the left side of my left foot which is rather numb. I first noticed in the swimming pool on the third day but assumed it would go away. So I thought it would be a good excuse to get a foot wash, which means a massage as well....

In fact the idea of a massage washed me over and I had the good excuse of a half-numb foot, so I dumped the kids at A Ni's, where Tan was, and went to the place I'd been before to save myself from drinking too much beer last year below the bosss' place. I suppose it might be boss's or bosses' but I wanted to make sure it was plural (surely that's the correct plural possessive of bosses, bugger if not as I'm getting red squigglies even now under the word "squigglies").

The woman was glad to see me again and commented on how long it had been, and I dutifully told her I'd been away for a year, and had a bit of a numb foot. I may as well have said I had no feeling in either foot as I was of course subjected to a ferociously hot foot-bath as per last year. But I manfully dealt with it, until five minutes later when she started manipulating my foot in a way that made me understand there is no translation for "manipulating". God she was doing things that hurt to high heaven and I was literally shouting out in pain! Did she stop? Did she hell? At least while having a massage at the hairwash place they ask if it's ok, but here I was literally jerking my legs away and she was still pulling them back to administer more pain.

Half an hour later I thought it was all over, and was willing to pay 100 kuai just to get out, but I realised the woman was just going to lunch with another woman who apparently worked there. Oh no, her husband came over with a grin like the square root of minus 1. Whatever pain I had experienced over the last half an hour was exacerbated many-fold. I shouted, I screamed, I literally swore in English and Chinese, but all it amounted to was smiles on his behalf as though I'd justified his work. If I'd actually had a couple of drinks I'd have probably run out of the shop but I was still a little embarrassed. When he said "keyi le" I was the most relieved man on the planet.  I resolved never to go there again.

Bloody painful foot massage - I'm sure he's a nice bloke though

It was around 4pm and the weather was getting really dark, but I picked up the kids from A Ni's as I promised I would.... As the clouds were really low we (I) decided to go for a little ride on the dian dong che. We pulled over by the smaller pagoda and watched some workmen for a bit until huge raindrops greeted us. The kids were well aware of the impending possibility of getting wet and not having electricity, but I kept them there for a few minutes while we appreciated the incredibly dark clouds gathering. But yes, by the time we got home five minutes later we were pretty much soaked from the near water bombs that started to pelt us.

And yes, the electricity went soon after we got home. But I had a meeting to attend and it appeared that at Waipo's they still had power, so it was down the 14 flights of stairs and back onto the dian dong che to go there so I could do my meeting. The meeting actually went pretty well as I lay in the bed we stayed in a few years ago. And by the time it was over I had an invitation to see the kid that speaks a bit of English whom I met the other night. I said I'd contact him a bit later.

The kids and I surveying Pingguo under a tempest

As the rain had died down I decided to go to the 6th floor ping pong place to get a bit of practice in. The decision was a good one but my attempt to pull out the dian dong che wasn't, and I managed to knock it into another, which had the domino effect of knocking all the others over. I was really embarrassed and hoped no-one had seen, but that hope was dashed when someone came out of his or her car to help me right them all up. He (or she) said something to the effect of "hey, shit happens". Ping pong was ok, but you never feel as good afterwards as you do when having started at 7am.

I went to meet my new "friend" at Bar 3000, where I'd been last night, just at the bottom of Jun Lin Tian Xia. I suppose I was being a mini-ambassador but I couldn't really be bothered there. I took Leilei with me but took him home after a while as he was clearly bored. At around that time (11pm) Yang Haiwei appeared as I'd belled him earlier to come around, so at least I had a proper mate with me.

I insisted on paying close to midnight, as we were all clearly tired. Li Kun had been texting me about meeting up to eat chicken, so after I'd dropped off Haiwei I found him thanks to a WeiXin link just a couple of hundred yards from our place. He'd had a couple of beers but was his usual chirpy self, and I managed to stay up another hour with him and a couple of mates. Even now I'm aware we've only got three more weeks so I quite like these experiences.