2016, Part 1

I guess we were well and truly retired by now, what to do with all those lazy days? In a perfect world of course you would take cruises round the world, visit all those places you’d always wanted to but never could, or perhaps start crossing items off your bucket list. The world of course, is not perfect, especially when, like many men of my age, you’ve really made a mess of your pension! Lesson there for you oldies! January was a quiet month, nothing much to talk about, not many pictures although there are a couple that I’d like to share. This is one of the mountains on the kitchen side of the house, early in the morning. I rather like the cloud moving gently down the valley.

The second is much more mundane, my first attempt at making a picture on Huan’s ‘real’ coffee. I don’t think I will ever get the hang of it.

February came along then bringing with it Spring Festival along with visitors. Our first was one of my old students from Harbin, along with his Mum. They weren’t staying, just popped in, leaving Dad and the grandparents in the car down below.

Who knows how long they stayed? I think the grandparents were probably growing cobwebs! However, it was a pleasure to have them and I would have been only too pleased had they wanted to stay the night. We fed them with home made mince pies and home made shortbread.

When the time came for them to leave, I found myself very humbled. Tyler had decided that I had to have a gift for the years I had taught him in Harbin. Those who know me know that I much prefer to give gifts than to receive them so I don’t always find it easy. Having Huan on hand helped greatly.

Within days our next visitors arrived, Steve and Jean from Dalian. Steve was an old colleague from Harbin and Jean was his wife. We only had them for one night but Huan outdid herself with an early Spring Festival dinner for us all.

It was a shame to see them go, I hadn’t drunk so much beer in a long time! Wuzhishan weather though stayed beautiful for their trip and I dare say they will be back!

One of the last things we had bought for the house was an ‘Airfryer’, we love it! Instead of the small versions with a drawer, we bought a larger one which can do all sorts. This month Huan even learnt how to do pizzas in it. Here’s one made with Harbin sausage - Yummy!

February also brought my birthday, as for strange reason, it does every year. It gave us an excuse for another visit to our western style restaurant, not too bad.

Shortly after my birthday we discovered a rat in our apartment. It could have been a mouse but being so near the river I am fairly sure it was a rat. I do wonder though if he was the Edmund Hilary of rats. How on earth did he get to the seventh floor, and into our house? We were able to trap him, unfortunately not humanely, so that’s one picture I’m not sharing!

This was also the month we started taking some of our longer walks. Hopefully, as time goes by, I will lose some of my ‘Michelin Middle’. As is now becoming fairly normal on our walks a lot of photos were taken but I won’t bore you with all of them, just a couple. How about more wildlife?

And some more. . .

Some of the local flora

And finally one of the many lovely views we have when we manage to get a little higher.

March brought with it more walks, some near and some farther afield. One of the near ones, which we take fairly regularly now, runs along one of the many irrigation ditches. Sometimes I wonder just how much of Hainan is really ‘wild’ and how much is ‘tamed’.

One of our favourite walks, albeit a shorter one, is just to walk down by the river. The first time we did this I had not long read the complete ‘Lord Of The Rings’ and the trees very much reminded of the forests in the story. I think these are Banyan trees and every now and then they have to trim the hanging roots or we would end up with nowhere to walk!

We had our first, but not last, visit to Shuiman Shang. Ooooh, those steps! What was worse though is that this is a famous tourist area, not long after the Spring Break, and yet there is nothing there for tourists. You can climb the steps, which is well worth it, the view is amazing!

You can even see Wuzhishan itself (the mountain, not the city) in all its majesty behind the tourist spot. When you reach the top though, there are no refreshments, just a couple of people selling ‘offerings’ should you want to offer them to Buddha, either inside, or outside the rather beautiful temple. They are not pushy at all and as far as I can tell will not rip you off. On this occasion there was a rather dusty tourist information corner, with a couple of maps but on later visits, even that had disappeared. More photos in the Shuiman Shang Album, here -

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2CXBRWAvqeC8JuZu9

Another of our local walks takes us past Wuzhishan’s own ‘Fairy Castle’. This is yet another location that could be ‘touristy’ but isn’t. It is just completely locked up and from what we can see is never used at all.

Finally for the first part of the year we’ll include somewhere the foreigners in Haikou may already know, Long Lou. The father of one of my students in Harbin has a hotel there. From the roof you can watch the launch of China’s Space Program. We haven’t quite managed to do that yet. We did however visit a beautiful beach. Well, I use a little poetic licence there. It could be beautiful. Yet again, there is absolutely nothing for tourists, although it looks as if there may be one day. Worst of all was the sheer amount of rubbish on the beach. I suppose I am getting used to that wherever we go in China. However, you don’t want to see the rubbish, if you do, the photos are in the Long Lou album. Here’s a nicer one for you, a place I would love to snorkel around, although you do have to pick the right time of tide.

Well I guess that’s enough for part 1, we are now at the end of March. I’ll just tell you that if you have to stop on the east coast highway, the coffee is pretty damn good!

Part 2 will follow soon, bye for now!