Xiao Bai de Tian take 2

Up late at 2pm and cooked an chun dan for lunch. I really didn't have much of an appetite again but Tan had made some chicken salad that I'm normally quite partial so managed a bit of that for tea, but it wasn't really enough. Also, when Leilei got back from Li Kun's with some food for Xixi she didn't want her fried chicken on a stick so I took it as I think I need more non-beer calorie intake.

So a bit later I pinged Li Kun to apologise about coming home early last night, but he just said to continue this evening so I thought fair enough and said I'd see him there in a bit. So at 9.30pm I got there to see only the boss and Xiao Bai threading bbq for later. So we had a nice sober chat for half an hour until Li Kun turned up, followed by Nong, then Ma Yong. Zhang Hongping then called and I told him where I was so he turned up too. At first he didn't come inside so I went out to see what he was doing and he pointed to his cigarette. As if you weren't allowed to smoke here...I brought him in and Ma Yong pointed him to the ashtray clearly on the table. Apparently they knew each other pretty well and I'd already introduced him to Li Kun last year.

I asked Zhang Hongping if he preferred to be called by his name or Wu ge. It transpired it was the latter, as it was a nickname. Of course the word they used for nickname was different (外号) from what I had translated (昵称). But anyway they all had nicknames and I'll be buggered if I can remember them all but Li Kun's is Da Li (Big Li). I have no idea why Zhang Hongping's is Wu ge (five big brother) but I'm happy to call him that if he prefers. I just wonder if I should have one, but that could get quite complicated as I'm called by enough different names already.

Xiao Bai threading fresh bbq

I wanted to order stuff as I had effectively invited people, and I was shown the QR code on the table. With just a little help I was able to order a couple of portions of bbq, some fried chicken, and some yu cao xing, which is some kind of pickled root as far as I can tell. The handsome singer chap also turned up. I pinged Leilei to come and he said he was having a drink by the stadium which is the place he normally hangs out. I'm not sure if he normally hangs out with other people, but he knows the owner of the place he normally goes to. He said his tummy hurt a bit which could have been a bit of an excuse but I said just to turn up for 10 minutes and surprisingly he did, to the delight of the others, as a few photos were taken. I'd already ordered more bbq and fried chicken, plus some peanuts to go with the copious beers so he had a bite to eat and a bit of a chat with them, and managed a small glass of beer, the last half of which he managed to ganbei with us after his allotted 10 minutes were up, though he did explain to them 肚子不舒服.

The boss sang a few songs and then they asked me to but I said I would tomorrow for Xiao Bai's birthday, but the handsome singer could, and I suggested 有没有人告诉你？ So the boss found the background music and the singer found the words online and indeed belted out a better rendition than I could have done. I wouldn't have minded accompanying him on the guitar though as I know that bit. Handsome singer (I must learn his name) then took the guitar and proceeded to sing a couple of more songs, one of his own penning, with Li Kun accompanying on the drums, and I was a little jealous. But it was 1am, which has become the witching hour here so I offered to order more food and beer but was turned down (somehow there was already more beer than I had ordered), and a couple of ganbei's later I was on my way home.

The boss singing and being accompanied by Li Kun

A relatively simple evening tonight with Nong, Da Li, Handsome singer, a girl, Ma Yong, Wu ge

Actually it wasn't that bad of a thing; my tissues had dropped out of my pocket and I'd had a sudden attack of diarrhoea in the bar and I'd calculated I wouldn't be able to get home in time to avoid a disaster. So I'd grabbed a handful of tissues from the bar and managed a squat in the dirty toilet. Not wishing to disturb the kids, who were in the main bedroom now with the western en-suite toilet, I repeated the squat in the main toilet at home, and hoped it wouldn't go on all night.

Trip to Nanning for A Wu's new huoguo place

What a typical day. To be fair A Wu had given me Boss Zhou's phone number (not Weixin) yesterday and asked me to call him about going to Nanning today. He'd answered and confirmed that we'd be going in the afternoon but no more info. But sure enough soon after midday I got a message from one of his mates to come over to the "Chamber of Commerce" "in a bit". Last year when I heard this I actually thought it was a government department, which is pretty reasonable I think, but found out it was just Boss Zhou's place behind the KTV where we often go for food and drinks. Anyway, I'm used to this now and said I'd grab a bite to eat first, and suggested about an hour, to which he replied "差不多" which is a useful phrase that means "pretty much".

