Another meal with Lin Hong then with Haiwei's mates

Up at 11am but managed another hour's sleep-in, well it had been another getting-on-for 5am sleep last night. I managed to force some rice and sausage into myself. A bit later in the afternoon Lin Hong kindly invited me to eat with them again at the shop that sells milk. It's becoming a semi-regular thing and I do enjoy the company, even if I'm on the younger side. So I grabbed my typical late shower and walked over again as I still hadn't picked up my dian dong che from Xiao Nong's. At least they don't wait for me to arrive before starting. Lin Hong asked if I wanted a beer and I answered in my usual "I'm not drinking alone", which is a total lie as I'd had two before leaving the house. But she said she'd accompany me, and anyway then the bloke who had cooked got out a bottle of baijiu so that was that.

I thought I'd get another couple of keys cut for Tan before she goes back later in the year...only 6 kuai

Comfortable meal with Lin Hong, A Zhong, and friends, even though I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying

It was a comfortable meal, but I was really conscious that other than when they were talking with me they only spoke the local lingo. I take absolutely no offence whatsoever, but it made we wonder had Tan come from a "normal" place, i.e. they only spoke Mandarin, would my Mandarin be better? It probably would, but I wouldn't trade that for the experiences I've had in Guangxi. Not for a minute. I just wish I could pick up this local tu hua, like I have Mandarin. They all say I can speak it as I have a vocabulary of I'm guessing 27 words. But that is only enough for a party trick really. And Tan says she won't teach me until I've finished learning Mandarin, like that's going to happen.

Haiwei was pinging me to go over to where he was eating and drinking but I had to pick up my dian dong che from Xiao Nong's first. I pinged to see if she was in but she was at a friend's kid's birthday party and invited me over. I said I wouldn't be able to make it for an hour or so though rather would have preferred to go there than wherever Haiwei was where he sounded already quite pissed. But I drove the 15 minutes and found him with a couple of families and I joined in for a while caimaiing with one of the ladies who'd had a bit too much. It was too late to go to where Xiao Nong was (fair enough it was a kiddy's party) so I stayed for an hour or so until the meal came to an end. There was a 16 year-old boy there who spoke pretty good English so I had to spend much of the evening conversing with him.

I just managed to get Haiwei home on the dian dong che, which was really struggling. He invited me in for a couple of beers but I said that honestly I needed to sort out finances at home, and he seemed to understand. It was actually quite serious; Leilei had asked me to send him £75 he had in cash to his Revolut account, and while I'd been going for a walk earlier I'd tried but it had failed. Even with the VPN it didn't work, and when I tried again the bloody app logged me out and needed a passcode to get back in. I've used my fingerprint for years...how was I supposed to remember a passcode? So when I got back that evening I faffed for over an hour requesting a reset of passcode, only to receive an email (after connecting to VPN for gmail), only for the link not to work, or to work but the app then asked me for the passcode again. I was quite livid and wanted to talk to support but apparently you can only do that via the app. I tried to log in to the web app but as I didn't know the passcode it directed me to use the app again. Eventually I managed to get to a screen to take a selfie but after an age while the app decided my face was in the oval, it refused to upload, VPN or not. All in all a bloody frustrating experience.

So I ended up borrowing a grand from Andge in order to pay Xixi's tutor for the 2 weeks I'd missed. And now I face the prospect of having to convert some crypto to fiat again but I'll try to sort that tomorrow.... Needless to say I had a couple of beers during the experience.