Dongbei jiaozi and late night fish with an argument about kissing

Well I didn't make it a hat-trick of breakfasts, but I did ping Li Kun to go for lunch at Liang ge's Dongbei jiaozi place, and said to be there at 12.30pm. At 12.13pm he pinged me to say he'd already arrived. This is not even surprising anymore. I said I'd be 5 minutes and was nearly as good as my word.

It was good to see Liang ge in his own place as opposed to at Li Kun's studio, and we were served salad while the fuwuyuan prepared our jiaozi, of which I could only manage half and had the rest put in a takeaway tub. Of course Liang ge wouldn't let us pay and felt bad not so much because of the money but that we were the only people eating there (at least at first), and 13 kuai is very good for such a big helping plus a salad and a soup (not to mention a load of tea with the owner before eating).

Enjoying some tea with Liang ge at his Dongbei jiaozi place before the said jiaozi were ready

Following up from yesterday's failure to send the signed contracts, Li Kun went with me to the post office again, where it was confirmed they wouldn't get there any time soon, so Li Kun told me to follow him as we drove a fair way away, nearly half way to the aluminium place, where we found another delivery place. After some faff inputting the English address (why a separate field for post code but the rest of the address goes on a single line?), it transpired that even the fast-track, for nearly £50 would still take 10 days. Really not worth it even if I change my ticket till the 20th. Well, the final date should in theory be the 28th February, so hopefully that will be enough time for me to do it all in the UK.

By now it was gone 3pm, and I was concerned that Li Kun should be back at work but he said it was no problem and I didn't ask any further. I do intend to find out exactly what he does for a living though. Back home, Jiuma and Shiyun were there with the former cooking, and she said to eat tea here with them in a bit. In a bit indeed...I don't think it was even 4.30pm when it was ready, but it was nice to have a family meal for a change. It also meant not being able to finish off my second half of the jiaozi so I left them in the fridge for another time.

Later that evening I turned up at Li Kun's studio again where his wife also was. Tonight fish was on the menu but of course it wasn't the only thing to eat. I pinged Nong to come share with us and before long the beer was being poured slightly quicker than it normally is...maybe because it's a Saturday...maybe because we still celebrating New Year. Li Kun helped me order three crates of the stuff from WeiXin on my phone. It didn't work at first and he reckoned I should turn off the VPN to do it, which I didn't want to do as you never know when you'll be able to connect again. But I didn't want to let anyone down, so turned off the VPN. But it still didn't work, so he decided to change Weixin into Chinese which seemed a bit pointless as the app (酒小儿, which Google translates as "Alcoholic" and Baidu translates as "Alcohol children", neither of which I'm convinced about), doesn't even have an English version. And this time it worked, but I find it hard to believe it was due to changing Weixin to English. And as it was my first time using the app it gave me a special discount so it was only 62 kuai for the three crates of 12 beers. You are even given a slider to choose what proportion you want to be cold and which room temperature. Even better, it's guaranteed to arrive within 15 minutes.

Eating more than just fish at Li Kun's studio: clockwise from left are Li Kun, his wife, Huang Song, the bloke who prepared the food, and Li Kun's son A Duo

Within one minute though I had a phone call which I ignored as I didn't know the number. But when they called again Li Kun said to answer as it would be 酒小儿 and indeed it was, confirming how many cold (2/3) and the address. And 10 minutes later the bloke arrived with the three crates, and as is apparently normal here, two packs of playing cards. Imagine such a convenient and cheap service in the UK....

The two packs of playing cards that came with the beer...the cheap stuff that money can't buy is in some ways more valuable than the beer you can

A closer look at some of the wares on the menu tonight

The beer was flowing and somehow we got into a conversation/argument about whether you should ask somebody before you (attempt) to (romantically) kiss them. I can't remember who it was that said you should ask first, but I disagreed and said it should be spontaneous. The lads in the UK had been pinging for a chat but I said I was at Li Kun's and explained the argument. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to film us at Li Kun's discussing this point. Then Nong, as if to make her point, ask Mat (in English) to give her a kiss. I realised up till then that I was thinking from the man's (to woman) perspective. Anyway, it was all good-natured, cross-continental banter-fun, something that doesn't happen all that often.

Well...not really an argument but I think someone wants to kiss Mat...maybe she should have seen him first!

