Unexpected Li Kun lunch before meal at "Chamber of Commerce"

Well finally I got a decent amount of sleep thanks to being ill and not being too silly last night. Around 10am I noticed that Li Kun had "tickled" me last night at 12:45 too. No doubt to go for a drink so I'm glad I'd gone to bed. But I thought I should at least invite him for lunch so pinged him and he had a go at me for going to bed so early last night.... But yes he said he'd finish his shift at 12pm so I said I'd come over then. 

I plugged in the dian dong che shortly after 11am. I'll no longer plug it in overnight as it has a tendency to set the alarm off and wake everyone up. And of course half an hour later it went off but at least I could turn it off from the house to avoid annoying too many people for too long. I grabbed a shower before needing to leave but damn and blast if I couldn't hear it going off again while I had shampoo in my hair. Well it made for a shorter shower than I'd hoped for and I wasn't dry when I ran out to turn it off again only to see that Jiuma was lying on the sofa watching tv. Well...I ran back to the bathroom to grab my clothes and was freezing as got back to my room. I unguiltily put the heater I brought on full blast for a few minutes to minimise my discomfort as quickly robed.

At 11.49 Li Kun said I could come over then. Fair enough I was a bit peckish. So at 12.00 I unplugged the dian dong che and got there 5 minutes later. He beckoned me to sit down. What? Oh, apparently someone was coming to pick us up. Well so much for going for some simple noodles.... I recognised the driver by his face and voice but that was it, and we drove up to the government place to the north of the guangchang where we picked up a couple more people including 唐海洋 whom I met on the trip to Tiandong a couple of months ago and is a colleague/partner of Li Kun.

It transpired that we were going to Pingguo Lu, the first time for me in a few years. We arrived 20 minutes later after picking up someone else and got off at at Sichuan restaurant. When we got to the room there were already about 6 other people, mostly ladies, and I realised this event must have been planned. The meal was great, as was the company, even if I had great difficulty following their local Mandarin dialect. Nothing other than tea was imbibed and I was rather grateful for that as was not planning a siesta.

Lovely impromptu meal

We said thanks to the owner, who'd been living here for 29 years so beats me hands down, then drove back to Li Kun's studio. So much for working this afternoon. We ended up playing a card game that at first I didn't understand at all but then got to really appreciate. There's four of you and you get 13 cards each. Then the person with the 2 of diamonds must lead, and can either put that, or 2 2s or basically any poker hand including that card. The next player must improve on that hand or pass. If you were the last person to go and no-one else can go you start again by putting down whatever you want. The idea is to get rid of all your cards and when someone does the others have to drink one glass for each three cards they have left in their hands. At least that's what I gathered...it's a bit more nuanced than that.

Li Kun reckons it's called suo hu in English but I have my doubts

I played the first few games with 唐海洋 helping me and lost badly. But I was finally getting it and started playing by myself and won! I mentioned that as soon as she stopped helping me was when I won and they all seemed to think that was much funnier than it really was. I still don't really get it as it seems if someone puts down a run on 3.4.5.6.7 you can cover it with a 3&2. I'll definitely investigate the rules more though as it seems like a great mix of poker and shithead.

I'd love to understand how the scores were worked out

A Wu had reminded me to go to meet Boss Zhou at the "Chamber of Commerce", so I thought I'd better get back at 4pm to grab a shower and find some decent clothes...could this be some government thing? Well we met outside my place at getting on for 6pm and he didn't have his car so we walked to Boss Zhou's place by the KTV place as we've been to many a time. We stopped off to get some cherries first, and A Wu explained (for the first time) that Boss Zhou actually owned the KTV place. Ah...guai bu de we often go there!

So it ended up that the "Chamber of Commerce" was simply Boss Zhou's place and as usual there was a table of food waiting for us. Boss Zhou was as usual happy to see me and sat next to me and we spent at least 20 minutes eating before there was even a peep of any beer or wine. But it certainly came. And it was of course very enjoyable as we watched Zheng beat Yastremska in a brilliant match. We were quite transfixed for a lot of it, except for when ganbeiing. After the match came cai ma of course, then we watched the last half an hour of South Korea v Malaysia in the Asian cup and saw a very unlikely 3-3 draw with a late goal from the Malaysians who probably didn't deserve it.

Great food in Boss Zhou's "Chamber of Commerce"

Of course I was flagging so A Wu and I left 11pmish. We walked back but came upon a friend drinking tea in his place and of course stopped there for a few minutes but I insisted on drinking water in case the tea was caffeinated. I'd planned on an early night and got back on foot soon after 11pm and only had a single beer before the earliest night this year.