40 minutes later I got a voice message asking why I hadn't arrived. I was in the shower so didn't answer for another 20 minutes, saying I was on my way, which wasn't strictly or unstrictly true, as I needed to put on my moisturising lotion and needed to wait till I stopped sweating first which always takes a few minutes after a shower. Of course I got another call while on my way, which slowed me down after stopping to answer, as no-one else does here, but I was there soon after 1.30pm.

The bloke was the only one there and we got in his car and headed south to Nanning. Except after 5 minutes we turned left and went to his apartment complex to park his car and go outside and wait for someone else. All the time he was on his phone to others, yet it was always the local language and I understood barely anything. But it transpired we were going to take a mate's car to go there. Fair enough. Save petrol and all that. So we waited under a tree in the slightly less scorching shade for 5 minutes until a car turned up and I got in the front as usual and there was already someone else in the back. We drove around for 10 minutes but not in the direction of Nanning, then presently stopped again. Yet another 5 minutes passed until some bloke turned up in shorts and flipflops and got into the back. Ok, so we were a full complement of five people. Let's go.

Well we went, but we headed north beyond the guangchang and I knew this wasn't the way to Nanning. Then we stopped and flipflop man got out and I asked what was happening and apparently he was hungry and was going to eat some zhou. Then we drove another couple of hundred yards and stopped again for no apparent reason. So this time I got out for a wander to wonder when we'd actually be going to Nanning. But hey it was only 2.40pm it wasn't like we were in a rush. Finally, after about 1h15 of driving around and stopping and picking people up we appeared to be on our way. Of course there was no need to have told me to hurry up, and they could well have picked me up at 2.45pm instead of me going to the Chamber of Commerce at 1.30pm but I'm too used to it to be bothered anymore. The only annoying thing was that I didn't really benefit from the time in terms of Chinese as they only speak the local lingo between themselves.

At least during the journey I had a conversation with the Red Bull-toking driver, and it transpired he ran a garage to fix cars. We talked about how there were fewer and fewer jobs as automation set in and I asked about self-driving cars here. Apparently this is a thing in certain cities, which is interesting if true. I told him that at least whether with or without a driver, cars would need maintenance so his job should be safe for a while. Then he started asking me the price of a Rolls Royce Cullinan. I'd not even heard of such a model but after a bit of a search told him it would cost around £300k, and he told me it would be closer to £800k here. Tax.

Once in Nanning the real issue of having a car here arose again. Sure, we might have had a private place for an hour and a half although most of the blokes were sleeping. In fact flipflop bloke snored while he was awake, so it wasn't the quietest of journeys. But now not only were we stuck in traffic, we had to spend a significant amount of time looking for a parking place. But eventually after a few phone calls we were directed to a cheapish place and some bloke came to meet us. We got out of the car and ended up walking 10 minutes through winding little passages till we got to A Wu's new huoguo place and were ushered upstairs to where a meal was well in progress.

It was definitely some sort of occasion but I wasn't sure exactly what. Probably an excuse to celebrate A Wu's new business, but I didn't ask. I was hungry and thirsty and it didn't take long to quench both. Especially the latter as I was requested to do a round of the table, to which I duly obliged. It was a great meal and I met some nice people including a charming young lady who showed me her homework and taught me some Chinese, and pretty much confirmed my reading level is about on par with a six and a half year-old.

A Wu's huoguo meal in full swing

Cock balls are actually quite nice

Young lady who helped me with Chinese

Finally around 10.30pm it was announced we were to go back, at least the two car loads of us who had come from Pingguo, and that was it. Of course we had designated drivers and they won't touch a drop. Had I known we'd be leaving then I might have touched a bit more as I'd been trying to pace myself. But hey, we got back around midnight and Li Kun pinged me to go to Xiao Bai de Tian again so I popped over but Tan called to tell me to come back 15 minutes after I arrived so I had to make my apologies and left after just one or two ganbeis.