Failing to sent signed contracts to the UK

Another breakfast of some biscuits, which made it the first time since December last year I've actually had breakfast two days in a row in China. With no plans for the day I boringly had a bowl of pao mian as I didn't really feel like going out. This blasted cough is not going away and every few days or so it gets so bad I vomit. I was worried that that might happen outside.

Annoyingly, the solicitors have emailed me three documents that need to be signed by me as I'm LPA for my dad now and effectively selling his house. Given that it's 2025 you'd think an electronic signature would suffice but no, this is house-selling and they need wet ones. I'd already gone and printed them out but, reckoned it would be a good idea to get them sent back asap. So, when Jiuma and my "grand daughter" Tan Shiyun unexpectedly turned up I asked the latter if she wanted to go out with me to find a post office. Yeah, she wanted to go out with "foreign" gong gong, and I told her I wasn't foreign so we argued about it till we got on the dian dong che.

I drove to the place we sent the hover boards back from at great expense all those years ago, and filled in a big EMS envelope with Chinese and English address that took a good 15 minutes to write. Only when getting to the counter did I think to ask how long it would take. "Up to two weeks". Oh, I'm due back on the 12th, but I'm secretly thinking of adding another week. Even if I can push it back till 20th there would be no point in wasting 300+ kuai on something that might arrive after me. The woman understood, and advised me to contact another company on WeiXin that may be able to sort something out quicker. I thanked her for her honesty and found Shiyun who was now playing outside in preparation to get back. Outside, two men were vehemently arguing, as it appeared one had driven his dian dong che into the other's van and damaged the wing mirror, and the latter wanted recompense. This had actually been going on since we arrived over 20 minutes ago. I literally can't remember the last time I heard an argument in public Pingguo (except maybe Tan and me).

Tan Shiyun making attempting to send contracts abroad a more interesting experience

Back home, I contacted the other company, and after a slow conversation, realised this one wouldn't be any quicker. I resolved to talk to Li Kun about it as he would know the coup.

Indeed, he pinged me at tea time to go to his later that evening for a drink. I wasn't sure I'd be up to it but said I should be able to. I still didn't fancy going out though so ended up eating a few mini brown boiled eggs, wondering if they were actually quail eggs, which used to be my go-to snack in previous months.

Feeling "ok", I got to Li Kun's at 9.30pm and he'd ordered bbq and I realised despite having three meals today, they were all pretty small and I was now pretty hungry, so happily help him and some friends get through them. Among the friends was the owner of Bar 3000, where we'd been a week ago. I guess she was closed today, or business was slow. Likely the former as we're still well into Chinese New Year here and many people are out of town. I ended up managing a few beers and not being sick, until we called it a night at an earlyish 1.30am considering he wasn't working tomorrow. Back home had another chat with the lads for another hour as you do.

Bar 3000° boss or owner or manager on the left, someone else, Li Kun for what has become my default evening hang-out place

Market and evening meal with A Wu and bosses at his office

I managed a breakfast of some biscuits and lunch of jiaozi. A Wu had called me at 9am to invite me for a meal at his office this evening. And as luck would have it I happened upon his black Camry around midday while out. So it was that I would accompany him to the market to pick up food for the meal this evening. It's always a sensory-overload experience in the market, but in a good way. In fact so many experiences are sensory-overload here in a good way. We spent the best part of an hour buying fish, lamb, loads of vegetables I don't even know the words for in English, before driving to near my place to pick up some raw fish at the same place we did last year. Then he dropped me back to Waipo's to attempt a siesta, which I can't remember if I was successful in doing.

A fairly rare left-handed chopper sorting out some lamb ribs for us tonight

Cute kids playing fake Lego while the boss was cutting up the raw fish. I pretended that I was a local person and they somehow saw through it

Later, ss I was having a pre-evening-meal beer, V sent a link to an English quiz from 112 years ago that many English teachers fail today. I'm almost proud to say I "only" got b) and d) wrong. Missed the wrong tense for d) but thought it should be "anyone" instead of "any one". I wonder what the equivalent in Chinese would be.

I found my way to A Wu's office no problem and of course there was some waiting around while they were finishing the cooking. There was clearly far too much for the 10 or so bosses along with some of their wives and children. But of course it was a cracking meal, but so many leftovers that we agreed to come back tomorrow to continue. I was going to make my way back home when it finally tapered off around 10.30pm, and was planning to pop to Li Kun's when A Wu asked me to clean the floor. Fair enough, there had been 20+ people and it was quite grubby. So I spent the next 45 minutes or so sweeping then mopping up while he sorted the excess food into what could and could not be used tomorrow.

