January 27th Today was a delayed shopping day so the thumbnail is just the view from our bedroom balcony. It looks as though the floodwall, if that is the correct nomenclature, could well be completed before Spring Festival begins.
In Baijiahui we had a little walk around while I was looking for something and ended up going through the alcohol section. Things have changed! Perhaps young people are not fans of Baijiu as the older ones were so suppliers are trying to tempt them with a variety of alternatives. Many seem to be similar to the likes of Bacardi breezers, nice pretty colours too. I couldn’t take too many pictures; the store would probably have thought I was up to no good. The first photo is lemon brandy and passion fruit brandy; the second, with the teddy bears, is lychee brandy. I may well have to try that one. PS How many Bobs can you see in the second snap?
Huan didn’t sleep well last night so she needed a nap and I didn’t think I could ignore her so I had one too! Afterwards it was into the kitchen for me.
Here it is out of the oven and on Huan’s plate.
If I make it again I will change one thing. Not having sumac or za’atar I tried using substitutes. It would I think, be better just to omit them. We did both enjoy it though, licked our plated clean!
Good news on the lift front, it was tested by the government this afternoon so we should have no interruptions from now onwards. It will still not work during power cuts though, no such thing as back-up generators and uninterruptible power supplies in our place.
January 28th We stayed in this morning although Huan, being nice to me, did walk down to the gate to collect my Taobao package, a new pair of slippers.
Our plan today was to go for the kindergarten walk, in the sun, in the afternoon, when all good mad dogs and Englishmen do the same. First we took the usual #2 bus and then set off.
Huan found a little girl with a butterfly on a leaf so she had to take a photo or ten and I had to point my finger. I suspect that the wee beastie had already passed away but said nothing.
Clearing the town we headed out.
Many moons ago I think we have shared this signpost but I thought I would share it again today. This time though it is accompanied by a WeChat translation.
Onwards and upwards we went.
Remember the plan to go out in the sun? You can see from the previous snaps that the sun was definitely there, shining down on us with great glee. Can you guess which dummy forgot his hat? That was despite talking about it two minutes before we left the house!
Not so many hills now but still not a lot of shade. Many trees have been felled, probably to make way for new plantations of betel but trees.
Here’s looking at you kid! Huan found this little man.
You’ll have noticed a few collages today, created so as not to overload you with too many scenery photos. These next two though deserved to be alone and stand proud.
This is the little village where we cross the little river. Look carefully and you will see that it has its new signpost on one side and the old stone with inscription on the other side.
Of course pointy mountain always appears.
Today we took the first road down into the village and headed over a different bridge. Our normal crossing would be over the second bridge you can see.
More walking in the sun ensued. You can see that there is not a lot of shade. The time of day doesn’t help, that is all down to us.
Huan found another lizard, a bigger one this time.
And then it was my turn to find something.
I also found a cow, it would have been hard to miss, and a few birds.
This little kitty, well not so little really, couldn’t even be bothered to open its eyes.
Soon we were approaching the end of our walk.
As we neared the steps to go back up to the road we spotted a centipede really shifting. We thought it was chasing ants but on checking the photos we wonder whether perhaps the ants were after the centipede. Any budding entomologists out there?
Our penultimate image is upriver and downriver from the last bridge.
And the last one is me sitting on a new park sign finishing off my
water just before getting on the bus back to town. The sign says
Back home we were two very worn out little teddy bears; cups of tea were needed just to keep us going. Slightly refreshed it was into the kitchen for me.
We have no photos of the finished dishes today. To be honest I was a little disappointed. I did reduce the ingredients by half but that should not have affected the taste. It was a little bland, at least for me. The good thing is that the boss enjoyed it and once again scoffed the lot.
January 29th After what seemed like a marathon walk yesterday we stayed in all morning. Huan relaxed and I started this afternoon’s dinner, or should I say pudding. Lunch over, we headed out and to make sure we didn’t wear ourselves out, stuck to the town.
We tried to walk around the back of Wuzhishan’s very new, most modern building; we couldn’t because the road was blocked. The building is not open yet and so the car parks are also not open. We went around the front on the lower level instead.
