First squat of 2017

Despite the usual 2am going to bed I woke at 5.45 so decided to do a leisurely run of 5.5km. Having a VPN this year on the phone and laptop has made a lot of difference; for the run I could actually track where I went on the map. Breakfast was the usual eggs and you tiao and pancake from the dou jiang place, and then it was work till lunch, siesta, then work again from 3pm. The good thing about the work I'm doing at the moment is that it doesn't require any client intervention, so no-one's waiting on me. This meant that when Li Kun called me to go for a meal I was able to say "ok" and grab the kids and get picked up by him half an hour later.

We went to a new place that is more of a swimming pool than a restaurant, but we took it for the latter and had a lovely al fresco meal without too much in the way of beer. Unfortunately, though, I received my first taste of la du this year. It had taken a good three days for my poo to take on its usual Pingguo texture reflecting a fairly high protein diet, but I could feel the liquid version burgeoning up whether or not that's a verb. Had we been within a few minutes from home and I'd had the dian dong che I'd have grabbed it and managed to hold it but that was not an option. Oh no, it was to be my first squat of 2017. Last year working with a couple of Chinese blokes in Holland I'd heard stories of how their Westernised Chinese friends had managed on a squat toilet. One had taken to removing a single leg of his trousers and tying it around his neck to avoid contact with the floor. I didn't have time to make such a cunning plan, but I had the advantage of shorts. I took my right leg out then put my heel in my shoe, leaving enough space to perch my phone and did the deed just in time. Oh sweet relief but I knew it wouldn't be the last time. How Andge managed a whole level of Angry Birds in 2009 I'll never know. Perhaps it was something to do with the loo not being a public one.

When I got back to the meal there were nods of "we know where you've been", but it wasn't in any way mocking. And when I grabbed another set of tissues it was "we know where you're going" but I didn't give a monkey's cuss. Thankfully that was all for the evening, at least from a squatting perspective.

Meal with Li Kun, pool in background

It would have been nice to go for a swim, but we'll leave that for next time. When we were taken back I took the kids to the guangchang again but it started raining and the bouncy castles were coming down. Yang Haiwei called me to go for a beer but I had to say the kids came first, so couldn't meet him. We ended up going for another magical mystery tour and ending up doing exercises by the stadium as we've done a couple of times before. Not massively interesting in terms of doing new things but enjoyable and bonding.

Late night exercising

Back home while getting the kids ready for bed I got a message to go to KTV from the same friends as the other day and as Tan came home at 11pm I said I'd manage to come for a bit. I was glad I did - friendly people and no forced beer made for a pleasant evening and I was more than ready for sleep when I got back at 1ish.

Normal

Zhang Liangwen had invited me to go jogging at 6.30am but that didn't happen after a well-past 3am sleep last night, but I still got up before the kids and while Leilei went with Tan I took Xixi out to find somewhere different to eat. We happened upon a place with its doors shut which meant air con was on, and as it's been blisteringly hot for the last couple of days we took refuge there. The couple of women working there had hats on and I realised they were probably from a muslim part of China, so I made sure not to order pork. In the end Xixi and I both ordered beef dishes which were really good and I was surprised Xixi ate a fair amount of hers as it was pretty spicy.

Spicy beef noodles for brunch

I've realised it's just normal being here now - I hardly ever feel like taking pictures and the only reason I did of the food was just to put a message on WeChat so that the rest of my Chinese friends would know I'm back in the country. The only aspect of holiday about being here is the relative lack of work at the moment, otherwise it's been mainly catching up with old friends and enjoying the extreme weather, whether hot or raining or both. Ah yes, and managing siestas - those saviours of sanity.

The iphone palaver continued...in order to reset it I needed itunes so installed that on the work laptop but the bloody thing wouldn't connect. Then the same thing happened on my laptop so I had to put it in factory reset mode. Finally it got recognised but when I tried to reset it another error happened. That had taken the best part of an hour so I put this mini project aside as I wanted to get some ping pong in with the kids. After that we went to the guangchang, and unlike yesterday the bouncy castles were up so I let them slide into five-year-old mode and spend half an hour getting drenched there before showering early.

As it was only 10.30pm, I took the kids out on another magical mystery tour on the dian dong che. Nothing magical other than it's something we can't do in the UK and you generally get to learn something new. Today we just went on a new road and found a flashing light that turned out to be some sort of firefly. If nothing else it got me the chance to talk about how this was chemicals reacting in the fly's bum but Xixi told me off for being too sciency.