Yu Dao Hao Men boss's birthday party

There was still some bbq left from last night so that was Tan's and my lunch before I forced myself to go to the gym and did the usual 30 mins weights (mostly for my skinny pins) followed by the elliptical just to slightly counter the lifestyle here. If I truly ate like the locals (i.e. eating breakfast and having rice with meals) I dread to think how much weight I would put on.

It's a lot to do with discipline. It's not that simple of course, and the problem seems to be it's easier for some people and harder for others. I think it's partly to do with the prefrontal cortex. I didn't feel like going to the gym. It hurts. But not going to the gym just puts the hurt on hold a little, in the form of being a little fatter, or less fitter. Similarly holding off on the second portion, or holding off on the carbs (including beer unfortunately) maybe a bit painful at the time, but if you consider the future it should be more doable. Considering the prefrontal cortex isn't developed till your mid 20s you can give the kids more of a free pass. But when it's adults then I don't know. I tend to judge adults a lot on how I perceive how they perceive the consequences of their actions. That's how I logicked myself to go to the gym anyway.

Fang Jia pinged me again to drink tea and as I had no plans I said I'd grab a shower and go to the place she'd send me. It happened to be at a tea and wine shop opposite A Wu's office from last year, and it was genuinely for drinking tea. It was a nice innocent hour or two, during which I played with the boss's daughter who was at that charming age of 6 where they see that you are a bit different and are happy to point out those differences with their fingers. She then started pointing at certain characters on a mural on the wall asking me what they were. I got about half, which was probably 75% more than I would have last year thanks to some study, but she knew them all. So my level of Chinese in terms of reading is lower than that of a six year-old? Jeez...so much to learn. But I got my own back when I asked her her name. Well, after that when she asked me mine. She didn't know "彭" so I chalked that up as a mini victory.

As 5pm rolled round we decided to call it an afternoon as we'd need to prepare tea. We hardly ever actually "prepare" tea at our place but actually Tan has cooked a bit some of the last few days. But no she was out this evening and I'd had a bit of fruit while drinking tea so I wasn't very hungry.

Just before 8pm the boss of the oyster place I've eaten a couple of times with Chen pinged me to go there for a drink. Er, ok, why not? I was getting a little peckish by now anyway so at 8.30, three hours earlier than normal, I took the bike down to Jiang Bing Lu to find a load of tables put together inside with at least 20 people sitting down. He greeted me with a hug and proceeded to tell me it was his birthday today. Oh, I pretended to be embarrassed not to have brought a present and he laughed of course and bade me sit down to a bowl of snake soup, together with the flesh of the serpent.

At a birthday party as you do

They tried to make sure I'd at least had the soup before ganbeiing but the bones in the snake make it rather a slow process for me to manage as I'm not a great fan of chewing it all in my mouth and then spitting out the bones. Part of me that may never change and I can deal with that. Then Chen turned up and sat next to me and so the ganbeis started in earnest. One of the women was from Hainan, where they're supposedly the prettiest women in China. If so she was an exception to prove the rule, but could she drink?

In all it was a very fun evening of course. I don't think I left that late but once again I didn't take the straightest route home. But at least I didn't end up 7km away from home this time.

Watermelon juice in deluge and nice family at bbq

Blimey I had nothing for breakfast or for lunch, such is the heat hear, but I managed some quail eggs in the evening for my first solid meal of the day.

Fang Jia pinged me to drink tea at 8.30pm and I had no plans so met her at a place outside the stadium for a watermelon juice. The owner asked if that tall guy was my son and I didn't need any more description to realise he was talking about Leilei. Apparently he comes here often for a milk tea and talks with the owner. Then another woman turned up, then A Hong, whom I'd not seen for about five years, and hadn't changed a jot. Then the rain turned up and we ran to the two cars while the owners hastily erected the covers, something they are very accustomed to doing. And a matter of minutes later we were back with our drinks.

