New Year's day and a nice present from Mr Calligrapher

I once again forced down a couple of boiled eggs for lunch as didn't have much of an appetite again. Fen pinged me just after 1pm to meet up and as I didn't have any other plans I said I could do so we spent a couple of hours together from 3.30pm, but I knew I was expected at Lin Hong's husband's father's house again, and of course she pinged me at 5pm to go over.

So around 5.30pm I got there and it was another lovely family meal. And just like yesterday I needed to go for a second meal soon after so made my excuses to go to the calligrapher's place that Haiwei had sent me the location of. Except it wasn't exact and I thought it was in A Wu's complex. It took 20 minutes of location sharing and phone calls before I realised it was in a neighbouring complex but I eventually got there not too long after 7pm. Evidently they had waited for me to start, which was slightly embarrassing, and I would have really enjoyed the meal if I'd still been hungry.

The bloke who sat next to me shared a few beers with me. His wife sat opposite me and was apparently an English teacher, but she barely spoke any English, explaining that she only taught young kids and the English was very basic. I did make an effort to speak with her in English but fair enough she could barely string two sentences together.

I'd hoped to watch the City - Everton match at 8.30pm, but it was already gone 8pm and we were to go downstairs to the calligrapher's shop. Fair enough. When there he made me a really nice wall frieze with the words "friends forever", which was really appreciated. But we had to wait for the ink to dry, so of course we went to drink tea. For the next half an hour without exception each of us was stuck in our phones, me trying unsuccessfully to find a stream of the match.

Haiwei's second son, me, Haiwei, posing in the calligrapher's shop

The calligrapher and me with my lovely frieze

Eventually the calligrapher left and came back with my rolled up parchment, which I thanked him profusely for as it's a pretty unique present. Then we left to go and Haiwei and his son took a didi bike and I found my dian dong che and got back just before the second half started. Yes! Haaland struck twice after 70 minutes and we got a well-deserved win.

But Li Kun had got in contact and I'd promised to go and meet him. I told him 20 minutes when the match was 70 minutes old but due to 10 minutes of injury time and some faffing it was nearly double that. But I made it and it was again cool to be playing with his kids. More beer was partaken and I got back at a respectfully late 1.30am for a brief chat with the lads.