The riverside looked very good today, worth recording in fact.
Staying in town also meant plenty of shade; even Huan took her hat off.
This was me just trying to add subjects, first the river and second a couple of car cuddlies.
Back home it was time to take the evening meal out of the fridge. First, I’ll give you my reason for making this dish. Huan is quite partial to a rice pudding so that had been my first idea for this week. Then I remembered semolina from my childhood but sourcing the ingredients was not so easy. Another memory was of sago, many years ago! Here is the recipe I chose.
We used some bottled fruit and some fresh mango.
Any advice? Make sure you actually follow the recipe; I think I might not have used enough sago. Also our coconut was milk and not cream so the final dish was not as thick as it could have been. We still enjoyed it though and we will definitely be having it again.
January 30th Huan had an idea for a bus and walk day. Somewhere we missed a turning and walked a very long way and took too many pictures. There will be collages. We started from Nansheng, if you want to visit here are some of the sights you can see.
We were headed off past the peacock place to go through the old army base.
It has been a long time, we have missed this walk. Don’t be misled though we were not going straight down the middle, but off towards the right, the road is to the right of the camera.
The army base is still very quiet; some soldiers are there but not many. Unfortunately for us the lovely crested birds were not there today either.
We were quite proud of ourselves when we recognised places, such as this large pond.
At the other side of the pond we met a passion fruit seller from the Saturday market. Huan didn’t get his photo but I did get one of his ‘guard’ dogs.
He also told us that we were too late in the morning to see all the birds down at ground level.
A little further on, I frightened a chick while I was looking for a spot to snap something else. It flew up into a tree, luckily still just about within range.
And what was the subject I was trying to frame? Why, pointy mountain of course!
This one is included to wind up the tin hat brigade, mostly across the ocean. We never have any problem with reception on our phones here, and none of us glow in the dark either!
Still on the right path we passed through this little village.
Here we were having one of our usual ‘where are you from’ chats.
We asked him about the first photo you can see here. We understood the second one; it is fake money for the ancestors. It seems that the first one is real money for them too. Mind you it can sometimes be because of an illness, it’s thrown to cure one of said illness. Folklore says that if you pick it up then you will catch the illness. Luckily I didn’t touch it then.
Somewhere after we left him and took a route that we have taken before we missed a turn off. We were still happy though, blissfully unaware that we were walking further than planned.
Here I had left Huan on the road to see if I could take the path and join her further down. The path didn’t do as I wanted and it diverged even more. I had to scurry down the slope!
This was the point at which we realised something was wrong, a new road that we had never seen before. We had to go on because turning around would have been stupid.
When we saw pointy mountain from yet another angle, I was trying to explain to Huan that while we didn’t know exactly where we were, were not really lost. My sense of direction is not too bad but hers is hopeless so assurances were needed.
By now I had my fitness app on the screen all the time so that we could see the map. “We are going to go under the high way and towards Maoan and the G224” I told the boss. Around the next few bends what did we see? The screenshot is there in the second photo.
We were beginning to ‘feel the burn’ by now, but at least we had both remembered our hats!
With the G224 getting nearer this river deserved a couple of snaps, not even a collage this time.
Still calling us from the other side of the G224 was pointy mountain.
On the road, there was no traffic to be seen, not a lot of shade either.
It was well past our lunch time now and food was on our minds. We found a few closed places and two that, like this one, didn’t have much in the way of food or snacks at all. I guess that with the central highway opening they lost a lot of passing custom.
We had no choice; onwards to Maoan we went with me praying that the #7 bus might appear going towards Wuzhishan. I don’t know how frequent it is but we never saw one at all!
You probably can’t tell in the Blog but I had been using the phone for quite a while, having managed to flatten two camera batteries. This next picture had something wrong with the colours and I could not seem to sort it out so I chose sepia. I think it is quite apt really for two strangers entering an unknown town. (Yes, I know we know Maoan, call it poetic licence,)
By now our weary feet had walked nearly eleven kilometres, an oasis was needed.
With still no sign of a bus Huan talked to the restaurant staff and a taxi was organised. He had a meter but the fare was to be a flat ¥50.00. Beggars can’t be choosers. The meter was showing somewhere around ¥37.00 when he dropped us off so we can’t really complain.
