没洗头

Well it was bloody work all afternoon, but I got to take the kids out to eat at the Yumi Tang place in the evening, although for some reason it was really busy. We did some shopping at the shenme dou you shops and I got a cap with 没洗头 (not washed hair) written on it as it was the only one I could find in Chinese. Back home at work I worked out that my fingernails were too long on the right and had calluses on the left. This made it rather difficult to type, resulting in 30% slower words per minute including fixing mistakes, by my calculations. Would I cut my nails and dip my left hand in baby oil? No way...guitar is more important when no piano around.

没洗头

I went to the market supermarket to get some drinks and noticed it was the supermarket’s 11st anniversary. I thought that might mean something but apparently not. Lunch was jiao zi and bao zi with the kids. They wanted to buy stuff so we went around on the bike but didn’t find much until Xixi spotted a huge spider behind some advertising over a shop. She seems to have an eye for detail. But so do I as I noticed a flask in a shop adorned with “Your title here” ok it’s not really that interesting but it did remind me of the Polish road sign in Wales where it was the content of an out-of-office email which was much funnier.

Horrid arachnid shape just above the "o"

Your Title Here

.
Finally finished work at 10.45 to go to the waterman’s friend’s shop opening, where they’d been badgering me to come for ages. They were already pissed and welcomed me like a long lost friend. Apparently the girls were all friends of Chuan Chuan so I should be ok. Almost stereotypically, the girls doing the bbq were rather chubby, but less so the girls eating it were smoking and cai mai’ing, and I had to join in the latter.

Smoking

Cat head in the toilet

Teaspoons and lovely meal with Chen

I thought I was clever waking up at 9.30am but when I opened my eyes again it was an hour later. I really should be taking advantage of a bit of time without the kids but instead I just slooped about at home, before meeting up with a friend for some watermelon juice. I then started the rather sad task of going to the supermarket for one of the last times to get such things as washing powder and tissues to last us till we go back.

Teaspoons are expensive here - note to self: bring lots of teaspoons next time

I just noticed that they "spelled" 平果 wrong on the card for the fairground - they wrote "Apple" (苹果）tut tut.

I took a stitched view while waiting for the lift

On a positive note Chen IM’d me to invite me for another meal which was nice. Of course it was for this evening and of course I said I’d make it. It was the first time I’d gone over the river bridge to actually go somewhere - usually it’s to look out from the bridge as there is no road on the south side of it. But there is a stony path and it is that that Chen took as he picked me up from our place. This time his son was here. He’s a great kid of about 12 but seems almost too happy to see me and I wonder if he’s “on the spectrum” which is a horrible expression in a way because we all are. He’s one of those people whose Mandarin I just can’t understand so maybe it’s my problem 100%.

Chen had invited quite a few people and there was a huge rotating table. I got the impression that not everyone had turned (haha) up by the time we were due to start, judging by half of the seats being empty and more food had been ordered than could possibly be accepted by the eight or so stomachs around the table. But during the meal some more bosses turned up in various levels of inebriation. One, who was there from the start, had brought a box of six bottles of red wine, and although I said I didn’t drink the stuff I did indulge in a couple of glasses to keep him and Chen happy.

On the south side of the bridge

Sumptious

Not heard of this one...

...but it was ok

I went to the loo and on the way back got semi-accosted by a bloke from another room in the same restaurant and needed to do a few gan bei’s for a bit in their room. Then got back to Chen’s room and A Wu was there, so more gan bei’ing was necessary.

Then I got a message from Huang at the seafood place asking to meet up. Ah well let’s see. First I went home at 11pm to find the kids were back and it was lovely to see them but they were knackered and were going straight to bed. Well as there aren’t many days left I popped out to meet Huang for a couple of beers and had a decent, if difficult, chat with him till I had to go back at 1am knackered.