Somehow I was up bang on 7am as if jetlag never existed. I could easily have gone back to sleep but did my trick of logicking myself into shorts and a light tee-shirt and grabbing a couple of bottles of water and my trusty table tennis bat. After a couple of mouthfuls of yesterday evening's doggy bag made my way to the old people's leisure centre for the first time in getting on for four years.
The tables had changed, as had the floor, and I recognised no-one from before. And maybe for the first time I wasn't the youngest person there. But within 30 seconds of walking into the room I was invited to play. It's one of my greatest pleasures here, at least in the morning time. The bloke I was playing decided we would play a game and for once I didn't have to ask as I knew it would be five games. I was happy with losing the first 11-8 and ecstatic to win the second 12-10! I lost the next three of course but I will still chalk it up as another moral victory. I then did the rounds with a woman of my age and another bloke before someone I recognised walked in and gave me a shout of recognition before shaking my hand and getting on the table with me. He proceeded to put me in my place until even he could see that I was waning and he told the woman to replace me. That was what I needed as it was now 10am and I could go home and get the boys some breakfast.
They hadn't rustled but I knocked to ask them for their passports as I'd need to register us with the police for our stay. But not before going to the dou jiang place we've been to for years to get them some bao zi as the jiaozi were already sold out.
Sadly my dian dong che is broken, and according to jiuma it will be 1000 kuai to repair so not worth it for 7 weeks. I told her I agreed but inside I wasn't sure. It's a major form of freedom here. But she said we could use another one that she'd bring round but she'd already told Leilei about that and he was excited about using it with Nezha. So maybe in the end I'll pay for it to be fixed and then the family-in-law will be able to use it in the future.
So I took her red dian dong che out in the rain to find the police place. This has been a bit of a wild goose chase in the past as it's been in at least three different locations. But I found the place we'd been to for the last two times and of course it was boarded up. I asked the bloke in the neighbouring water place (that was blasting music out as they do) and he said they'd moved down the road and I got him to write the name on my phone so I'd be able to find it later as apparently they were on holiday today and tomorrow as it is dragon boat holiday at the moment.
I did drive down to try to find the new place so I'd know where to go Monday and came across a police-looking place with people wearing police-like uniforms in it. I asked if they were the police and they said no it was 200 metres further down the road. 200 metres further down the road I saw nothing police-like so it's going to be a question of getting Uncle Yellow to help again I guess.
While on the dian dong che I decided to get some jiaozi from our old place near our old house. But I happened upon the water place next door first and found Waterman sitting there. He jumped to his feet and we had a hug. He immediately took a video of me and sent it on Weixin then we shook hands again and drank tea for a few minutes while he invited me to a new place in Jiang Bing Lu when I had time. He understood when I said I needed to get some food and got three portions for 18 kuai - more than the last time but understandable and still delicious. Annoyingly Weixin pay didn't work, or rather it did but said I needed to await an SMS to confirm but it never came. And a couple of doors down I picked up a six pack of Li Quan and a couple of zero-sugar lemonades as I planned to have another siesta.
The lads still hadn't stirred when I brought the jiao zi so now they had both breakfast and lunch on the table. I managed a portion of jiaozi but despite the early start only managed to drop off after 3pm to a Lex Fridman podcast thanks to Pure VPN being the only reliable one so far. A Wu called to wake me up an hour later and I didn't really know what he wanted but I told him we'd been invited to Yang Haiwei's tonight. Then I got three more calls that I thought were from A Wu so I ignored them in an attempt to get more shuteye until I realised at 5.40 that it was Haiwei calling me. So much for being ready at 6pm, he was already on his way to pick us up and wanted to know where we were.
I'd already showered after ping pong so picked up one of the remaining duty free bottles and 5 minutes later we were in his car driving to his friend's place. He spent the next 40 minutes or so cooking and the boys were asking how long to wait. But this is China and you don't ask such questions. At least there were snacks to keep the wolves from the door.
Well we started with lamb soup with lots of meat in it but it was strange that there was only us three plus Haiwei and the woman of the house. Leilei spotted what he thought was a tiny maggot and said it put him off his soup, and that put Nezha off eating the rest of his. I looked at the so-called "maggot" and could barely work out anything other than an excuse. Obviously I couldn't explain a maggot for fear of offending the cook so I just explained the boys didn't really like soup and could they have a bowl of rice instead? Of course they could and they did actually finish it before asking if they could go for a walk.
 |
| Spot the maggot |
 |
| Nice meal at Haiwei's |
That was the last I saw of them as the woman's husband walked in with two crates of beer in addition to the cans we'd already started on. Haiwei's younger son came out of his shell a little and spoke a very little English so I'd done my job. We went on till well after 11pm when Haiwei could see I was flagging and drove me home as you do, and I was asleep by midnight.
No comments:
Post a Comment