Li Kun family meal

Well although I woke up at 9ish I had no intention of following it through to proper wakefulness and I'd had the forethought to make myself two half litres of water should the need arise. It didn't, but the need for sleep quickly arose and after putting on another podcast about the beginnings of the universe I slipped well into it. If only hypnopaedia was a thing I'd be so intelligent by now. But I managed some weird dreams and nice sleep till 1pm when I heard voices in the living room.

I put on a top just in case and found Chuan Chuan and her boyfriend and Tan chatting in the living room. So after a wee I basically joined them and really enjoyed a family chat...yes Tan chastised me now and again for not knowing certain stuff...but I'd like to think she really appreciates how much I've come along in the last few years...as if! Chuan Chuan and bloke left a bit later and I realised I hadn't had lunch so looked in the fridge and the only thing I felt I could stomach was the last huge cup of passionfruit tea that Tan had bought yesterday. In fact, with all the fruit, and just the volume alone it pretty much filled my stomach, and bonus points to Tan as she hadn't added any sugar so it wasn't sickly sweet. So I chilled away the afternoon sitting by Running Dog on the laptop catching up, while the boys did their music at Li Kun's. In fact apparently they had been there since 10am. What had happened? Normally they don't get up till teatime...I'm guessing they pulled an all-nighter. Well they would have to stay up a bit later as Li Kun had invited us for a meal at the nice restaurant by the cinema this evening at 6.30pm.

6.15pm came about quicker than expected so I checked the ladies and Tan was doing her face and said she'd be 5 minutes, then I was to take her and come back for Xixi and the boys would make their own way. Yet another justification for fixing the dian dong che. And being of a suitable size (the bike, not Tan, well yes Tan too actually), it comfortably accommodated us both, but wouldn't have taken Xixi too. 5 minutes later I dropped Tan off by the restaurant and she ordered me to get three red envelopes for each of Li Kun's kids. Yes he has a new son now. So him and A Wu both have one more kid than us but who's counting?

I went to pick up Xixi and nearly forgot about the envelopes. "En"velopes or "um"velopes? It shouldn't bother me but I looked it up on forvo and it seems to be 50/50. Other searches suggested it should be "um" or "on" as it comes from the French. But if that's the case economics should always begin with an "eck" sound but "eek" seems reasonable. Well I'm not going to um and ah about it too much and will stick to eekonomics and ennvelope until I stand corrected. But yes I spotted a small shop that looked like it would sell the said red sheaths and indeed when we went it the shopkeeper asked us what was the occasion. Fair enough, some were specifically for weddings or other special occasions and I didn't want to be doing the equivalent of giving an Xmas card for a birthday. So we got our three red items and a bottle of orange juice for Xixi and filled them each with a 100 kuai note.

We ended up getting to the restaurant as the boys were turning up, a few minutes after 7pm, and were shown to a private room of course. Li Kun's wife and at least one kid were there, along with his mum and his friend and that friend's wife, so it made for a nice full table. The kids were all happy with Li Kun's choices of baked chicken and lamb and beef ribs. Yet again I forewent any rice, and gorged on the juicy meat. I know (at least believe) eating meat from dead animals will become like smoking soon, for good reasons, but to be polite I totally enjoyed these dead animals.

The boys asked to leave after 30 minutes and I told them again that part of being an adult was standing on ceremony, allowing your host to appreciate that you appreciate being invited, and told them to wait 15 minutes. And Tan backed me up 100%. I think they understood, and when Li Kun's mum left "to attend a matter" that was their cue to be able to do the same a couple of minutes later - presumably to go back to Li Kun's office to continue music-making. To be fair they'd again not indulged in any beer that Li Kun had ordered a good 30 minutes into the meal. I even told him we could have soft drinks (within Tan's earshot) but he insisted, but his mate to his left had brought his own bottle of baijiu as is many people's wont here.

All in all it was a really lovely family meal...good food and good company. Tan was happily chatting with everyone and Xixi was stuck in her phone. She did remind me that we were supposed to go to Guanmart at 7.30 for the draw but there was no way we'd be leaving here to do that. The only negative thing was around that time I could feel all was not well with my belly. I contemplated going home to a nice western toilet but didn't think I had time. I was right. I grabbed a load of tissues just in case, but the en suite keyhole at least had a full roll. And for probably the fifth time this year managed a squat and was a good 10 minutes. Not that anyone batted an eyelid or came knocking for me. At least my VPN was connected and I got to read the news (and saw that it was unlikely there would be any cricket today so Australia would win the ashes).

Family meal

Li Kun family meal

When we finally finished around 8.45pm Tan went to see A Xia and I took Xixi to go home. Except we decided to go via a scenic route for old times' sake, and headed north of Pingguo until we came upon what looked like a police checkpoint. I'd forgotten to put on my helmet so stopped and did so, but we thought better of going through, and did a U-turn then took a weird left turn and became lost in some dirt track-like roads near some construction. It was so Pingguo though and after a few minutes managed to get back to a normal road and found our way back. But we'd scratched an itch to explore a little and justified fixing the dian dong che a bit more.

The bbq friend had been texting me to go to some place to drink wine. I wasn't really sure what it was about but it was at the place I'd drunk tea with Teacher Ling the other week. So after dropping off Xixi I popped round to the tea place almost next door to our complex, and indeed there were about 15 people upstairs drinking various colours of wine. I didn't see bbq friend but I was welcomed as an old friend and made to sit with the bossman. For the first time ever in Pingguo I was poured a small glass of German white wine. For the umpteenth time in Pingguo I had to gan bei it of course with the boss but it was fine.

Interestingly there was a woman there who looked totally different from the rest. When I finally got to gan bei with her I found out she was from Xinjiang province. Being aware of any potential political issues I didn't mention anything that could be considered dangerous, but asked if she was Muslim (no), then what she was doing in Pingguo. "Business!" of course was the answer (in English) and then we managed a short conversation in English and she was actually pretty good. Photos were taken of course - hey if I can help with advertising her business why not? The bbq friend said they were going for bbq at the same place by the river again, and would I join? Well it didn't take too long to make a decision and a few minutes later I was there again, but at a relatively subdued rate until some other people turned up and we hopped tables until getting on for 2am when I called it a night and carefully took the bike home.

Sampling the wine with Xinjiang boss