Slightly surreal afternoon but nice "sheep soup" with A Wu's family

I shouldn't be surprised that I woke up after under 4h30m of sleep again because it always bloody happens during the first week. At least I was awake enough to realise I should really register myself although it's not as important yet as technically I've been registered by the hotel for the last two days. So I checked out at 10.30 and took my stuff to the house and washed the clothes and put them out to hopefully dry within a couple of days. By the time I got to the police station it had just turned midday and I was told to come back some time between 3-6pm. Well at least I tried...but a 3 hour lunch break for the police sounds rather nice (for them).

I called A Wu to go for duck noodle soup and he drove to meet me at the usual place but he said it was too busy so took me to another place we'd been to before and indeed had a lovely duck breast noodle soup. I noticed he left almost all of his noodles though. He's definitely put on weight in the last few years so maybe he's recognised this now and is cutting down on the carbs. I did the same but mainly because it doesn't take much to fill me up if I've not been exercising. Then it got a little surreal for a while...partly because I badly needed a sleep. We got to Boss Zhou's office and I gave him and another bloke a bit of a hug as they beamed smiles which I hope were the consequence of seeing me back. Then A Wu gave me two tubs of condoms out of the blue. I thought it was some sort of joke but apparently they got a load of them for free from the hospital. I didn't ask too many questions as I didn't really want to know. What the eff am I going to do with them? And just imagine the mess that would happen if I left them in the house....I'll dump them somewhere.

Duck breast soup as you do

What to do with two tubs of CDs?

Then he said he'd take me back to where he met me and I'd left the dian dong che, but first we were to go to an injection place to get an injection in the bottom. At least he was.... Thankfully it was not done in full view, and he paid the 50 kuai for the experience and again I just didn't ask what it was for...it was almost hallucination time by now. So he dropped me off sometime after 1pm and I got home and grabbed a couple of beers to encourage some sleep that finally came but only for an hour or so before A Wu called me again as we were going to eat lamb soup.

He kept saying "sheep soup" and I had to correct him for the umpteenth time that us Brits don't like to use the word of the animal when eating them so we change it. Then he asked how to say "dog meat" in English and I had to admit it was the same word but only because we don't eat the bloody things. I'm glad he didn't ask about chickens. Anyway, at 5pm he called to say he was already outside our house so I told him I'd be 5 minutes and then we drove to the north of the town to pick up his daughter who was happy enough to see me and held my hand as I protected her from drizzle and we went to pick up her big brother from another school. A Wu asked me to get out to pick him up while he parked so I did but there was no sign of him for a good 10 minutes. I got the inevitable call from A Wu to ask where I was and of course I was at the school gate looking for his son. So A Wu came and eventually Li Yun turned up, one of the last to get out.

We drove to a place I felt I'd been to before, near the Vienna hotel. And indeed it was lamb soup...just a lot more than that. A Wu's wife turned up and we enjoyed a hearty meal with a particularly nice haggis-like plate of sliced lamb in lamb stomach. Of course after a while A Wu's wife took the kids back (though not to do homework as it was a Friday) and then some beer and men turned up. I recognised some faces but could not recall any names, but it was very pleasant to have a few beers with these chaps, even if the beer was rather on the strong side at 3.3% and came from near Shanghai.

A nice family meal with "sheep soup"

And then more blokes turned up and finally a couple of women and I realised it was starting to get let and I was getting light-headed. Then Nong called me to go and have a beer with her and some mates so I thought I would do that. The blokes all said to meet up tomorrow at 10.30am to go fishing and then for a meal and I said I would (though that will depend on sleep patterns). So I picked up my coat from A Wu's car and headed off home on foot as I'd need my dian dong che to get to Jiang Bing Lu and I got at least three calls from Nong to ask where I was as you do. Well I got there and joined in playing cards but was flagging yet again so within an hour I apologised and said I'd have to get home as it was midnight already. That was accepted and I was asleep within 30 minutes of getting back, not even managing to finish a beer yet again.

The meal somewhat changed a bit later as more and more blokes turned up