Pissed police mate and boss meal

Up at 5am for some annoying reason but at least I'd had nearly four hours' sleep. Ling Ming had given us a couple of tubes to fix the washing machine. I didn't know it was broken but found it was the water escape tube as it was split from old age and weather and did leak a bit on the balcony. Of course the tube was the wrong type, and now that I had the washing machine on its side I knew I'd need to find a new one before we'd have clean clothes again.

This was a mini mission that the kids and I looked forward to. First stop was to the place run by one of Tan's "aunties". I didn't expect to get the replacement part there but because I had the old one with me and a photo of the appliance, they were able to supply my with a phone number of a place that should be able to sort me out. The next hour was spent finding the place they had alluded to. I didn't call it as I knew none of the street names. The only clue I had was that it was "beyond the traffic lights" and a finger to point me to which traffic lights. It ended up being a bit like a treasure hunt, except instead of pieces of paper with further clues we'd stop at some shop and ask how close we were to this road. It took about five stops but we finally made it to the Haier shop and the lady popped upstairs and came down a minute later with a replacement tube for 15 kuai. Mission accomplished. Well I still had to install it. Back home it was actually quite straightforward and now we have a non-leaking washing machine and the kids had some fun.

Then, as if on cue, Ma Laoban rang to tell us to come to eat. I dumped the kids at Waipo's as I knew they'd be bored and Waipo really appreciates them being around even if it isn't 100% mutual. I arrived at Ma Laoban's Lenovo computer shop and there was a police mate there too who would join us. We took Ma Laoban's Landcruiser with curtained rear side windows and went to a place just a couple of blocks away from where we ate last year. It seemed to take rather a while sitting down at the ground floor with the pretty waitress ordering food for the private room that would be on the second floor, but in this instance it didn't really matter. It seemed every third item we ordered she came back apologetically to say they were out of it. But they had my favourite brown translucent boiled eggs (liang dan pi dan) so that was ok.

Ma Laoban's wife, me, police mate, and Ma Laoban at the meal

But my choice of beer wasn't ok. It wasn't that they didn't have Li Quan, rather that police mate was insistent on me drinking their strong bai jiu (white alcohol, but really it's transparent and it's from rice and it's horrible). He was utterly insistent on this, so much so that the only compromise I could make was to drink the brown "medicine alcohol" instead, and he ordered two small 100ml bottles. The food was good but I didn't like the drink, so had smaller sips than police mate. But he noticed this and told me to drink bigger sips as it wouldn't taste so strong. What utter tosh. After another bottle police mate had turned a shade of aubergine but was still insistent that we enjoy the drink. By this stage I didn't care quite so much and we managed a third bottle. Finally he ordered two more but I had to protest and he accepted and pushed the bottles away a few inches. Then a minute later his conscience got the better of him or something and he opened them both before I could counter him. He was instantly a classic drunk and staggered down the stairs a bit later and into the car where he held his head in his hands. I felt quite ok on the other hand and noticed that there were a couple of photos of people eating on the wall, and one of them looked like Jeremy Corbyn worryingly looking at some pig trotters. I ended up getting home at 3.30 and slept solidly till 6.30.

Had Jeremy Corbyn been here before, and what was he looking at?

A Wu I think it was woke me up to tell me to hurry up, we were going to see some friends at the karaoke place near where we lived for three months in 2008. Well the kids were out so I thought "why not?" and grabbed a shower and went to the KTV - probably slightly over the limit still. But when I got to the dest at the KTV and asked for A Wu, they told me he was in a different building, and took me out through the rear exit, across the road to a place where a load of blokes were eating on the ground floor. My entry was met with some drunken cheers and I was immediatley placed into gan bei mode for the next five minutes. There wasn't an amazing amount of food left but it didn't matter - the atmosphere was good and I did remember some of the blokes at least. I remembered I'd bought two packs of 200 fags at duty free for 90 quid and thought this might be an appropriate time to give them out, so excused myself saying I'd be back in 10 minutes.

