Up early but had a morning siesta again after I had a missed call from an unrecognised number. Well I tried to answer but there was no sound on the other end then they just hung up. I realised later it could have been the police registering place telling me Xixi's deng ji biao was ready so I tried to call back but it was the same...no sound then hang up. Then I noticed a new friend request in Weixin that had been there since 9am and I'd missed. No sooner had I accepted the request when I got a message saying indeed the deng ji biao was ready, so I thanked her and said I'd be there at 5pm.
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| A slightly scary sight if not expecting, but far from the KKK this is simply a way to keep the sun off one's skin (I hope) |
Then Tan sent me a message (in Chinese for a change) to say we were going to eat at A Hua's again. That was great, but a friend had pinged me to invite them for a bite to eat this evening as well. Ok I've managed that before, I said 6.30pm would be better than 6pm and realised I didn't have much time now to sort stuff. So I grabbed a shower and got to the police place shortly after 5pm where indeed Xixi's passport and register form were waiting for me. When I got back Tan and the kids were waiting for a didi che to take them to A Hua's and I said I'd meet them later. Indeed I even found time for a quick cold Li Quan and a chat with Awl before leaving for A Hua's at 6pm. And I'm glad I didn't leave earlier as I found the kids all sitting on the sofa bored, but two minutes later it was time to eat. I made sure I stuck to the sweetcorn and other cai, and only had a few slices of the lovely crispy pork, before making my excuses and telling the truth that I'd been invited (well I was the inviter) to another meal. Of course no offence was taken and I wasn't even the first to leave.
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| Another delightful meal at A Hua's I wasn't able to enjoy too much but at least the kids did |
So it was a case of popping home then I should have walked the 50 yards or so to the beef restaurant but I didn't want to turn up sweaty, so took the dian dong che for 30 seconds. The meal consisted of a large frying pan-like thing in the middle of the table (in a private room of course) with a load of raw meat from various parts of the cow. Then you just turn on the heat and a few minutes later it's cooked. But it was a little spicy for the friend's daughter so we ordered a non-spicy dish and a huge one turned up shortly after. I said I thought they'd screwed up the order, and indeed after we'd already made a start on it someone came and swapped it for a smaller dish. We had homemade berry alcohol at first which was a little sweet for my liking, then plum alcohol which was quite a bit nicer. During the meal Ma Laoban got in contact again to ask whether I'd like to meet him for lunch or dinner tomorrow so I said the former would work and he sent me a weizhi so I'd know where to go. Wow, something planned more than 12 hours in advance.
I was glad that nothing to eat was wasted, but then we (they) decided to go to south of the river to follow up with something called you cha which is basically like soup but with lots of bits you can put in like nuts. I wasn't at all hungry and could barely have the soup without other bits in it but the others somehow managed to finish it over the 2.5 hours or so, and I gathered it was to sober you up as there was not a drop of alcohol and I certainly didn't complain.
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| Finally they've developed south of the bridge and it looks very tasteful...will have to come back |
Back home I wasn't that tired so tried to watch the next Black Mirror episode but despite the British VPN this time it wasn't available so I ended up watching a sci-fi film that I got bored with before the end and it will join an ever-growing list of films that I'll never see the end of.
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