Getting ready to eat at the bosses' table (women and children were at their own table in the other room)

Finally it was time to go, but we had to take the extra stuff to his place so spent two trips going down the lift to put it in his Camry before driving over there. Of course one of the bags split as soon as we got out of the car in the basement parking, so I kept the lift door open as he slowly put the contents inside it as we didn't have another bag. Another this would have been an annoying waste of a few minutes but here these sort of things just sort of add to the moment in a positive way...at least mainly because I wasn't in a hurry to do anything else. Finally we got the stuff upstairs and into his apartment. I think I said I'd walk back to pick up my dian dong che as I wanted the exercise, and I don't think he argued too much as it was around midnight.

Which meant in the end it was a bit late to go to Li Kun's, not that I'd told him I'd be popping round. So instead once home caught up with the lads back in the UK (and Reunion) for nearly two hours.

Breakfast with Xiao Nong and evening game feet with Li Kun and family

Got another early message from Xiao Nong to say she was hungry and fancied eating jiaozi. I wasn't really in the mood to get up but social intercourse is better than no intercourse, and I'd be able to sleep in the afternoon. So a few minutes later I drove to the place I like near my flat, and met her there after picking up some gorgeous sweetcorn jiaozi. Of course I'd missed her message to get the boss to give me some vinegar and soy sauce and only saw it as I dismounted from the dian dong che outside my xiao qu (area of block of flats I need to scan my face to get in). So I popped into the local 24h store and picked up a bottle of each as it's unlikely to be the only time we'll breakfast together.

Sweetcorn jiaozi for breakfast as you do

We ate at my flat and as is quite normal among Chinese friends, we proceeded to peruse our phones without talking to each other for a while. While this is massively frowned upon in Europe (as far as I know), it's considered to be completely normal here. And I have come to like it. Why not be comfortable browsing Douyin or Reddit if you feel like it, whether or not in the company of others? As long as it's not considered rude by any party.

In fact I ended up doing a character test on Pleco. Chinese characters, not a test of my own character. She noticed and then started helping me out as I'd chosen categories HSK 3/4/5 and I probably only know half of them. It was great as she would give examples or example situations of where you would want to know the word, and I'd often be able to work out how to say the characters so then I was starting to put them together with what they look like. This went on for the best part of an hour before my poor little brain started to get tired so I'd need to get some rest.

I don't recall what time I roused/rose/arose, but it wasn't early. I finished off the uneaten sweetcorn jiaozi and went back to Waipo's for a bit before deciding I'd pop to Li Kun's for a bit. I wanted to turn up unannounced but thought I'd pick up some roast duck first of all. But as it had gone 10pm that place was closed and the closest place I could find was selling chicken and duck feet, both boned (40 kuai/jin) and unboned (50 kuai/jin). I got a jin of both, a mix of spicy and unspicy.

And it was a good thing I did as when I got there his kids were there too as well as a few others, and his daughter loves chicken and duck feet. Within a few minutes Li laoshi put a guitar into my arms and asked me to sing an English song, so (as I have had a beer or two at Waipo's) I obliged with a couple of Simon and Garfunkel numbers as per usual. It turned into another memorable and fun evening and I got back home (to Waipo's) by 1am for an early change.

Li Kun's wife and second daughter tucking in to chicken and duck feet as you do

Another night of many meals, but highlight was shopping with Tan Shiyun

I awoke to the sound of a young voice and women's voices. I realised that the younger voice was my "grand daughter" Tan Shiyun. I knew she'd open my door so I quickly clothed and not a second later indeed she was trying to get in. I'm not sure why they'd come back but it's their house too so fair enough.

I said I'd take her out shopping but she said "no" (or "bu"). But a few minutes later she'd warmed to me again so we agreed to go out to the supermarket together. She's super-cute, especially when she holds my hand and all the grannies coo over her.

Tan Shiyun is super-cute...

...and a great companion at the supermarket

So I got her a toy fruit juice maker and some pistachios which I now know are pronounced pist-A-chios, and not pist-AH-chios...jeez they had fun correcting me on that (English family, not Chinese). Not long after, Haiwei pinged me to go for an evening meal at his girlfriend, Li Baoli's house. Why not?

