More lack of sleep but fun evening at Huang Qian's followed by KTV

For some reason I was up after not much more than 4h30m of sleep. Two nights in a row is not great. But I made the effort to get up and go to our house to see if the water was pouring and of course it wasn't. It was too early to do anything about it so I went back to the hotel to ask if I could stay another day. Of course I could. I booked it in trip.com again and within seconds the bloke scanned my card and confirmed I could stay in the same upgraded room so that was nice. It was very nice actually, but I still could barely sleep. I even tried a beer at midday and finally managed some awakish hallucinations counting to 100 in German and Spanish again.

I decided to go back to the house to enquire about the water again and this time the security bloke came with me to look at the external pipes. I told him which one was probably ours as it lead to our house but I'd not noticed they have the house numbers daubed in yellow above them anyway so he may have been a bit bemused by my gesticulation at how the pipe made its way up and along the wall when he already knew we are number 102. But at least this security guard made a phone call to someone and a lady turned up 5 minutes later with a tool to twist the smaller of two tap-like things and finally yes! We had water! Well I had water...I don't think anyone has been here for months....

Obviously it was the smaller tap on the right that needed to be opened...

Then I got a message from Huang Qian, Baoli's ex-colleague and friend I ate with last night who wants an English boyfriend. She invited me to her place as Yang Haiwei and Baoli were also going and were going to cook there. I said thank you and I should be able to go but I'd need a siesta first. I naughtily went and got a little bit of vodka from the supermarket by the guangchang and after a couple of those finally managed 45 minutes' kip. It was really hard to wake up but she said not to worry about being there dead on 7pm so I took advantage and got there at 7.30.

Annoyingly, my phone wouldn't get online and I saw I had an SMS saying I was out of funds and they would cut me off on the 5th December if I didn't pay. So bugger, they had. Which meant I couldn't call Huang Qian when I got there but at least I had the address and it wasn't that hard to find someone to point me in the right direction. In fact it was better that way as I got some interaction with a human and I got there just as food was being served. It was another nice family affair with three generations around the table and on the sofa, and a splendid feast to boot.

About to eat at Huang Qian's

The inevitable cai ma after a few beers

Of course the beer was opened after a short while and we got through a fair amount during the meal as more people turned up. I was flagging but the beer and the company gave me a little energy but I couldn't care too much for going to sing song when Haiwei suggested we go there at 11.30pm. But it was all arranged and I didn't really have much of an option. So I hopped on the bike with Haiwei and we went to the KTV near the supermarket by the guangchang, only a few yards from the bar I went to with Li Kun last night.  There were only 6 or 7 of us but it was pretty good fun and did join in with both Chinese and English songs (well the usual ones) until around 2am where I could feel any remaining energy seeping out from me.

So I dropped off Haiwei at the International Hotel (I don't know if he's staying there or what), then got to my hotel where I didn't find it too hard to fall asleep in the comfortable massive bed.