Rat meal at guitar shop followed by music at Feng ge's

Woke up at Waipo's for the first time in a while and as it was not yet 10am decided to pick up what I could of Tan's stuff from Lin Hong's flat, which meant her hand-luggage suitcase and violin, so there'd definitely be at least one more journey there for my stuff. After checking with Tan I've decided I'll probably spend most of my nights at Waipo's now so went to my flat to pick up most of my clothes there and hang up with ones I'd washed yesterday morning. Hmm...they were already starting to smell a bit...may have to re-wash them. So by lunchtime I was back at Waipo's with my suitcase and guitar in hand but my next stop planned was for jiaozi, which I ate in with a bowl of soup after a chat with Awl on the way there.

Ling Ming's wife's house for future reference

I hadn't really had as much sleep as I wanted so treated myself to a couple of beers and a siesta and before I knew it Huang Lei had sent a message at 5.30pm to go and eat with him at 8pm. Hmm...8pm seems a bit late for an evening meal, but too early for an evening snack. Anyway, before I could respond he called me to confirm 8pm so that meant despite being hungry I only allowed myself a couple of biscuits as didn't want to do in my appetite for later.

I didn't even have any more beers as I'd had an email from the solicitors and needed to sort out a lot of dad's utilities. Luckily so much of this stuff can be done online now, almost all in fact now that I have access to his email. The only really annoying thing is that they want wet signatures for a couple of the documents so I'll have to print them out and send them back to the UK. Boo.

Soon after 8pm I got to the music shop north of the guangchang I've been to a couple of times before. Huang Lei was there with his younger son but few other people were. I ended up playing a sort of flicking draughts football type game with him for about half an hour until others turned up, and eventually a trolley of sumptuous food, and we finally sat down to eat at 9pm. I know Huang Lei could have told me to come at 9pm but it's not like that here...they generally want you early for a chat and to make sure you don't end up elsewhere.

Rat and other goodies for an evening feast

Anyway the main dish was rat. They have the same word for rat as for mouse here, as normally the context is close enough, but in order to make sure I asked if it was "big mouse" (rat) or actual "small mouse" (mouse) and it was confirmed it was the former. I breathed a sigh of relief but I don't know why really...would it have been that different...yeah...less meat and more annoying bones I suppose. Hardly worth skinning a mouse anyway for the amount you get. In fact it's hardly worth skinning a rat but they did and it was delicious. A fairly fair way of dealing with unwanted vermin.

Soon after 10pm Feng ge turned up looking a bit the worse for the wear, and invited me to go to his place at Yang Ming park so after a couple more beers it was the 10 minute journey over the bridge to his place. Except with him on the back of the bike nearly falling asleep it was over 15 mins. This time there was no Li Kun to accompany me unlike 10 days ago, as he's away for four days. I was invited to go but turned it down as I rather like being in Pingguo. Having said that I should branch out a bit more...one day. Anyway, other than Feng ge I didn't know the other people, but there were two blokes playing the guitar, one on the drums, and a rather pretty woman to watch and listen.

Music at Feng ge's place in Yang Ming park

It was a nice evening but at midnight Feng ge wisely decided to stop drinking alcohol. I didn't, but I was flaking by 1am and for once a guitar wasn't thrust into my arms, and I didn't request it. So we all spent 10 minutes tidying up and I guess I was home at 2ish.