Reunion meal and guitar

I didn't get a call from Haiwei at 10.30 so I called him at 11 and he said to come over to his office in 40 minutes. 23 minutes later he called to come over again. Then on the way he called to tell me to hurry up. At the office we just chatted, waiting for people to turn up. His son hadn't eaten breakfast and neither had I, but that didn’t seem to be the spur for anything. Eventually an hour later enough people had turned up and I found out they were all ex-schoolmates. That was the precursor of a long meal that I hadn’t really expected.

It was a nice meal and good to have a reunion even if it was not one for me; it was at least a change from bosses’ meals. Haiwei had brought a guitar and bongo drums but it took some time before I accepted the former. I’m still rather out of practice but played out a few Simon and Garfunkel tunes to the delight (I hope) of the others. Eventually at about 3pm I used the kids as an excuse to leave to take them out. I really really tried to get a siesta but got no more than 20 minutes.

At the reunion meal prior to getting the guitar out

Haiwei rang me a bit later to say they were going for a couple of drinks but I chose to tell him “not now, but a bit later”. Earlier than a bit later he called again to insist that he pick me up in his car and we went to one of his friend’s place, where they were all eating (well by this time it was gone 6pm). I did manage a bit of beer and some cai ma but then had the (genuine) excuse of having to pick up the kids again. Not having the dian dong che it took me a good 15 minutes to walk back home but it was quite refreshing and I realised that here I actually make well under half as many paces per day compared to London except when I jog or do ping pong. Well worth noting that the exercise is that much more important here.

Once home we picked up the dian dong che and I allowed the kids to go to Yi Xiao to pick up some cheap toys. Ok it wasn’t the same shop we’ve been going to since Leilei was two but it’s the same area. They got two packs of fake Lego for 5 kuai each so that at least kept them entertained while we went to Haiwei’s friend’s house to continue the reunion festivities. By this time there were still people eating and drinking, but Haiwei was doing his clever job of being totally asleep on a hard, high-backed chair, oblivious to the rest of us.

A tad later A Wu called me to drink beer. I wasn’t really in the mood but as I’d left and got the kids to bed I went to this new German beer place for half an hour or so. The beer there was quite strong so I didn’t really fancy cai ma-ing, and managed a relatively civilised departure before 1am, and was asleep at home not long after.