Paying electricity and meal for Huang Lei's wife's younger brother's daughter's first birthday

I awoke to a message from a woman who wasn't the person who helped me get my flat, but was somehow affiliated with it, and to whom I'd paid 231 kuai the other day for "service upkeep" or something similar. It is 77 kuai a month and obviously wasn't mentioned when I signed the contract. But this morning she wrote to say that I had run out of money for electricity, and that I should sort it out via Weixin. This is rather a big deal, so I got out of bed and followed her instructions and somehow after 20 minutes I'd managed not only to top-up 100 kuai, but also somehow set it to auto-top-up, which I'm not really sure is a good idea.

I managed to pay the electricity bill almost on my own

By now it was a bit late for breakfast as usual but I managed to get a portion of xiaolongbao for lunch after Huang Lei pinged me to go to eat with his family tonight to celebrate the first birthday of his wife's son's daughter as you do. He'd actually told me last night to pick up a present for her, and to bring some fruit. So of course when I pinged him to confirm who the meal was for he said not to bring anything. Well I wasn't buying that, and went to the supermarket to pick up some booze and a teddy for 30 kuai. Of course it wasn't as simple as that; the lady at the till made me register my phone number so I would have discounts for future visits that I would probably never make.

Bear and booze...

Of course I got a phone call at 5pm to come over an hour early but I insisted on getting a box of cherries for about 15 quid. And when I did turn up the cherries and the teddy weren't even looked at, instead put away to the side, so it probably wasn't really worth getting them. We ended up standing around for about half an hour but it was cool and I got to speak to people I wouldn't normally have done. The kids were really cute and seemed to enjoy speaking to "foreign uncle" until eventually more people turned up and we started to eat well after 6pm.

Delightful company before the meal...

...and not quite so delightful company at the meal

Of course it was a great meal, and caima ensued as it does, until 9pm or so when the heavens opened just when I thought it would be a good idea to go back. So I ended up staying longer than I'd planned until it died down and I can't remember when or where I went after that.