Boss Zhou standing

I went back via the rear entrance of the KTV and then through the front door but was immediately accosted by a quite pretty woman who spoke to me in English "Hi! Where are you from?" Politely I told her, and she said I was very handsome, which was rather unnecessary, and proceeded to introduce herself to me, then, as a second thought, said "this is my husband", pointing to the bloke on her right. The husband looked at her with a long face and said "if you say so dear". I nearly felt awkward, but any such feeling was quickly quashed when police mate made an appearance. I recognised him from this afternoon and realised he'd probably somehow not slept off the afternoon booze, as he looked quite the worse for wear. Then Ma Laoban's wife turned up too and I realised they were wearing the same tops. Ah, it was some reunion, which was why police mate was in town.

Typically I took an instant liking to their tops, and I was asked if I wanted one. Why of course I did, and within 30 seconds I was given one. Remembering my mission to get fags, I excused myself for a second time in as many minutes and said I'd be back very soon, slinging the top on my shoulder.

Jeez while I was riding back there was a nasty whiff of BO and I felt embarrassed as I sniffed both armpits, but in fact they were fine (I had used a 72hour deoderant before going out so should be ok). I tried to find the source of the smell when it dawned on me that the reunion shirt I'd been given probably wasn't out-of-the-box, but rather off-the-back of someone else. Yuck. At home I grabbed the fags, then, as I was committed to wearing the stinking top, turned it inside out and used half a can of Gillette deoderant on it and then did the outside for good measure. Also, it was size M, but being Chinese that's pretty much an S so it was tight it a way I wouldn't have minded if I had rippling biceps, and short I wouldn't have minded if I had a six-pack.

Class 44 - "we are the best"

This time when I got back I went straight to the blokes' eating place, so the KTV crowd wouldn't see me. Boss Zhou, the main boss there, was very happy to accept 10 packs of Marlboro Red, and thankfully shared them around the others. I asked if he would mind if I took one for a mate in the KTV and of course it was ok. I said I'd be back again in a few minutes. As I did have the new top on I knew I had to see the reunion people even if I only knew two of them. Of course as I walked in I was plied with thimble-sized glasses of weak beer and gan bei'd with many of them. I gave the pack of Marlboro to police mate, but a couple of minutes later the pretty girl with the no-so-happy husband came over to me with them in hand. Apparently she'd never seen a hinge top pack before and had opened them like a soft pack, and was asking what to do. I didn't really have much of an idea so pulled on out and gave it to her. That seemed to work. Then I made my excuses and went back to the bosses across the road.

I used the kids as excuses to leave the meal a little later, but I was then given big bags of dragonfire fruit and star fruit even though if I only ate fruit for the next month I'd have more than enough. Yang Haiwei then called me after I'd picked up the kids to ask me over to drink "tea". So I dumped the kids off at A Ni's and went to see him and a couple of mates at the Lang Fu tea place. Of course tea meant beer, but I only stayeed an hour as once again the kids became my excuse to leave at 11.30 so picked them up to shower and sleep for another post-midnight night.

First massage and red wine faux pas

Damnation to my 4-5am window. Getting to sleep at 2am I thought I'd at least last longer than 5am but it wasn't to be. So at 6am I got up and found some shorts and by 6.15 I was at the guangchang with nothing but phone and keys in hand. My only target was to do more than the three laps I'd managed last time but rather than try four I walked the first half lap so would only be attempting 3.5 laps. It would be easier to beat the record of three laps that way. But on the second lap I wasn't feeling up to it, just no motivatation although beating last time should have been enough. Then I came across Zhang, who was jogging with a female. He noticed me and made the Chinese sound of recognition between males: "ah", and bade me jog with them.

