Today, after I drifted back to sleep with India 313-1 ( :( ), was no exception.

I was on the top floor of a 2-level Chinese restaurant in a shopping centre, very early in the morning when it was closed and the only light was natural. For some reason, the staircase was blocked with chairs and was very dark. For some other unexplained reason, I wanted to leave the building by stepping over the chairs and going down the staircase.

Unfortunately, the owner of the restaurant - a cliché middle-aged Hokkien Chinese restaurant owner, complete with irascible demeanour, hairy chest and fairly thick accent - stopped me on the way down.

"What you doing here?" I couldn't explain I just wanted to leave. "Why you leave dark way?" So, in a scene reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, he took me downstairs into a back room, strip-searched me (with my co-operation mostly), ran various machine diagnostics, and concluded I had nothing to hide. After me having told him this repeatedly.

It just made him more angry. He then tried to throw me over his shoulder, but I stood my ground and said "I have big hara¹. You'll have to do better than that." And promptly pushed him flat against the wall. Then he got a tray with a cup of tea and various items of cutlery on it, and started to poke me with the bits of cutlery. Infuriatingly for him, I kept catching them and putting them in my pocket.

He then handcuffed me, took me to another back room and said "You not getting away that easy." He clapped his hands, and in came a large Caucasian woman. "You sleep with Minka for £125, I let you go." He took the handcuffs off.

He did not realise the door was open, and I walked out.

Then I woke up. My first word, when my eyes opened, was "buh?".


1: Japanese word for "centre". Basically, means low centre of gravity and solidness.