Next Fang Jia and A Hong asked if I had Douyin, which I did but I couldn't get an account last year as I didn't have a Chinese ID. They thought this was weird and set about trying to set me up with one. After receiving an SMS it still seemed I needed an ID, but I don't know what they did but after giving some (false) info about my age etc. it seemed they had managed to set me up. Set me up at least so I was now following them both. And not only that, "liking" some of their videos. It's hard to understand exactly what they get out of this. They send regular short videos of them smiling or dancing, clearly with beauty-cam on, and from what I can see have a few dozen likes each on average. I guess it's not for money but maybe just that little bit of dopamine or whichever neurotransmitter it is you get from a "like". Well I'm happy to oblige but I'm not going to be checking back every day.

Refuge from the deluge by the stadium

At least it was just a single drink and chat for an hour or so before getting home and Xixi asking for bbq. So I went to where I thought Tan's "uncle's" place was, and went and the lady took me inside to order, as she had a menu there. I tried to explain that I wasn't very good at reading food in Chinese, but she didn't seem to accept that and thrust the menu in my hand and I pretended to read for a bit before ordering some beef and sweetcorn (Xixi's favourites), plus some pork as I might have some too.

I sat down by myself at a table as requested, although would rather have waited outside, so ordered a bottle of beer. A couple of minutes later she had served some beer to people outside but not mine yet, so I joked for her to "wai di wai di!" in the local tongue, to laughs from the other table with people at it. Then I heard "Welcome to China!" in English from the oldish bloke at the table. So of course I replied "thank you!" back. He then said something like "happiest", to which I replied I was very happy to be in China, and I offered to share a beer with him. But the woman who worked there heard me as she was walking past and told me he didn't drink any beer.

Anyway they ushered me to their table and I brought over my seat and sat with them. When he learnt I was English he said that England was the greatest nation in the world. I had to disagree and said that all countries had their good points and not-so-good points, but I got the impression he didn't want to be philosophical about it. However he did call me an ambassador, which I took as a real compliment. He grabbed a plastic glass and I poured him a beer. He was with his wife and daughter, and a cousin, and said they didn't get out much to eat bbq, and had even less chance to speak English, so he was revelling in it.

It was a really enjoyable hour or so during which we got through three bottles (of which only two glasses were his). I managed a few words of English with his 13 year-old daughter but the mum and cousin were Chinese only. The bloke really appreciated it when I made slight corrections to some of his English phrases, and profusely apologised for them. Anyway we exchanged Weixin and maybe we'll meet up again. They insisted on sharing their bbq with me and as I was rather peckish had some succulent beef. I was commenting on how important texture is to me, and how I particularly like crispy stuff. But I used work "脆", which should translate to "crispy", but it seems it also means crunchy, in the sense that pig wrists and duck something elses are, as that's what they handed me. These are definitely not my favourite bbq items but hey. They wouldn't let me leave without giving me more meat and sweetcorn bbq to take back as they had so much. Another very pleasant and unexpected hour here. Oh, and our 25 pieces of bbq plus the three beers came to 86 kuai. 15 pieces at Tianyang Po's yesterday came to 65 and didn't taste any better. Note to come back here.

Pleasant hour with pleasant family at the bbq place

Back home Xixi wolfed down the bbq as I'd been a lot longer than expected, then Tan had some beef liked it very much. Maybe one day she'll actually go somewhere other than Tianyang Po.

Another meal with Haiwei and more drinks at Boss Zhou's

After another home lunch of yesterday's jiaozi Haiwei called me to meet him and his son this evening, same time same place as last Sunday. So I got there and we drank tea with his son and girlfriend for a while. As well as luscious fruits, eggs were offered to me and as I hadn't ate since lunch I thought I'd take one of the bunch which she had apparently boiled earlier today. As I picked it up she said that one had two yolks in it. I was interested as to how she knew so started peeling it but she said it looked a bit off and threw it in the bin. Then she gave me a smaller one that seemed to be ok. I was intrigued as to how she knew that one or two had two yolks and she said it was to do with the shape of the eggs; the longer ones would have two yolks, and to prove it she opened one and indeed it was an egg twin, or at least would have been had it been allowed to live.

She was right - it was a pair of yolks

Anyway it was of little importance as soon we were called to go to eat in another manager's room. It wasn't as grand as last week's meal but the food was. Despite all the meat and fish I so like the scrambled eggs they do here. I know there's a bit too much sugar for my liking (and tomatoes) but the texture is perfect and it doesn't hurt your teeth at all like meat can do.

