Another meal at the modern garden place

Woke up before 8am feeling a bit crap and coughing. In general I don't like to stay in bed so went for an hour's walk to see if that would help, but other than mentally it didn't seem to and the cough was getting worse. I remembered that yesterday Haiwei had called me to say we were to go for a meal this evening so I set upon an early lunch and aimed for a siesta, after giving in to a couple of small cans of beer I got from the supermarket (9.90 kuai for a pack of 6 x 330ml not bad).

I passed by a once vibrant disco/KTV that's now a ghost-hall

Sometimes you Zhuang hua pinyin - hopefully I'll find a dictionary but it won't be to English

A bit of sleep came by at getting on for 4pm and I was up at 5.30, 15 mins before Haiwei told me he'd be there 6pm, so I grabbed a shower and of course took a little longer and ignored his call at 6.08pm to meet him 3 minutes later. We drove to some place to leave the car as we'd be drinking (surprise surprise), not that I was really in the mood. We picked up his son Zixuan and booked a didi che that took a couple of minutes to come and charged 6.50 kuai for the near 10 minute journey to our destination. I thought I recognised the road under the rail tracks but when we got out of the car just saw a few standard houses, and I guess we'd be going there. Haiwei had explained that his younger sister's new boyfriend had invited some people so I guessed they lived here.

But no, just next to the houses was the entrance to the same new eatery we went with Teacher Ling last week, which was our favourite meal. Well I'd left the boys sleeping or whatever they were up to so the three of us walked in and found a white pod with some people in that looked like they were just finishing their meal. Zixuan helped to introduce some of them to me; Haiwei's big sister, his biao ge etc., and I was offered a new set of bowls but I was interested where the little sister and boyfriend were. Then a couple of minutes later everyone got up and picked up the valueable leftovers and set off. We walked around the place for a couple of minutes before being pointed to somewhere at the far end of the carpark. Indeed it was a rather large private room with at least 30 people already inside. Nothing had been touched, and when I sat down with Haiwei I found he only knew a handful of the people too, and hadn't met his sister's boyfriend. But we guessed it was the guy in the red top, but still had to end up waiting a good 15 minutes before Haiwei and I poured a glass of beer and cracked open the seal of the meeting.

One of the interesting outside pods

Another massive meal

And as soon as someone had managed the first morsel of food everyone jumped it. It didn't take long after that for the boyfriend to start making his rounds with his baiju. He came to us and we found he was from Henan, working in Guangxi, and thanked us heartily for coming. So for the next 90 minutes we had some lovely food that didn't stop coming. And neither did the beer, though I went very easy on it for the first hour at least. Boyfriend kept doing the rounds and by the time he was on this third his face was getting on for the colour of his shirt. His mate, presumably from the same area, was a bit more sober and told me he worked in France shortly about 15 years ago, so we had a very brief and basic conversation in French, for only my third time in this country. Finally I learnt that Haiwei's little sister was not in fact his blood relative at all despite having talked about relationships so much of the night. I'll never get this properly.

Presently, boyfriend fell asleep in his chair, he tried to fight it by lighting a fag but he was gone, so Haiwei's little "sister" saw to him. I had found out that the meal was to celebrate their "ding qin" (engagement) so at least I learnt a new word. I was quite ready to go as most people had, but we were told to stay by little sister, and indeed she cai ma'd with me (with water) and I ended up doing this more than I really wanted. My guts had exploded 20 minutes into the meal (of course there was only a squatter), and I still had a dicky tummy not to mention the coughing. Finally, at 9.30pm Haiwei had called his older son to go for a bite but he would not be available till 10.30pm. So we did something unusual but pleasant - we started walking back. Given it had rained a lot recently it was relatively cool and we got 10 minutes of the journey before the rain started again, so for Haiwei's and my first time we scanned two of those electric bikes and took them back to the centre.

So much for not drinking and driving, but it seems such electric bikes are "safe". Mine would only go up to 23kph anyway so maybe there's some truth in that. Haiwei was all smiles and was telling me he was really enjoying it, and I told him maybe he understood why I like to take my bike when I can. Suddenly the rain came down a lot heavier and we stopped for some cover. It didn't look like it would let up for a while so we cancelled the bikes and hopped around the pavements taking as much cover as we could from the overhanging houses above the shops. Then he declared that he would go on foot to pick up the car, so he dashed off and turned up a few minutes later...so much for not drink-driving. Anyway, as it was raining he said there wouldn't be any police around....

A minute later we were at the market place, and the rain had stopped, so tables had come out again. The owner of an oyster/bbq place said he'd give us some oysters for free and promptly plonked them down, but they were a bit boring so we asked him to add some chilli. Older brother and a couple of mates turned up shortly afterwards and Haiwei said he'd order some bbq and let me choose as I said Leilei and Nezha would pop over. Which they did 20 minutes later as the bbq came but Haiwei announced we were going somewhere else and gave the bbq and oysters to Leilei and Nezha to take back. But not before the boss asked permission to take some photos with us in front of the main cooking area, and permission was duly granted. It was a bit strange leaving so soon as normally Haiwei would have liked to have his sons speak a bit more English, but we all jumped into his car at getting on for midnight and drove to a place not far from A Wu's office. So much for not drink-driving.

My cough was not getting better, and I was flagging, so wasn't particularly happy to find a loud table of drunk men sitting around a metal dish of baked fish. I decided I would make and effort and stay till no later than 1am. And the beer was shit as well. Li Quan Blue Goblin...the first Li Quan I've had that I didn't like. I managed a couple of gan beis and cai ma but found it difficult to pretend I was having fun, so at 12.55 I made my excuses with a last gan bei and they allowed me to walk home. I just hope Haiwei got home ok. I bought a couple of bottles of "medicine alcohol" from the local complex shop when I got back, as the shopkeeper said it would be good for my headache, and although tired, I spent the next 90 minutes slowly getting through one tiny bottle till gone 3am.