Haikou, Xiuying Fort, A Birthday & Visitors

How about this then, writing about September, in September. Wow! It’s a Monday today, shopping day, now too warm to go for a walk and we can’t go swimming, the pool hasn’t been cleaned since the typhoon. Might as well scribble down a few words.

September 2^nd Swimming again and looking for wildlife. We are certainly spoilt for butterflies here, Look at these two pics. I am not really sure if they are both of the same butterfly or not.

September 3^rd Shopping trip to Haikou. We were a little early arriving so went for a walk in the afternoon and stumbled across this place.

This is Xiuying Fort, an old defensive position. Before we went in, the ticket seller told us that it contained anti-aircraft guns so I thought, OK, let’s have a look. It only cost us ¥8 each to get in. Now, there isn’t an anti-aircraft gun in sight anywhere, but, it is still money well spent. The first thing you see is this, (not Huan, the gun!)

As you walk around you can see all the different gun emplacements, the ammunition stores, the barracks, the command post etc. You’ll find more pictures in my Xiuying Fort album here-
https://photos.app.goo.gl/sGW4qmvL4yWDJKfU8
Because of the way we went round, we found the information just before we left. If you want to read this first, then once you go inside, turn left and go up the stairs to go round anticlockwise.

All in all I really enjoyed this site. Make sure you take your own refreshments though. By the time we were finished I was gagging for something to drink and there seemed to be nothing close by!

We did find a roadside kiosk once we were back on the ‘main drag’ as it were, so sat awhile and then continued our walk towards ‘dinner’. We passed this dragon on the way. Perhaps it’s the camera angle, but he doesn’t look very fierce does he? In fact, he looks more startled!

September 4^th The main reason we go to Haikou is to buy sausages, (not English, in fact not even South Chinese) and bacon. These we buy from the wholesale market on Binhai da dao. We will also top up on other necessities if we need to, things that we would normally buy in Corners Deli in Sanya. (We go there because we can do the return trip in one day. We prefer to spend the night when we go to Haikou.) There is an added benefit in Haikou though; there is a Carrefour and an RT Supermarket. Any of you expats who haven’t found them yet, you should! This time we topped up with whipping cream, hard cheeses, Parmesan, dark chocolate, marmalade and these! Well, Christmas is on the way, fresh ones can’t be found anywhere, and unlike most Brits, I actually like them!

September 5^th to 13^th Lots more swimming, Huan is now doing 20 to 24 lengths and I am usually doing 30 although I did manage 40 before the typhoon came along and stopped us going.

September 14^th to 16^th Stuck in the house, listening to the wind and the rain. We can’t complain though, it is very unusual for us to be bothered by typhoons where we live. They usually manage to give us a wide berth. Even this one passed by to the south of Sanya but it was a wide, and powerful one.

September 17^th We tried going to the pool again only to find it full of vegetation. It may take them a day or two to clean it. I should have taken some pictures I suppose, but I didn’t think about it. We then took a drive up to the reservoir to check on our ‘precarious tree’. It still survives! Looking at the picture, when it does come down it’s going to bring a fair bit of the mountain with it.

Still on the same day, in the afternoon, Huan decided that she wanted to learn how to ride a bike. Contrary to stereotypes, not all Chinese people can ride bikes. In fact my students in Harbin who could were very much in the minority! Huan’s son will be visiting next month, he can’t ride a bike either and he wants to learn in the few days he is here. Huan hopes to be able to teach him. We scrounged a bike from one of our neighbours and off she went.

Eventually, I left her to it. I remember when I was a little lad, my father gave up trying to teach me and ten minutes later I was haring passed the house shouting “Look Dad, no hands!” I was rather hoping the same would happen here. Huan is a very determined woman when she sets her mind on something. Well, she hadn’t succeeded when she got home, but she had improved. Unfortunately, she had also come a cropper a few times! She’ll get there, I have faith in her. Here’s the result the following day, both legs. Needless to say, no practicing today, a very necessary ‘day of rest’ instead!

September 20^th Success. Not perfect yet but a lot better and a lot more confident.

While Huan was busy getting better I went walkies again. Do you ever wonder just how your memory works? I passed this ‘knocked down building’ which was demolished less than a month ago and now I can’t remember what it looked like before! We’re told that they will widen the road and beautify the riverside. I don’t believe them; I think it will end being another apartment block

Remember the villas with no people and nobody working on them because there are no house books, (title deeds)? Well I thought I’d give you a closer look. They could be OK if they ever get finished. They even have lifts inside for old codgers like me!

Carried on walking up the hill towards 21 Hotel but turned off at the bridge corner to come back down the scenic way. Quite a bit of typhoon damage, not enough to block the way though. However, with the fallen leaves being still wet it was still slippery in places, care was needed.

You can see where some trees were uprooted and others were snapped.

I also made a video while I was coming down; you can check that out on my YouTube channel it’s here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtRpCcjiOF8&list=PLrm74YBD3qG5g0eyBM4Rmz3jmW7dZNYBx&index=15&t=0s

September 21^st Back in the pool again. Huan decided to rescue the wildlife and fished this chap out of the pool. There was a baby too. I did lots of blowing on them to try and dry them off before moving them both to a sunnier spot away from the pool. They were definitely alive when we left although I’m not sure how they really felt! They had gone by the next day but whether that was because they had flown off or because we had more rain I can’t really say. I like to think we made a difference!

September 23^rd Once again at the pool, where else? I didn’t swim though, the sun was hiding and I thought the water was a little dirty too. Every cloud has a silver lining though. While Huan was doing her dutiful 20 lengths of the pool I had a visitor. There were two but I had to disturb them to fetch my phone. Only one returned but it stayed for quite some time. This is probably the best picture I got.

September 25^th Huan’s birthday. It’s not nice to mention a lady’s age so let’s just say that in Roman times she would have been LV. Of course that means she’s still a spring chicken compared to my LXVII! I had all these wonderful plans for our evening but as is often the case, they went awry. This was Huan’s birthday dinner. I shouldn’t complain, hers was probably only £1 and the total was only £3. I had more ‘real’ food and no rice.

September 26^th We had a visit from CCTV Beijing and CCTV Hainan. They were doing a recce prior to coming back next month to shoot part of a video showing Hainan. I wonder if anyone knows why the director liked to take so many black and white photos.

They were a good group of visitors though, brought us a lot of fruit which I didn’t see until they had gone. We’re still eating it four days later! They stayed quite a while, we chatted about all sorts, why I chose Wuzhishan, etc. Some questions were more difficult, but that’s just me. I have no favourite food, no favourite music, etc. They even wanted me to sing for them! I politely refused especially as I haven’t sung properly for over 10 years now. Anyway, they seemed to enjoy their stay, some of them even tried some of Huan’s Quiche Lorraine! I’ll be letting you know more about the filming next month. Here’s the group with Huan, it’s a better picture than the group with me!

September 30^th The day Huan has been looking forward to, the day, (or night), that her son arrives from Shanghai. Of course we had to book into our usual place, the Pearl Hotel.

We had a very long evening ahead of us, the plane wasn’t due until 1 o’clock in the morning so we went for a walk along the beach at Dadonghai starting from the Pearl and finishing at the Marriott. Quite a pleasant walk.

We’ll leave you this month with a much different view of the Pearl Hotel. It is the curved building you can see across the bay.

And that’s it for September. Stay tuned for #2 son’s short visit and whatever else may come up in October!