Somehow I was up before 10am. I had to double check, but made it and grabbed a coffee. Apparently I'd got to sleep by 2am last night according to my watch. I thought I'd better check with A Wu if he was about and indeed he was so met him for lunch of duck breast noodles. His kids were there so I went home to pick up their Lego presents plus the London skyline for A Wu and his wife. They seemed to appreciate them, but you never really know. We then spent half an hour outside a bike shop where A Wu nearly got one for his son but it was slightly too big. Steadying him while he tried it out (his son Li Yun, not A Wu) brought me back to such days with my own kids. As all of my best friends here have much younger kids than me (mainly because the one child policy was dropped) it gives me a little bit more time to do those things I miss about being a father of youngsters, despite at the time just being tired all the time. It's the best of both worlds in a way, like walking someone else's dog but not having to look after it the rest of the time.
I left them saying we'd meet around 3.30pm for badminton. I sneakily took a last bit of gin and went shopping for some more quail eggs before the Las Vegas grand prix. I couldn't find the GP on the tv and streams were crap so I semi-followed it with a couple of beers, thinking as I'd got up relatively early I might get a siesta. But A Wu called at 3.30pm as we'd agreed and I said fair enough I'd go over to his place to play badminton.
It wasn't the easiest thing to do after three beers but at least it was only three, and it wasn't much more than 20 degrees outside. So we played a net-less 20 minutes of badminton followed by another 20 minutes of table tennis where I soundly beat him. Then he said he'd invite me for a meal this evening in a couple of hours. I did mention that I'd been invited out last night but it was already getting on for 5pm and I'd heard nothing about that, so said fair enough I'd grab a shower and come back at 6ish. But first I happened upon a group of kids with a cute kitten and just had to have a go. Then while getting ready to go I got a message from Uncle Yellow to ask if I had time to eat tomorrow evening with Boss Zhou. Well, yes I do thank you very much.
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| Cute kids and a kitten - couldn't resist chatting for a while |
At 6.15pm I got back and had forgotten which was his block. But some of the kids from earlier were still there and we chatted for a bit. Then I walked around hoping to recognise somewhere but in fact I ended up recognising Li Kun and his wife and younger two kids. I guessed they'd been invited too, and indeed they had been and were looking for A Wu's block too. Apparently it was number 8 2A or something. Eventually we found it and got to his house. It was like nothing had really changed from the summer except we were to have huoguo. There were a few other people there and one bloke leapt up to introduce himself in English and I humoured him by trying to continue the conversation but that proved to be a bit tricky.
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| Li Kun's wife's top says "We should all be feminists" - I didn't bother to translate as I didn't really have an opinion |
I was happy to see that the kids had built their Lego presents, and Li Yun (A Wu's son) was busy making the London skyline I'd got for his parents. It took him most of the evening but he was proud of his work as he should be. I'm glad I made the effort to get something a bit different from duty-free booze as presents this time.
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| Yi an getting through the London skyline... |
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| ...and the finished effort |
Well the meal was fine of course, and the beer started to flow as did the white alcohol. Annoyingly, one bloke on the white alcohol got a little too drunk and started grabbing my hand and then kissing it. It's difficult to know how to react in such circumstances, so I sort of retracted my arm while smiling at the same time. I guess I had a glimpse as to how it can be as a woman receiving unwanted advances, and understand how much worse it can sometimes be for them.
We left around 11.30pm. Or rather we lift. There were eight of us blokes in the lift and suddenly the alarm went off. Oh bollocks. This happened for Leilei and I before and it wasn't a good experience as we were stuck between two floors. The alarm continued to go off and some phone calls were made but nothing seemed to be happening. I wasn't seriously worried about us falling down the 25 storeys, but then the pissed hand-kissing bloke went a bit mad and started kicking the wall of the lift. Really not cool, and he had to be restrained. For the next 20 minutes I was at least in contact with Mat and Andge back in Europe and they were giving me breathing advice. Finally, one of the blokes decided to use brute force to open the door, and it transpired we hadn't moved an inch and were still outside A Wu's house.
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| Horrid lift experience (again) |
So we went in to get some water as you do. Still no sign of anyone from the lift company. Then we left again, straight back into the lift. I said I'd rather walk down the 25 floors but somehow got talked into getting back in and of course this time it worked fine.
So home was well gone midnight but I got pinged by a friend at 1.30am as I was chatting with Awl and Mat, so despite the fact I'd taken a melatonin and Phenergan I was out once again, this time to a place just next to the police place where I'd registered myself a couple of weeks ago. So yet more beer and a bit of cai ma but this time a loss meant a glass of beer. I managed to leave around 3am but some blokes in an eatery saw me and called me over. I think one of them knew me or Tan or something and I was somewhat forced to do a few more ganbeis until I said I really had to go. Finally back at 4am.
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| Another late one... |
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