I’m having a terrible time getting photos off my camera at the moment- something wrong with the memory card or something. I keep on holding the lens up to the computer screen and hitting Ctrl+C but no dice.

The birthday weekend started with a meal out with the boys (+1 wife) from work- we went to a restaurant opposite my apartment where the Sparrow was sold out (boo!) but I did get to sample the delights of Phoenix Tail (a pig’s ear) and Dragon’s claw (the foot of a virginal Chicken)- Pork Chop Suey with half-rice, half-chips did not prepare me for the real Chinese meal deal I can tell you. Much of the food was excellent anyway, and washed down with a good few bottles of Qingdao beer it put me in a swell frame of mind.

Heading back to my apartment, I introduced the Chinese lads to the delights of Nintendo Wii. Tennis was a smash and grab raid by yours truly where I whipped all comers into a cowering corner- but when it came to Table Tennis, they repeated the daily scene from the break-room at work where all kinds of spins, smashes and sundry cheating nonsense reduced me to bitter tears and tantrums.

Ryan and Brad show how it’s done

Moving on from my apartment I met up with Craig at a bar called Mural, where they have an open bar deal for 100 RMB (6 quid) for any drinks you can still pronounce the name of. There is a bit of a catch, in that they only employ 3 bar staff for a crowd of oooh 8,000 thirsty drinkers- luckily we’d brought an electric cattle prod and an Alsatian to persuade people to let us to the front of the queue and managed to get a pretty solid stream of booze into our system.

From there it was Cotton’s for Mojito’s then Logo for far too long before I headed back home to sleep until the mid afternoon.