Haiwei's girlfriend and another woman poured what looked like a sports drink into their glasses, but told me it was sweet alcohol. After tasting it I could only agree. It was basically honey melon juice but I couldn't believe it was also 20% alcohol. Then, instead of putting ice cubes in it, a woman took an ice lolly out of the freezer and broke it in half in its packet, then opened the packet and put the two halves into each of the women's glasses. How to make a sweet drink even sweeter...maybe they weren't Pingguo's slimmest women for a reason.

Putting half sweet lollies into sweet honey melon alcohol...fair enough...at least it wasn't wine

Haiwei, a woman, a man, a cook, and Haiwei's younger son at the meal

But, on Haiwei's girlfriend's advice (which I thoroughly agreed with), I could stick to cold weak beer, and I very much did. The main cook came up to eat with us for a while. He said he could easily put away 16 cans of beer but today he was only drinking tea. I could have asked a plethora of questions why but again just nodded in agreement. The meal was a good two hours in before Tan IMd me in Chinese to say that Xixi wanted some bbq. Ok, fine, it was a good excuse to leave the meal relatively sober and apparently she'd already ordered it for me to pick up.

So 20 minutes later I made my genuine excuses and went to pick up 10 chuan of duck tongues and 5 chuan of duck intestines. Bloody 65 kuai for that seems a lot more than I'm normally used to. But, whatever. A Wu had also pinged me to go and eat at Boss Zhou's place so after dropping off the bbq (which was more for Tan than Xixi) I drove over to meet them.

It was almost the same as last night...95% blokes drinking and eating, and of course I joined it but wasn't massively in the mood. I even made a totally acceptable excuse of being tired and lying down in one of those easy chairs where I feigned dropping off for a while. But tonight there was no KTV, and a bit later I took A Wu home as he was too drunk to drive. Then Tan had a go at me for getting back late but what can you do? Leave a drunk mate to fend for himself? You can't really win unless you just don't go out in the first place but bloody hell it's Pingguo and that would be a crime in itself.

Pretending to sleep at another boss meal at Boss Zhou's

Family meal at A Hua's then raucous drinks and sing song with the lads

As I wasn't back massively late last night I should have been up at a reasonable hour but that hour passed and it doesn't matter here. I got a nice portion of jiaozi plus one for the kids who wouldn't be up till later than me.

For once we were going to go for a friend's meal at A Hua's house, where we'd lived for three months while Xixi turned one year old. In some ways nothing has changed...the table was in the same place and we ate similarly to 13 years ago, except Su Liyi, A Xia's son who is almost the same age as Xixi, was there. And almost interestingly is left-handed as Xixi is, as it seems so uncommon here. Having said that I've met at least two people who use chopsticks with their left hand but write with their right like me. I'd like to think that was a bit more normal as I can justify it myself but whatever...it's just one of those many things I'll never get a logical answer to.

A Wu called me to go to Boss Zhou's place to eat and I felt under no pressure to hurry up. So when I'd had enough yumi I decided to go, dropping off Xixi home first. More raucous roars met me as I walked in of course and did two rounds of ganbeis and a couple of hours later we were at Boss Zhou's KTV place doing more of the same except with music. I've explained to the lads in the UK that I've not had anything stronger than 3.3% (average 2.8%) for about two weeks and they still don't believe it's possible to get drunk on it. But by midnight I was and left not too much later.

For once almost everyone was on the 2.5% beer...and yes it is possible to get drunk on it

New piano place and another meet up with Nong and Li Kun

I arose too late for breakfast but Tan and I shared the two duck legs from yesterday for lunch. I didn't manage the energy to go to the gym again, but a bit later went for a brain workout at the piano place. As it was so hot I checked first that there was space, then went up and put on the A/C, telling them I'd be back in a couple of minutes. 

Then I popped into next-door-but-two to get a refreshing watermelon juice with reduced sugar and it was just what I needed. While there some woman recognised me and started talking to me and I had that awkward feeling again that I'd be expected to remember her. But luckily she brought out some photos on her phone from 2018 of me and the kids holding her younger daughter, who was the person standing next to me now along with her older sister. I had some recollections about the photos at least. Then I mentioned about going for piano practice and she said her house had two pianos and that I could come there and it would be free. She sent me a location which was nearby and I said I may well go over later.

