Well yes it was 8am when I got up but I could hear what I thought were people in the front room. I opened the door ajar and saw Erjie and the other women and thought better than to enter in just my boxer shorts. I wasn't feeling particularly sociable so ended up eating a few milk bottle sweets that I'd meant as presents until I heard the ladies leave about an hour later. But Jiuma pinged me out of the blue to ask me to fill up on water. Had she just been in the house too? So anyway I took the nearly empty bottle to fill up and realised this was actually quite good fun. A combination of jetlag and feeling like being on a different planet can make the most mundane of tasks like that.
After doing my water task I decided to go for a walk in relative warmth of around 18 degrees, and happened upon my favourite jiaozi place. Of course the woman wasn't surprised to see me but smiled and her husband got me a proper breakfast portion of them. Fully sated, I knew I'd need a siesta later so got home but the ladies were back milling about. Totally fair enough as I think this is Erjie's house, and it's kind of her to let me use it as if it is mine.
I ended up somehow chatting with Mat and Awl till gone 1pm before crashing out as I'd managed a beer or two. I woke up at 6.30pm and realised I'd totally forgotten to register myself as I am technically obliged to do as soon as I arrive (at least when the police place is open). Oh well it will have to wait till tomorrow. So I ended up chatting with the lads again. So much for immersing myself here. I finished the milk bottle sweets and realised other than the jiaozi at 10.30am that was all I had eaten today. So at gone 10.20pm I popped out to meet racist Huang, who indeed was there sitting at a table alone.
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| A slightly drunk, but always very friendly, Huang |
He was pleased, but not surprised, to see me and immediately grabbed a beer and a portion of some lovely dried mini-fish, which I quaffed down quickly. I only stayed 40 minutes though as he was quite pissed. Still peckish, I parked up at the eating street just outside our place and walked up hoping to meet Tan's "uncle" who runs one of the bbq places but I didn't see him. I was tempted to walk up to a table who were "hellowing" me but decided to go to Tian Yang Po's place as I hadn't gone last year at all and she is, according to Tan, the best bbqer in the province.
And she was open too, so I ordered 5 fei niu and 5 pork whatevers. I'd had two beers with Huang so had enough Dutch courage to ask the table of people next to me if I could join them while I waited for my bbq. Of course that was fine and I ended up chatting with them for the next hour or so. A couple of the blokes were not locals, so we had something in common as we couldn't understand the local lingo. Well I did speak a little to show off of course.... I found the bloke opposite was also a Pingguo Guye (married to a local) so we laughed about that and how Guangxi women were so lihai! Well duly more bbq arrived...far more than we could get through, and then of course mine arrived too. We played a few hands of mo pai which I did rather well at, and consumed quite a few cold Li Quans. It ended up being a very enjoyable evening and of course at getting on to 1am when we decided to leave the bloke opposite me insisted on paying for everything and I got a bagful of bbq goodness to take back home.
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| Tian Yang Po bbq... |
Indeed back home I had another chat with the lads for a while. I feared after waking up at 6.30pm I'd not be able to sleep but beer meant that by 1.30am I hit slumberland like a fairy.
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