First jog in ages

Despite the late night I was up bang on 6am and knew I wouldn’t be getting any more sleep any time soon, so for the first time in nearly three months I decided to go for a jog. It’s been a grim time with sciatica but the pain has now changed to numbness down part of my left leg. But the jog itself was pretty painful though I did just manage 5km. For some reason I thought one lap of the guangchang was 2.5k but in fact it’s bang on a mile, so as I turned into the last straight and checked the Strava app I was mightily disappointed to see I wasn’t approaching 5k at all...more like 4k...and the extra half lap I did really took it out of me.

View from my jog

5k round the guangchang

But it least it meant I was up in time for a quick drive to Po Xiang village, outside of which we stopped for a noodle breakfast and people were cutting up their own bits of meat and paying for it in a sort of serve-yourself butchery way that this place apparently was. Indeed some paperwork was done in an office that had more people working in it than was really necessary, and I took the opportunity to have a wander in the searing heat, and came across surprised looking old people as this really was out in the sticks.

I had to go the bank and noticed that 3,4,5, and 9 were not so popular!

Girls about to go in a bigger car than before

Back in Pingguo for midday I gave Haiwei a ring and was happy to hear he hadn’t eaten so I invited him, although he was the one to pick me up and decide where to go, which thankfully was a relatively simple place near his office. Oh these sorts of meals are most satisfying...no beer and just a decent conversation with Haiwei and his second son. I learnt that he is no longer on speaking terms with the business partner from last year. Apparently he had invested money with him and something had gone wrong. Last year he seemed so excited about me helping out in his aluminium venture but I sensed he didn’t really want to talk about it. He also had plans to send his first son to university in the UK or Australia but that appears to be off the cards now too. He did let me pay the 89 kuai bill, which I appreciated. He agreed that you don’t always have to go to a posh place to eat, and that was pretty good value for three people.

Only got to sleep at 3pm at home catching up on the news. Still no blinking wifi so I hope I’m not cutting too much into my 4G - I’d love to know how much I have left of the 30GB, and whether it will stop after one month, and whether the kids’ SIM cards that are linked to mine share the data allowance (better not). Then at 6pm went to Li Jia He Xian with the friend from this morning...yes! two meals without alcohol for the first time this year in China!

Later I felt the duty to go to the bike shop that I’d only spent 15 minutes at yesterday to drink tea. I found he also sells some sort of magic medicine but he didn’t call it medicine as he admitted he wasn’t a doctor. But he didn’t stop telling me how amazing this stuff was and insisted it would fix my sciatic issues. He put some on my leg and wrapped it in clingfilm and it started to get very hot. I had to leave it for 15 minutes but when it came off I said it felt the same, but of course he said I needed to have several sessions for it to work…. Oh yes that old one. Basically with issues that can resolve themselves whatever you are taking at the time it gets better is considered to be the cure...it’s probably the only reason some people still believe in homoeopathy, and this is likely no different. I didn’t say that of course, but said I’d be back sometime which might end up being a lie. I’m sure he believes in it himself and I would have liked to know how much one bottle was but that would have shown too much interest.

The bottle I was too scared to ask how much it was in case he thought I was interested

...but I ended up having a wrap of it and it was bloody hot...not that it solved anything other than my inquisitiveness as to how hot it might be

A Wu and Huang both bade me out but first I went to see Li Kun who was on own at his place so we drank hong cha before I left to meet Huang for the first time this year. He was well and we enjoyed a couple of drinks but not too much as I had to fit in A Wu too. He had said to go to the KTV place by his Boss Zhou’s office, but first I checked the office itself. It was a good idea as there were about 25 pissed blokes sitting around a table and my entry was greeted by more cheers than were necessary. I was pretty much forced to gan bei with most of them and had to play some cai ma too for the next half an hour until about half of them broke off to go to KTV. It was actually a little boring with so many pissed blokes so soon after midnight I made excuses and left them to enjoy themselves and A Wu seemed to understand.

I shouldn't complain - last year I barely went to "sing song"

But I wasn’t that tired and had what I thought was the good idea of going for a massage. I didn’t think I’d actually find one but happened upon one with a woman sitting in it at half midnight. She didn’t seem too pissed off that it was late, though the bloke who arrived just after me did when she said she was closing and I was clearly the last client. We talked about families and our kids and where she was from etc., except then she pulled my boxers down more than I thought was decent but I had explained about the sciatica and it was actually very comfortable.

I got home not a great deal before 2am and slept for one hour before annoyingly waking up at 3.15 for another 45m. What is going on?