I normally wouldn't, but wanted to see if her piano(s) were an improvement over the normal ones, so at 8.30pm I paid for my session and asked if she was home and indeed she was, so over I popped and after a short video call a door opened and I was let in. Now I was starting to remember...this was the place they used to teach calligraphy, but it didn't look so much like a classroom now. She showed me the pianos but one of them was strangely slotted behind the other and impossible to get to. But I suppose it was technically true that there were two of them.

I sat down and immediately could hear it was a lot more in tune than the one at the music school, if a lot quieter, and no sticking keys either. I played the Mozart piece I'm learning and immediately the phones came out. It was only an audience of the mother and two daughters, so maybe it was the lack of A/C but I started sweating heavily as at times it can be quite a physical as well as mental piece. But I mostly got through it before playing The Easy Winners, which if anything is more physical, and by the end I was drenched.

The mother said the father would be back soon for something to eat so I stayed and worked on the younger daughter's maths homework book. Blimey at 7 years old her reading Chinese ability put mine to shame. I really need to buck up. I had a little go on the piano for Jasmine Flower and had forgotten a lot of it, then it was older sister's time to pluck up some courage and played a couple of pretty nice tunes.

Finally a reasonably tuned piano in Pingguo!

Some blokes had turned up with beers, but I was still going over the younger sister's homework but as I'd had no tea I was really hungry and I knew that something would turn up. So I went to sit with them and have a couple of glasses before a bloke turned up with a lovely beef and greens dish. And then another bloke turned up with a big bowl of soup and deep-fried squid. It's got to the point where my teeth are hurting rather with all the meat but at least the greens and soup were soft enough not to make it worse.

It must have been 10.30pm when Nong pinged to go to the youcha place, so I made my excuses. I was told to come back any evening I wanted to play piano or eat or drink, and I certainly plan to. Nong was sitting with a few friends so it was nice to have a bit of a chat for a while with some new faces for an hour or two. At one stage the boss's wife got up from our table and started playing a guzheng (zither) for a while. No-one seemed to think anything of it but after a while I made sure I clapped after a piece and then the others joined in.

The boss's wife playing some nice guzheng

To continue the musical theme, Nong found that Li Kun was drumming to the guitarist next door in Xiao Bai de Tian, so I paid what I planned to be a quick visit to say hello but "planned" was not the correct word. Of course I had to ganbei most of the people there, but was sober enough not to agree to go on stage...but I told Xiao Bai that I hadn't forgotten about her birthday on Friday and that I'd been practising 有没有人告诉你, which is true but I have a long way to go.

It was gone midnight but I missed a call from A Wu to go to Boss Zhou's so I pinged to see if he was there and indeed they still were, so once again tonight I made my excuses and popped over there to the usual raucous roars as I walked in. So a few more ganbeis but I left soon after 1am with A Wu as even he knew he was too drunk to drive his BMW.

So easy to get a bit of a rest

Ma Laoban medicine meet-up, another festival, and Zhang Hua bbq again

At least I managed to get up by 1pm and found half a changfen that I heated up in the microwave. For some random reason a friend video-called me at 1.35pm and I answered despite not wearing clothes. I had to be a little careful.

Then Xixi pinged me to say they were coming back today instead of tomorrow as the hotel was full. Jeez if I was taking the kids away for two nights I'd have booked two nights in a hotel and not just one. I mean I don't mind at all seeing them sooner but yeah whatever...it's Guangxi and very little is planned. So they were to take the 4.12pm train back home a bit later.

It was boiling hot of course but I decided to go and see Ma Laoban as the last time I tried his office was closed. This time it wasn't locked but there was no-one working. I tried his office though and he happened to be there in his massage chair as you do, while some woman was sitting at his desk. I really enjoy our conversations as he is one of the few who speaks logically (IMO) and this time we talked business.

Apparently this printing business is not going well, and as we were talking about it some woman in a police-like uniform came into the office to request tax. There was a mild argument and Ma Laoban didn't pay as he said he hadn't been doing any business to pay tax, which as far as I could see was very true. 