It transpired that he and his pretty (for her age) friend had been jogging partners for 15 years. I had already noted that last week when I went with him to play ping pong he was wearing a top that mentioned the Nanning marathon. I hadn't been aware of such a thing but he'd done it. Luckily they weren't running any faster than a tired me so I stayed with them for a bit. They were doing longer laps than me and normally did four of them. The conversation and just company did for me more than I could have expected and I jogged a lap and a half, after which they (the woman is called Huang, I just learned) said I should relax as I'd started earlier. But I wanted to prove something to them so started a new lap even though I'd already well beaten my previous record here. It was slower, and my average speed per mile came down to 10m25s but I managed it, even with a sprint finish and was happy to see I'd done a 5.24 mile rather hot jog.

At home, just to make it better I forced myself to do a 7-minute workout, during which I sweated more than is decent. But the shower felt good. The kids and I walked to the dou jiang place on way to Waipo's with Tan, then after having a bite of brunch, left her as she was going to Baise a bit later for a few days for a primary school friends' reunion.

We went to the jade place where I had my annual change of necklace string for my jade pig. This year it was 10 kuai, as opposed to 6 kuai last year, but it had been more in the past. Pretty random but I'm not going to complain. After, the kids and I went to look for something new but even the bridge that had been built some seven years ago still didn't have a road on the south side. I tried to explain to the kids why this may be but could only muster that it was a project gone wrong, something I don't wholeheartedly believe in this place.

Still on the bike, we noticed we were getting battered by the soon-to-be-midday sun, so took a turn to Ma Laoban's place where we hugged as it had been nearly a year since we last met. We shared a couple of cups of tea then he said we'd call me to eat with him tomorrow lunchtime. I had semi-hoped we might go for a bite with him there and then, so instead we all went to A Ni's. There, the bloke with the same surname as Tan, Tan invited us to eat with him upstairs. It transpired he had some extended family for a meal, so that was quite good timing. Tan ordered steak for me and I asked for boring chips for the kids. A bottle of red wine was ordered for some reason, and some poured for all the adults. We all got up to cheers and I followed the Chinese tradition of gan beiing my glass only to find that everyone else just took a communion-sized sip from their glass. I felt rather sheepish as I was poured another - I wouldn't have downed it if I didn't think everyone else would.

Lin Hong called and came to take the kids to play, so I went home but decided it would be better to go for a massage as I haven't done that yet. It seemed that, without the kids, and with the whole afternoon and a sleep to come, not pouring a nice G&T would be bordering on criminal, so I kept on the right side of the law and had a wee glass and one for the journey. Five minutes later I was at A Wu's favouring massage place and was told to get upstairs. So much for a relaxing massage I could fall asleep during. This woman had it in for me. She kept telling me this place and that area were "ying" (hard) so applied more and more pressure. As tired as I was sleep would not happen in the next 70 minutes. But as soon as she was over, the soothing calmness of not having your muscled pulled and pushed to unnatural places brought me to a slumber that lasted another 70 minutes. I only woke up as the air-con was set at its lowest, and pushed it to 26 before resting again. Thankfully this place never seems that busy so sleeping after is quite the norm.

Not a good idea to take a selfie while taking the dian dong che back from the massage place but hey

It was already 4.30 and not long after A Wu called to invite me to eat steak at A Ni's again. It's more than I really want but it's company. There were a couple of other blokes too and beer was taken, but not more than a couple. The kids came back to then A Ni took them out to Yi Xiao to spoil them, and they came back with new shoes, clothes, and toys. Then it was my turn and I took them to the guangchang where once again they got absolutely soaking wet on the jumping castle. As it was pay day, and I'd thankfully got a bonus, I was able to withdraw 5000 kuai to give to Ling Ming for helping sort out the house. 5000 was a lot (especially with the rotten exchange rate since Brexit), but fair enough he had sent a breakdown of the costs (which I'm yet to translate). Ling Ming, his wife Xiao Nong, and their now 18 month old son came to meet us at the guangchang, then we went to A Ni's to see her son and to exchange the cash.

Then I saw Leilei was doubled over in pain. He wouldn't eat or drink so I got them both back home where he just lay down. I guessed it was the jumping and drinking of water too quickly and that seemed to be it for a few minutes later he seemed ok again. But it meant we were no longer to go out tonight and have a relatively pre-midnight bed.