Early KTV

I lingered in bed till 11am all the time expecting A Wu to call to say we were going to this place half an hour away. He did finally call at midday but it was about the football tickets; apparently the woman who sold me the clothes yesterday had managed to get three tickets and I was to go there asap to pick them up. But I've been told too many things too many times so I took my time and grabbed a shower and got there an hour later. No, she didn't have the tickets but would have them tomorrow, and yes, we'd have to buy a top each in order to buy the tickets. I smelt a rat but I much prefer this top to the other one we got for the previous match so I'm not that annoyed. And this time the top is 70 kuai plus 30 kuai for the ticket so a bit cheaper than the first match.

So, empty handed I came home via the jiaozi place and picked up the last three portions that were there for the boys. A Wu called while I was there to say he was having a hair cut and would go to the duck fen soup place we went to a couple of weeks ago, which suited me fine as the boys would get through the three portions of jiaozi without my help. As we ate our soup A Wu said we didn't go to the place north of Pingguo this morning because it was "too hot". Yes, the temperature has barely changed for a fortnight so why did you even plan to go in the first place? "Plan", haha of course that's too strong a term..."suggestion" more like...anyway instead of that we were to go for a meal tonight with the people who had invited us to go this afternoon. Oh, whatever, no problem I'd be picked up around 6pm.

The dian dong che seemed to be working fine now, since yesterday's scare after the wash, so I'm really hoping it was just excess water. But it was kicking a little bit and I hoped it was because the batteries were running out. It had just passed 50km after putting in the new batteries, so I was ok with that. I took it round the block to try to use up the rest of the juice before putting it to charge for the first time. I know the boys will probably be using it more than me at least at night so they should really learn how to charge it now.

At 5.30pm A Wu rang to say he had arrived to pick me up. I told him he should have called me when he was setting off rather than when he arrived and said I'd need 3 minutes to clothe myself. As I was doing so he called again to say it was already 6 minutes since I told him 3 minutes. I explained that these were English minutes and he saw the funny side. He needs to learn people are not at his beck and call all the time, although maybe I'm one of the few exceptions. Anyway I said I was on my way and indeed was a couple of minutes later. I needn't have rushed as we drove to the market and spent 20 minutes picking up some yumi powder and peanuts and finally he decided he wanted some mini-pears, before we went to pick up his wife and daughter, who also were not ready so we ended up sitting in the car for 10 minutes waiting for them. All this time I could have been doing useful stuff in the house but hey-ho that's life here.

The boys weren't interested in going, preferring to go to the guangchang to work out. I hope that was the case, though at 6.30pm it was far too hot. We ended up parking on the street by A Xia's old place and walking in to a nice restaurant near the cinema. These days you need to pay to park, but there are no machines; instead someone will come and print out a ticket and stick it in your door handle, and you have to scan it and pay it or get a fine. Anyway, this time instead of sitting at one of the tables we walked straight through to a private KTV room. It felt a bit odd being in such a place before 7pm but I was hungry and there was food. One woman delighted in finding me duck ack and I delighted in eating it, followed by some quail eggs and snails...another relatively high-protein meal that was "balanced" by the copious beers I had to take.

A Wu ganbei'ing the woman on the right who'd just given us a nice rendition of a famous song

Sing for your supper

Eventually the usual cai ma started and I held my own pretty well, but I didn't mind losing a bit as I was told I'd need to sing Pengyou again, this time with A Wu actually remembering it. Boss Wei saw me looking at my phone reading the Cantonese pin yin, and snatched it away from me in jest. I managed a couple of lines but reading traditional Chinese and interpreting it as Cantonese is just beyond me currently...though I should have memorised it by now. We stayed till gone 10pm before getting a san lun che to Boss Zhou's place behind the other KTV. At least A Wu was sensible enough not to drive. Obviously more ganbei's were done there and I ended up walking back not long before midnight and it didn't take much to get to sleep shortly after.