So around 7pm I turned up and Baoli was outside to find me. It was yet another lovely family meal with three generations but I felt genuinely welcome. Living here is so nice.

Another cracking meal at Baoli's with her boyfriend Haiwei

A bit later Lu zong called me to go to his bar for a bite to eat so when it was appropriate a bit later, I told Baoli I would go elsewhere but not before we'd finished there. I guess I got to Lu zong's around 10pm or so but really don't remember...all I know is I also had a cracking time at his bar and didn't leave till around midnight.

Moving on to Lu zong's

Of course that's when it should have been it for the night. But Li Kun was pinging me to come over. I said I'd see...and indeed around midnight I made it around for a third evening meal as you do. But it was really cool...his younger kids were there and they dote upon me...it's like an early chance at being a grandparent to see if it would fit you...so far I think it certainly would...though I'd not want it any time soon. Not sure what time I got back home but I managed to find a place to charge up the dian dong che at least.

Moving on to Li Kun's

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

Lovely rat was the speciality of the meal for me

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.

Another sausagefest and dreadful footy, with some nice dog in-between

Well I got up in time to manage some of yesterday's delivered food for a brief lunch and managed to chill for a little while until A Wu pinged me to ask me to come over to play caima as he was losing. But it was now only 5pm which I thought was a bit early to be drinking. However, it's the New Year period and anything goes. So after a dingwei was sent I was on the longish route to wherever it was and was just glad I had a full charge in the dian dong che.

Another sausagefest, but a bit more fun than many

It turned out to be yet another sausagefest, but hey-ho it meant my evening meal was sorted. It took a while but I managed to get over that time where you just don't want any more beer, until it's ok again, and I table-hopped until I got a call to go to A Hoc's place for a late bite. This gave me the excuse to leave after a few more ganbei's, and it was definitely a quieter environment than the raucous one I'd just been to.

Eating dog with A Guang (middle) and a couple of mates at A Hoc's

And of course since I thought I'd had my last taste of dog nearly two years ago, that was what was on the table, and to be fair it tasted great - only A Hoc can make me a doggivore anymore. Even though I'd got up at lunchtime, it had only been 6 hours' sleep, so I started to flag at midnight, and anyway wanted to watch the Arsenal - City match at 12.30am so decided to kip at Waipo's tonight for the wifi. What an awful watch... a 5-1 with a bitterly disappointing second half. It's curtains for us this season. Well at least it wasn't a 4am start....

A normal day for a while with nice meal at Lin Hong's

Almost a normal day today - at least for the most part. Lin Hong had pinged me to go for a meal at her house for 6.30pm, so I headed out to pick a box of cherries first as you should do, and I've been getting a lot better at, despite them costing more than in the UK. Tian Tian was there with four ex-colleagues and her boyfriend, and A Zhong was still cooking. So we played a bit with the cat until it was time to eat when Tian Tian was instructed to go downstairs to buy some beer. The boyfriend was apparently driving so wasn't to drink, except as soon as I poured myself a glass he did the same.

Great meal with Lin Hong, Tian Tian, and friends

The food and the company were as good as ever. None of the women were drinking. That was until Lin Hong said she had some home-made wine and poured each of them a glass. I said I'd have a wee taste but she poured a plastic glass to the brim of course. It was actually quite palatable if a little sweet, and somehow I did manage the whole glass before refusing a second and going back on the beer. I love the little huoguo pot that has a wide edge for effectively frying meat on, and if had the space would be tempted to bring one back.

A Wu pinged for me to go and eat with them but I told him a little later as I genuinely like these family meals. Tian Tian's boyfriend not only joined me in drinking beer but also had a whole glass of wine that was around 18% according to Lin Hong. Eventually around 8.30pm I made my excuses and left them as I was truly stuffed.

Another evening with A Wu and family and friends at A Zhou's place

But of course there was more to come when I got to A Zhou's place where A Wu and his family were cooking bbq and drinking beer and playing cards of course. I managed a little nibble when I got there but not that long after Xiao Nong pinged me to sing song. Could I really manage another venue? Yeah...it wasn't even midnight. But at not even 1am I managed to make my excuses and leave to get some rest.