And there you have it, our long day out. At home it was water from the kettle for the boss, water from the fridge for me and then almost instant sleep! Tomorrow will not be a long walk!
January 31st Market day and only potatoes needed. We did end up with fish, sweet corn
and
We walked to the near end of the market which is almost completed now. In the second photo you can see a strip on the left which is not yet paved. I asked one of the site foremen if they were going to be planting flowers there. He told me that they weren’t, it was in fact going to be a running track; we would call it a jogging track. I will not be using it!
I asked Huan to take the second set of stairs down to the market so we could get this shot.
Now here’s something that we haven’t seen before. Whether it is a crocodile or an alligator I couldn’t tell and I couldn’t be bothered to Google it either.
Here I am walking on the wall to try and get nearer to the birds which Huan is no doubt going to find for me. Mind you, the sun is in the wrong place.
She succeeded in her quest; I didn’t do so well for my part! The last one was much nearer than all the others and I am not too displeased with it.
Back up the stairs we went, to the other market, to buy today’s tatties.
We didn’t feel half as bad when we reached home as we had done yesterday although naps were still required. January hasn’t been a bad month, we have walked 160kms!
Going out on the balcony after dinner one of these three views caught my eye. Looking around I thought that you should see all three.
February 1st A new day and a new month, let’s hope it’s a good one! My choice today was for another city walk which turned out fine. It turned out to be a fifteen dog day in fact. Huan didn’t take fifteen dog photos though. She started off with a little chick. This family lives in a villa and have some chickens outside. They had five eggs but rats from the river stole two. We told this little lad to sleep with his chicken to keep it safe.
Spring Festival is this month so some people have already started. One family is just having fun looking after the grandchildren; the other family is busy cleaning their car carpets. Normally we would also clean the house before the New Year, but with the mess we expect to be created by new windows we are doing nothing this year.
This was the fifth dog and myself and the little boy were both having lots of fun.
For this one we need someone from
It was definitely a happy day for the director.
Our route did take us on a little detour out of the city. As you can see, it was a nice day!
Aye aye, there’s something fishy going on here.
Huan did it again.
Another little detour took us through some greenery, passing a smallholder on the way.
We had to find another way; it entailed narrow paths and stairs.
Much to Huan’s delight she found a weaver.
And then her happiness level increased even more, another lizard.
Here are our last two pooches of the day. Both of these are on chains, as guard dogs, but they both know me. What I wanted here was for Huan to capture their faces so that she could see that they have eyebrows. Did you know that dogs only recently evolved to have eyebrows and that it is only pet dogs that evolved in this manner? Warning, you are being manipulated!
Fancy a chicken of your own? This chap was selling female black chickens.
And now ladies and gentlemen, your bids for this fine upstanding table lamp please.
The director definitely went home happy today.
This one is mine, a car we passed in the EV charging car park. This filler cap cover says 98% octane, something I don’t think we have here. On the other side the car was being charged with a different picture on that ‘filler’ cap.
My last photo of the day was a very difficult one. Even seeing it with my eyes was not easy. To do this spider justice a complete macro set-up would be needed. This is the best I could do.
And that was the end of our weekend, apart from sausage, egg, beans, tomato and mash for dinner. I’m sure you don’t need a photo to remind you what that looks like.
February 2nd Shopping day returned, a normal one, complete with lift and car. Getting out of the car I heard the plaintive sound of “lǎowài” so of course I had to have a chat.
It is February and Spring Festival is fast approaching so with our shopping trolley full we had to stop and take a couple of New Year photos. I was too tall for the frame photo!
It’s nearly time for us to say ‘Bi’ but here’s a ‘Hi’ for you.
At home I was the cook again today but there is no recipe. We were having roast lamb with onions, long onions, celery, carrots, potatoes and garlic. It was mostly OK but Huan thought that the lamb didn’t taste much like lamb and I thought it was a bit overcooked. Needless to say we did eat it all! Here it is before I dished it out.
Having overloaded you with photos I think it is probably time to sign off now and upload this post. We’ll still be here next week, hope you will be too!
