Unexpected Tiandong meal

Well, by 5.45pm I wasn't going to invite myself to Nong's husband's birthday meal, and I know from experience that such invitations made while drunk often don't materialise. So when Li Kun pinged me at that time to see if I wanted to go to eat snails in Tiandong I said I probably would, and he said to be outside his office at 6.40pm, and that we'd be back by 9pm. Hmm...it takes more than 30 minutes to get to Tiandong and I don't think a meal there will take under an hour. Whatever, I was in no rush to get back but just wondered in case that other invitation for tonight ever turned up.

I had nearly an hour to prepare and indeed I got there bang on 6.40pm. I thought I knew his office but it was closed so I called him and indeed he hadn't turned up yet. Two ladies sitting by a tiny fire cooking small sweet potatoes bade me sit down with them, as though standing up was a sin in the cold. It was an easier conversation than most with local people I didn't know. Another woman came to sit and I enjoyed the 10 minutes till Li Kun turned up in a red car I knew wasn't his.

There was another car with us and apparently seven of us were to drive up in the two cars. In the back of ours was a talkative woman who was Li Kun's colleague, and took fun in describing her name (唐海洋) and I realised I need to massively improve my writing and reading. One of the important milestones is to understand the radicals, as generally characters are made up of one or more of these. In this way when they describe a character using radicals from left to right you have a decent chance of being able to write it even if you don't know the meaning.

It shouldn't be so fun to see someone get out of the car to pay at toll...Lord knows I've done it enough in France with a RHD car

Li Kun said the car was electric and his friend's. But as we arrived at the place to pay for using the road he said he couldn't put down the window for some reason. I asked if it was locked and he sort of said yes but something to do with his friend. He used one of my favourite words "gan ga" - awkward, as he opened the driver's door and got out to receive a plastic ticket that we'd need to give back in Tiandong. And it turned out to be an hour's drive there so we only got there at 8pm...even later by the time we'd found the restaurant. So the only chance we'd have of getting home by 9pm was if we left immediately. But I'd predicted this and would never have planned being back in Pingguo before 10pm.

When we had nearly arrived at Tiandong Li Kun got out of the car again in order to pay. This time I decided I really needed to know what was going on. In fact it wasn't what I thought originally that the windows were locked and Li Kun didn't know how to open them. In fact I had to learn some new words as the owner of the car had recently added tinted windows and this was why we couldn't drop them down as they needed a few days to sort themselves out. It was a tiny victory but I was very glad to have sorted out this mystery.

There were a couple of blokes waiting for us in the outside eating area. I was worried about being cold as I'd had to wash my only jacket earlier in the day and would have washed my only hoodie as it had got slightly muddy from last night but it was the last thick thing I had to wear (together with a thin fleece and two tee-shirts). I was only nippy for a few minutes though as as soon as two tables were put together for the eight or so of us, we were indeed served snails and sausages. And the food just kept coming and coming. I'd had but a yoghurt all day so was more than ready for this and wolfed down the snails as much as you can wolf using a toothpick to gently prise out the flesh then pull off the crappy bit at the back you can't eat. The little spicy beef pieces were easier though, and then I had a bowl of fat noodles that really warmed me up.

What a lovely meal...it seems fine that a couple of blokes were watching their phones all the time..

Beer was served a few minutes later, and tea for the two drivers. Li Kun had a bad throat so wouldn't have drunk anyway. After a couple of ganbeis and introductions I suggested cai ma, but it turned out no-one knew how to play. At least they said they didn't. Teacher Li to my left then started, but I beat him pretty well. Then I played one of the women at 5, 15, 20, which is similar to cai ma except the only numbers you need to guess are 0, 5, 15, 20, which makes it a bit of a halfway house between cai ma and scissors, paper, stone. Then the louder woman who'd driven up with us said although she couldn't play cai ma, Li Kun could play for her and she'd drink. And I went on to beat him eight goes in a row before finally losing three in a row and saying "at last!". It was more fun that it sounds. I noted that it was Guangxi culture to be quite loud, as 海洋 shouted "he!!!" when I beat another woman.

We didn't leave the place till well gone 9.30pm, and as it was so late Li Kun drove slower, yet still always on the left hand side of the two-lane motorway. I told him this was only to be used for overtaking in the UK but he explained there were lorries on the slow lane and it would be inconvenient to keep moving over. Yes, but on the other hand there were much faster cars than us who had to move over to undertake, one of which nearly went into the back of a lorry we were overtaking at the time. Oh well, be predictable I suppose.

So we got back at getting on for 11pm and there was a bloke at Li Kun's table with an open can of beer, which is quite unusual as I've not seen people drinking beer alone before. What was more unusual was that the label on the beer can was upside-down, at least one of the labels was. We checked other cans and indeed they were all like that. I wondered if it was so they could stack them upside-down like I've seen before with soft drinks, but the others didn't think so and to be fair I don't think I've ever seen beer cans stacked even the right way up in a shop.

Some other bloke came and three of us had a couple of beers while Li Kun had pu er tea. One bloke was talking about some bloke who looked like a Hong Kong superstar singer, and showed me videos of them both. In fact he was a local lad, and apparently would be popping in. And a few minutes later he did indeed, in a bright white shirt and blazer. Ah yes, we'd met him earlier in the summer when going for snail noodles after a night out at 3am. He did indeed look very strikingly handsome, but was a very pleasant fellow (although I didn't deign to take a photo for fear of looking like a fan). He only drank warm water, and was doing those exercises actors do such as blowing raspberries as at 1.15am he was due to go out again to do another performance.

"Upside down beer?"

Li Kun said he would get 10000 kuai for 20 minutes' work, which I found slightly hard to believe. But his driver appeared and they left around 1.30am. I said he'd better make the most of it as he won't be that young for long, and that was agreed. We finished a last beer and I got home for what hoped would be a relatively early night but ended up chatting to Andge, Awl, and Mat and doing a quiz for old times' sake.