A New Year Begins

And so the saga of the old people in Wuzhishan continues, and as promised, we come slowly up to date. I’m not sure I can keep you all interested in the often boring life of an old git retired to a city with no other old gits, or even any young ones, to keep him company but we’ll see what we can do. I think I’ll post one per month for this year unless there’s anything specific which will be marked as such. As is our wont, we often walk around Wuzhishan and just take random pictures of what takes our fancy. These were taken just off beside the main road.

Night times can sometimes be a little noisy, if the frogs in the river are feeling a little randy! Here’s one who appears to be just a little lost. He’s quite lucky that I didn’t have a recipe for frogs’ legs, and also that if I actually had to kill my own food I would probably be a vegetarian!

And on the subject of food, a subject that is very close to my heart, (well that and my stomach are both somewhere in the middle of me), I decided to prove to wifey that us mere foreigners can also cook fish full of bones!

Earlier I mentioned the lack of company in these parts. It can be a little boring at times. Luckily for me, I do relish my wife’s company. On or jaunts though I bump into ‘friends’, at least I call them my friends. They are always pleased to see me and I them.

One thing that Huan and I can never say is that our food is boring. She not only cooks Chinese food but does some mean western stuff too. She’s become a dab hand at pizzas and most run of the mill dishes you’d find on an English dinner table. I like to experiment a little more and one I hadn’t tried before is Coronation Chicken. For those not in the know it’s like a cold curry and should be served on a bed of rice and peas. We couldn’t find peas, so used cucumber and raisins. Not a five minute job this one, but very tasty.

January brought Chinese New Year with it this year, which in Wuzhishan means all the New Year stuff is sold along the bank of the river. The other side sells fireworks, but for some reason I have no photos from there, maybe next year.

And what would New Year be without food. Despite there being only two of us Huan always insists on turning out a feast on this occasion. I have tried arguing against it, but she loves the tradition and, what can I say, I love the grub!

If you look closely, you can see the wine, it’s a very special one. I like to tell people that it was commissioned especially for me!

Of course, after all that wonderful food, a walk was definitely needed. It took three days to get out but we did it. There are times when Wuzhishan city can be positively beautiful and luckily for us, this was one of those days.

And there we are, the New Year has begun. It finds Huan and I in the best of health, usually in the best of spirits too, (not the alcoholic type) and looking forward to a peaceful retirement. We hope you are all feeling good too!

2016, Part 4

Here we go then, the last part of 2016. Started off with a couple of accidental selfies, which I won’t post. Even I’m not that vain, (he said before posting another picture of himself!) It seems there is an International Tolerance Day on November 15^th, so this was my offering.

Back to the oven again, or the hob anyway. Here are two different attempts by her indoors. The first is a ‘Cornish Pasty Baozi, the second is just an ordinary dumpling but I liked it because of the ‘Facial Pareidolia’.

Remember the decision to buy some hiking shoes? Well we tried, Huan was successful. Mine would not fit, even with two separate Taobao orders!

Had a bit of medical trouble this month as well, some kind of growth on my eyelid. I decided that I would have to blow the expense and visit the local hospital. He decided he would use a laser to remove it. Well he said it was a laser. With no kind of anaesthetic at all, it felt to me as if I was being attacked with a light sabre! God knows what the people outside the open door were thinking. The good part though? There was no charge!

One day I decided to go for a walk alone, and try and find a way over the small mountain behind us to the main street. There isn’t a way. Once again I had to fight my way through the undergrowth putting up with leeches and plants trying to attack me at every turn. This was the result.

One of the places Huan had visited while I was in Harbin was the butterfly museum. It has now closed! We do see a lot of butterflies though and that’s what this next photo was supposed to be. They’re in there somewhere!

On another walk, (seems we do a lot these days) we came across this gentleman surrounded by inquisitive passers by. Of course we had to have a look too. It would appear that in Hainan they not only grow lots of weird plants, but ‘little people’ too.

“Do you fancy a day trip with the other residents?” asked my wife. I asked what the trip involved and was told a visit to an island, lunch, a visit to an international shopping centre followed by the botanical gardens and then on to a coffee town. Sounds good to me I thought so agreed to go. Here we are waiting for the bus.

