No 2-1 but Chen and advertising friend for German beer and insects

Another day of work and instead of going out to eat where I might be tempted to stay longer I stayed inside and had some of that beef our soon-to-be ex-neighbour left us the other day together with some light-as-air salty biscuits which have about as much packing as biscuit.

I was being good and focusing on work as I was expecting 2-1 to contact me to eat as he’d said yesterday. But by 5pm nothing had happened so I guessed he’d forgotten or never really intended in the first place. It’s like that a lot of the time. Someone invites you out and nothing comes of it, or more likely no-one invites you out in advance but they call you an hour before to tell you to come. Well that was it for some other friend, who decided I needed to join them for dinner, and as my lunch had been tiny, and no beer was planned, I accepted. And it made a refreshing change that there was only one beer and a decent excuse of going back to work less than an hour after.

But the evening was a bit different. Chen IM’d me to meet up for a beer at 3000 degrees at 8ish so I said I could make it by 9 if that was ok, and of course it was. Chen doesn’t do things by halves so we had some great bbq and of course Li Quan beer, even though he’s not a local. An hour or so in, advertising friend pinged me to say they were going to drink German beer and I should join as I couldn’t make it last night. The logic was infallible and I explained as such to Chen, who accepted (knowing perhaps I’ve probably had to leave other friends to meet him in the past). Sometimes the non-locals understand me better than the locals.

So it was to a beer place where there was a choice that would have been unheard of 10 years ago, though I didn’t really have an inkling to drink Corona or any of the 5%+ beers they had. But sod it, I was given a pint glass and a 500ml can of some German-named weiss beer and I took it like a man. Cai ma is a bit different with such a glass and you need to be a bit more careful. Everyone was in high spirits at least and we ate insects from another table that left, which was slightly weird but tasty...mmm...millipedes...

Advertising friend and other friends

They looked like millipedes at least