Went out to the house of a friend of a friend last night to play some poker. Lost about 50元 ($8), but it was a good time. The main problem with the whole thing, was that the house was home to 3 cats. I am quite allergic to cats, but also love them to death, so as soon as I walked in, without thinking I picked one up and was cuddling it. For the next hour or so I was sneezing like a fiend, much to amusement of everyone else at the table. We also played with monopoly money instead of chips, which was surprisingly fun.

Also seems that smoking might really get quit. I will probably continue to smoke some when drinking (its presense in these situations in China is ridiculous), but other that that I plan to severely cut back, if not stop outright. Have to see how it goes. I kept telling people I could stop any time, but with it’s prevelance in China it’s certainly going to be much harder to not be reminded with (literally) every other person in the country smoking.