Xiao Nong and friends at a KTV I'd not been to before...just wish I was awake enough to stay longer

That was until getting on for 3am when Xiao Nong announced she was seeing a sick friend at the hospital as I was about to sleep, but she needed a lift so of course I did. The dian dong che was on its last battery-legs when she then announced that her "sister" was involved in a bit of a fracas at a bar at bloody getting on for 5am. And of course there were no didi ches at that time so I did the noble thing and took her down to Jiangbin Lu. I only just managed it back home at snail's pace but I realised I'd squeezed 42 km out of it so now I understand why so many people drive so slowly...it simply gets them more kms out of a charge. Finally at getting on for 6am I bloody took a small beer and got some well-deserved shut-eye.

Delivering hongbaos, and late walk with kids, and a later drink with friends at Yang Ming park

Well after last night's vomit session I decided to take it easy food-wise, and just made some pao mian to keep it carby and simple, before deciding to take A Wu's kids' hongbaos to them. Tan had said that you only give hongbaos on New Year's Day, but I'd seen for myself that that wasn't necessarily the case. I needed the exercise so decided to walk the 20 minutes or so north to his qu, and thought I remembered which block he lived in but when I got to the 25th floor and knocked on what I thought was his door, it was eventually opened by some bloke who looked rather nonplussed to see me standing there. I apologised profusely and he was then perfectly ok about it, probably more in shock of seeing a foreigner outside his front door. Finally A Wu had got back to me to say he was in block 2, not block 1, so a few minutes later I was in his place.

I hadn't given his kids their hongbaos the other day as there were other kids around and I didn't want them to feel bad, so I handed his younger son and daughter one each, to big thank yous, before A Wu's wife's sister's daughter entered the living room from one of the bedrooms. Oh no! The one thing I came here to avoid! I felt bad and told her I'd bring hers next time. She was fine and I gave her a little hug and kissed her on the forehead for some reason. She walked to the table to get herself a biscuit but instead of opening it (nearly everything's wrapped here), she just gave it to me. What a sweet thing to do when her two cousins had just received a red envelope. Then I realised I still had 300 kuai in my pocket so asked A Wu if he had a spare red envelope and after a couple of minutes searching he found one, as most Chinese houses have a few lying around, although like Sellotape (one of the few brand names I use instead of the proper term which as anyone who's ever seen Blue Peter will know, is "sticky tape"), they can be hard to find sometimes.

A Wu said to go to A Zhou's place again tonight for a bite to eat, and he'd ping me a bit later, so I made use of some spare time to go for a little walk. In fact I'd included the walk to A Wu's in my Strava recording and managed 7.4km in 1h26m of moving. And not that long after I was called to go to eat. I sort of knew most of the people there and once again I was nearly the only person not on the baijiu. We then started to play mo pai and I sort of did ok for someone who has not worked out 20% of the rules yet.

Yet another family meal

I left before it got too raucous saying I had a "matter" to attend to, which was true as I needed to transfer some money before the mortgage was taken out. That took longer than it ought to have and by 10.30pm A Wu was saying to meet up at the guangchang to go for a walk with the kids. Why not? So just before 11pm I met up with him and his wife and wife's sister and husband and the three kids but they told me to get in a car as we were driving to Yang Ming park on the south of the river. Fair enough. It ended up being an excuse for taking lots of photos and was pretty fun as it wasn't cold.

The dried up river isn't a patch on Valencia's but it actually does turn into a wet river when it gets warmer

And I heard "Peng Duoming!" being shouted out and I noticed some friends drinking by the side of the road. I would quite like to have joined them but it would have been rude so I said I'd ping them a bit later if it wasn't too late. Then around midnight we moved on to a place near A Xia's old shop and ordered deep-fried bananas and chips, with mango juice to wash them down with. A Wu said it wasn't good to eat meat all the time and he'd gone for the healthy option. I agreed with him about not eating so much meat but didn't tell him I didn't think he'd chosen the healthiest alternative.

Deep fried bananas and fries, with mango juice...no calories there then

Finally they dropped me back at the guangchang to pick up my bike around 1.30am as the kids were getting tired. I pinged the friends to see if they were there and indeed they were, so 10 minutes later I was catching up on the beers after a break of about 5 hours. Apparently one of the women was the daughter of the owner of the set of buildings we were eating outside of, including a discotheque that I was invited to attend another day, not that I think I can do that anymore, thanks all the same. But it was a good laugh and we managed to stay up till 3am before there were signs of flakiness. All in all another full day, and no being sick this time.

"Friends" at Yang Ming park at 3am