Dom, Tan, Leilei, and Xixi in China: Another meal with A Wu but better bite with Li Kun

Jeez despite last night I was still up at 5am after 4 hours' sleep...this is becoming tedious. But this time when it got to 7.30pm I decided German counting wasn't going to cut it so I tried some Alprazolam that Tan had appropriated some time before from here. Jeez I can see how it's the no.1 additive drug in the US (known as Xanax) except that in my tiny experience all it does is make me sleep. I guess that's reason enough in our modern world but my, within 30 minutes I could literally feel myself falling in a way that German counting could only wish for. Luckily, I am not of the addictive personality type, at least in my opinion. I remember talking to the doctor about this re Tramadol and she said she was happy for me to take it when my zuo gu shenjing tong flared up as I said I never take more than one dose in a day and almost never more than one day in a row. But I can see how people would take Alprazolam on a daily/nightly basis. It's literally night and day as I woke up later at 11.30am feeling so refreshed and having no side-effects. I don't know why this year has been so different so far.

A Wu called me around 12.30pm after I'd told him I was quite refreshed and he said we'd to to play "snooker" after he'd had a shower. I said I'd grab one too but knew better than to expect to be there in half an hour so didn't. And indeed I was proved right as I didn't get a call from him till 2.19pm when he said he was outside. Well I wasn't ready so I said I'd get a shower and he said he'd meet me at Pingguo International Hotel which was fair enough. When I got there half an hour later he chastised me for taking two hours for a shower and I accused him of the same, to which he could only laugh. We sat down with some woman and drank rose tea for half an hour which was quite pleasant.

Not sure about the quality of the information at the hotel

Pleasantly, we left and I left the dian dong che to take A Wu's slightly aging X6 to the supermarket to get some flavour to cook chicken wings with.

But of course first we went to play "snooker". There is a perfectly ok word for billiards or pool, but of course he didn't use that. He said that for each game lost we would have to drink half a bottle. I agree of course as why not? I got him to explain the rules and for once it was pretty simple. It's pretty much English rules as in 1-7 is red (or yellow) and 9-15 is yellow (or red). What you pot first is what you are stuck with. There are a few minor differences though. If you pot your opponent's colour it's not a foul. Pretty much any other foul means yor opponent gets to put the white ball anywhere. And there is no two-shots rule. Fair enough. Oh, and annoyingly at least one of the balls you hit has to hit the edge or go in. That somewhat screwed my strategy of covering pockets and snookering him. In fact it massively did. So he was leading 6-2 when I made a cracking snooker with him just needing the black. I had hidden the white so he had no chance, but he just lay into my balls to split them and leave a relatively easy black if I didn't pot (no two shots for me). So I told him if you foul on purpose you forfeit the game, and I think he sort of got it. That is most unfair!

Playing "snooker" but the table was ace

Then we went to his house where he proceeded to cook and I help his son Li Yun write some English homework. It was incredibly tiring for me as a non-teacher...it seemed he had memorised some words and could write "goodbye" but couldn't write "arm", as though he had no idea about the alphabet. Had I been a teacher I may have been more effective but I just helped him learn more words. At least I hope he learnt something and I know A Wu appreciates that. Despite the amount of sleep I'd had, after 45 minutes with Li Yun I lay down on the sofa and put my coat over me and counted to 60 in German before A Wu touched me to say we were going to eat.

Well at least his kids had eaten the chicken wings. So we got a box of La rou and left the kids at home and got a didi che under 1km away to one of his xiong di's place where there were only three other blokes. It wasn't the most interesting of places but I felt I had to stay for a bit. Then Li Kun pinged me to go over and I would have much preferred to go there so said I'd go in a bit. But the bloke here had ordered beer to be delivered for me and A Wu so I felt I should stay to at least drink half of the 12 cans. They also ordered some noodles to put in the huo guo so I felt obliged to have some of them too.

During most of the meal A Wu was working out lottery numbers in a way I'll never fathom

Luckily, A Wu complained that his stomach was "zhang le". I'm still to learn the character for that but I've heard it a lot as when your stomach is full, like Venky 45 minutes after starting drinking beer. But he really meant it and we left before 10pm to walk back. We spent 15 minutes walking to our respective destinations and when we split I realised not only did I need a shit but I also needed a piss. I logicked myself that my bladder was pushing whatever it is that was holding in my poo so I made a detour to a building site and had a massive wee that I should have had a few minutes earlier. And indeed it did seem to relieve a bit of pressure on the old poo front. I knew I had 10 minutes to get to Li Kun's office so now should make it.

Indeed I did. Thanks to Awl I spoke to him on WhatsApp (thanks to VPN) and that helped me get to Li Kun's office, to cheers of "Ming Ge!". It's times like these that totally justify me being here in my opinion. We're not special people. I'm not, they're not. We like each other's company that's all. We spent a great 2 hours together chatting about normal stuff and decided at midnight to call it a night. That transpire to 12.30am but the music teacher gave me a lift back then and although I didn't need it I was grateful to him.

Being naughty, or silly, after a lot of sleep, I went to our local shop to buy some beer. The old bloke was there and seemed so happy to see me. I gave him a big smile while picking out a box of Li Quan 1998. He showed me a card that I think explained the Li Quan deal re the ring pulls...so maybe it's that you only get one can per two ring-pulls and you still have to pay 1 kuai per can. If so it's still a great deal I think. Anyway I got home and managed a chat with Mat and Awl till nearly 2.30am before crashing...that will be me for 10 hours right?