Then was explaining something about trademarks, and how a couple he registered earlier in the year were not accepted as they were too similar to an existing one, so now he'd registered another. It was for some sort of medicine alcohol but not the type you drink, rather you spray it onto cuts or bruises. Of course I had my doubts but once again thought better of asking about double-blind trials. He also told me that it was a secret recipe, but I'm not sure that's a selling point. At least we agreed that word-of-mouth was one of the better forms of advertising, and he made me listen to a friend of his whose mother had fallen over in the shower but was better a day later after a few sprays of the said medicine.

Ma Laoban's medicine will have to be rebranded

But at least it I learnt a few new words. At least I will have learnt them if I remember them; it's not every day you use "trademark". We chatted until it was tea-time, and apparently it is liu yue zhu liu (early June (lunar calendar) festival) and it is customary to eat with family.

But first I walked to Li Kun's to give him a couple of spray fragrances for his wife. I found he was about to leave his office so managed to give them to him and walked back and saw a women cooking duck and chicken legs so asked for three of each. She asked if I wanted lajiao and I said I'd better not as the kids mightn't want it, so she persisted in giving me three bags, each with some differing lajiao which I'll never remember the names of, plus about a dozen little plastic bags, presumably to use as gloves for eating.

Although Xixi had said she wasn't hungry, she ate two of the chicken legs and Leilei had the third. I managed a single duck leg though Tan didn't eat. Well at least we'd managed a semi-family meal all for 36 kuai plus two duck legs left over for later.

Then at 10pm Zhang Hua asked me to pop over for a couple of drinks so I went there a bit later. Leilei was playing basketball in the courts again which is a good thing. He pays 3 kuai or so to get in and I understand plays with some of the blokes there, so hopefully getting a bit of Chinese practice in. Well he popped over for some bbq before heading home, while I stayed on for a while, ending up going to the second floor to perform some ganbeis with a couple of tables there. At the first table they made me try some greenish baijiu, and it wasn't quite as bad as baijiu normally is. Unfortunately they wouldn't let me go back to beer and I had to do a whole glass in the next 15 minutes or so. The next table didn't force that stuff on me luckily.

Leilei, Zhang Hua's ex-colleague, and Zhang Hua enjoying some nice bbq

Then some bloke who'd pinged me to have a beer as I was on my way to Zhang Hua's pinged me to ask where I was. Ah, I'd told him I'd meet him for a beer a bit later, and it was already quite a bit later. So at 1am I made my excuses and went to meet him at a bbq place nearer our home, but managed to get back by 2am at least.

Last stop of the night...

A Hoc meal with Huang Lei and Long'an mates

I somehow got up at 9.30am to see off Tan and kids to Nanning for two days, then got back to sleep till 12pm. Huang Lei called to eat later today and I nearly used that as an excuse not to go to the gym but it was only 4pm, so forced myself after heating up food from yesterday. At least I managed 35 mins of weights and 27 minutes of elliptical but it's probably not enough to make up for excessive intake recently. It was also annoyingly busy, and I was by far the oldest person there, not to mention one of the few who turned up on their own.

I grabbed a shower and a couple of beers before getting to A Hoc's fashionably late at 6.15pm, only to wait another 20 minutes for some mates from Long'an to turn up. But it was a cracking meal as A Hoc is a cook by trade. Tan pinged me to ask me to pick up a couple of deliveries and I was about to use that as an excuse for a break from the meal but a bloke came to deliver a gas bottle and was soaking wet. I saw it was pouring outside so I wouldn't be heading back in a hurry. Anyway they weren't due back till Friday so there was no rush.

Cracking meal with mates from Long'an

We eventually left around 10pm when it was time for the designated driver to do his job. At least they are really strict about that sort of thing here (if not in the towns themselves but between them). But I was barely back home when Zhang Hongping pinged me to say he was in the same place as the other night and once again I thought "why not?". It wasn't the most interesting of evenings but it whiled away enough time till the 3am Holland v England game which I decided to watch at home I think. It was a win, but not a convincing one, and I'm convinced we'll lose to Spain on Sunday night.