And so we were off. As the coach was full of old fogeys, myself included of course, we had to have a toilet stop on the way, including a fag break for those who needed it. Three hours after we set off we arrived at ‘Boundary Island’, so called it seems because north of the island is cold and south is hot. I haven’t stopped reminding Huan of this since!

I must say that this is a beautiful place. I could quite happily have stayed there all day, even overnight, I think that is possible. There is certainly enough to keep you interested for that long. You can see more photos here - https://photos.app.goo.gl/ahRTaaTpgBURectf7

However, our tour guides had other plans. There was no way for them to make money off us here so our time was limited to only one and a half hours before we were dragged back, via the boats, to the coach and on to dinner. I have no problems with Chinese food, I first ate it when I was a mere primary school boy. This place though had nothing whatsoever, apart from souvenir stalls. The food was probably the worst I’ve ever tasted in China. If you see this place, drive past!

Our next stop was the International Shopping Centre.

As soon as we were off the coach everyone was guided towards one side where it seems they were to be given a tour of all the jewellery shops. Not for me I decided and I had a good stroll around the rest of the (almost deserted) centre. Time not wasted for me, apart from managing to slurp down two coffees while I waited for the others I did have the odd drool or two.

Once everyone surfaced from their tour, and I had told them the right way back to the bus, we were off again. This time our destination was a botanical garden. Silly me, what was I thinking. Yes, it was a botanical garden, but one for flowers and plants used in Chinese medicine and guess what? The whole idea was to get us to buy stuff we didn’t need. In our case they failed.

I have to say that I did enjoy the walk around the actual gardens themselves first, even found this sign. It’s a shame that most of the Chinese tourists from other regions appeared to not be able to read it! You can see more photos here –
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3GthiVRNJz3Qby2u7

After we had been routed through the sales area, some of us desperately needed the loo, the WC or the bathroom, whichever you prefer. I must say it’s one of the best I have ever visited!

So it was back to the coach once again and I was really looking forward to a nice cup of Hainan coffee. Needless to say I was a little surprised when we ended up at what seem to be some kind of rubber museum, a very small one. We soon found out why as we were guided upstairs to a floor full of foam mattresses. Of course they would have liked us to buy! When I enquired about the coffee I was told it was downstairs, I couldn’t get there fast enough. Was there any? No! It was just like the coffee sections of all the major supermarkets here, powdered, already mixed with milk and sugar. So that was it, back to Wuzhishan.

The last thing for November was another bout of cooking, this time some Chicken Cordon Bleu. Not quite right, but not half bad! (English expression meaning pretty good really)

December came along, bringing with it as it always does, Christmas. We even had a little display in our local Bai Jia Hui. Of course the house also gets tarted up every year, courtesy of the boss. She’s a good lady!

Now I know modern China came into being in 1949 but the ‘memorials’ along the river start at 1950 for some reason. Still, as that is when I was born too. . .

December also meant I had to travel to Guangzhou to collect my new passport. What a palaver we had before we got to this point. The UK government, in their wisdom, prefer you to send your passport to them for the duration of the renewal. That is a bit problematic when you are supposed to always have it with you in China, even more so when you are driving or ‘flying’ to the place you have to collect it. I managed to find someone very helpful in the passport office in UK and avoided all that! Anyway, when we got to Guangzhou, it was far warmer than the weather we had left behind in Wuzhishan, and guess what? It was Christmas there too.

On the way back we popped into Haikou to finish our Christmas shopping and met this guy. There was a video but it was terrible and Huan wouldn’t sing!

Christmas turned up, right on time as usual. One of the benefits of retirement is no longer having to work that day, something I did for years and years before. Having learnt last year that a whole Corners Deli turkey was a bit much for just the two of us I decided on a joint of pork. Although I say it myself, it was absolutely delicious!

We had a walk, just a short one in the town, and stumbled across what you see in this next picture. They were knocking down yet another mountain but there seemed to have been something there before. I wondered if it may have been archaeologically important, even posted it on Facebook for others to check. A later visit showed however that there were reinforcing rods sticking out of the little pillars. That brought the next question, how long does it take for a mountain to cover whatever it was that was there before?

Finally, to finish this series, we have New Year. We hadn’t actually been out for New Year for a long time so this year I insisted. We have a few bars here in Wuzhishan but they are unlike ‘normal’ bars in other parts of the world, or maybe even China. Each bar wanted me to buy six beers, a little too much for me on my own, especially when we were ‘doing the rounds’ as it were. I managed to get them down to two in the end. In all the bars, the entertainment was just one singer with a backing track and almost no personality. Give me a portable karaoke machine and I’ll do a far better job! So that was the end of the year.

So, that is 2016 finished, we are very rapidly coming up to date. Remember, if you have any queries about what you have read, or see, just drop me a comment and I’ll see if my senile old brain can answer them for you! Bye for now. . . .

2016, Part 3

In August it had rained every day except one. September was little better but we did manage to get out and about a bit. We also found that the coffee shop where we get the car washed actually has decent coffee. It is Foshan coffee, not too bitter and tastes great. Here’s me hoping still to get into the movies.

As usual, we had lots of walks. Sometimes on roads and sometimes not. We saw this at the side of the road and decided to follow it.

We stumbled across what seem to be old army positions, set back into the mountain. Not having any torches, and wearing shorts and sandals, discretion was advisable and we stayed out.

Walking further up, or should I say scrambling, we found we had run out of paths and were hauling ourselves up with tree trunks and anything else we could get hold of. It wasn’t easy although Huan did tell me that she enjoyed it because ‘it was a little bit dangerous’!

Here she is, wading down through a stream, it was the only way we could find to come back down before we died of thirst and heat exhaustion!

Despite drinking some of the stream water, by the time we reached civilisation my mouth was so dry my tongue was swollen. My legs were covered in scratches and although they had gone by the time we took this picture, there were also lots of little leeches!

Our next walk took place on Huan’s birthday. Well, she said she liked danger and so we went off down the river.

This is the time I realised that walking, or hiking, in sandals was not really the ideal thing to do, especially as there were times when we had to wade into the river because the bank was impassable.

One of the things we often stumble across on our many walks is the new route they are putting in from Wuzhishan towards the central highway. Huan naively thinks it will be finished by the end of 2017, I have no faith whatsoever!

That’s it for September, except that I do think I should include Pudsey. “Who is Pudsey?” I hear you ask. Well, he is the mascot for ‘Children In Need’, A BBC UK charity. Why should I include him? Because he had the honour of meeting my #1 son of course!

Apart from walking, we also drive once a week. We have to, or our battery will go flat. What is it with Chinese cars and their batteries? At times we do spot little bits of scenery which remind me that we live in a pretty good place. This is a small waterfall we passed.

This month’s wildlife is the omnipresent lizard. We haven’t seen any really big ones yet, maybe one day. This one was sunbathing. These are the photos where I really had a macro lens. Still not bad for a camera phone.

Something else we see far too much of is old abandoned buildings. Because of China’s laws relating to land ownership, they just sit there doing absolutely nothing. There are some that I would gladly sell my own apartment for in order to do them up and live in a house. This is not one of those though.

Cooking still going strong, I have not yet learnt how to make baozi; pastry is not really my thing. However, Huan can make them and here is her version, at my suggestion, of a ‘Scotch Egg Baozi’. Well, it tasted fine.

Years and years ago, I had been out in a typhoon in Hong Kong, a very dangerous thing to do at that time. That story is for another time though. We did decide to drive to Haikou in October; supplies from Corners Deli were getting low. The typhoon had passed so we thought we’d be fine. By the way, some of those workers are using handsaws to remove the fallen trees.

Somewhere along the route, probably where we were driving over fallen trees, I managed to puncture a tyre. That was not fun, struggling in the pouring rain trying to lift the new wheel on. Luckily there are no photos of that, Huan was snug in the car where I had told her to stay.

That’s it for October, and for Part 3 of 2016. Part 4 will be up soon.