November 21st Sometimes when I go out in the
morning I have no idea which way I’m going to go. Living where we do, there are
a limited number of options for getting off the beaten track. Once you are in
the forests you have no idea where you are and there are no Ordnance Survey
maps to help. Also, I miss Huan walking with me these days, she is singing five
days a week in the mornings. She did suggest stopping the three mornings that
aren’t “school” but she enjoys it so much, it would be wrong for me to agree.
Anyway, today I decided to take the ‘first turn
right’ off the main road towards Sanya, just to remind myself where it goes.
First it passes a fish farm cum restaurant which we think we’ve seen advertised
recently but it looks as if the business is not yet off the ground. It’s a
pretty place though and should be OK once it’s open. This is the fish pond, the
restaurant buildings are mostly out of the picture to the right.
There is a nice new
concrete road up to the farm so I followed that. A couple of workmen told me
that there was no way for me to walk through so in my not so good Chinese I
assured them that there was and that I had been there before. What I had
forgotten of course was that when Huan and I last came through the farm, we
came down the hill. I was faced with this.
I soon realised where I was going
though and was even able to guide a couple of snowbirds walking in the reverse
direction to me. The track gives way to a road which then brings us back onto
what shall from now onwards be called ‘the first turn off’. Today’s will
henceforth be known as ‘the second turn off’.
Today’s wildlife includes the first pig I’ve
seen for ages and some fish, from another small fish farm. The pig looked to be
quite old and I couldn’t get it move at all. The fish on the other hand, were
very young.
All in all it was a very pleasant
walk and it was over the daily ten. I must remember to take Huan that way
again, she’ll enjoy it. No afternoon sleeps for either of us today although I
must admit I came dangerously close to it. Huan was doing her homework. This
time they had a piece of music to listen to and then they had to sing it ‘for
teacher’. I get to listen to all their responses of course and I pointed out to
Huan, that without exception, they were all singing it wrong, well the last
couple of bars anyway. She could hear what I meant but I’m not sure if that’s
what she sent, she listens too much to the others.
This week I found a ‘packet curry’ in the
cupboards, it had been there while so I said I would cook today. Remembering
back to the days of ‘Vesta’ curries in the UK China
November 22nd We were surrounded by clouds this morning so I was a very lazy boy.
First I did a little guitar practice. Then, because I felt a little cold, I put
my dressing gown on and proceeded to do nothing at all! After lunch I wasn’t
quite so bad, I did some Chinese review and a little more guitar practice. Oh,
I also had to take Huan’s proof of life photo, the one we have to do twice a
year for her pension. Previously, she’s always had to hold up “today’s
newspaper”, which makes sense. This time however, she just had to hold a
calendar with today’s date marked, which to me, doesn’t make much sense at all!
Having not walked at all in the
morning or afternoon, I decided an evening one was necessary and that I would
not start off with the ‘orrible eight’, because they walk so slow.
Surprise, surprise, I was not alone this
evening. ‘Water Lily’, a.k.a. the dance teacher, was not well so dancing was
cancelled. This meant that Huan was walking with me. I decided to take her the
reverse way to my last walk, I knew she would enjoy that. Like me, she likes to
get out of the immediate city and onto the tracks through the woods. When we
got nearer the fish farm cum restaurant, we could see, from our vantage point
higher up, that there were lights on around a pond we hadn’t seen before. We
made our way there and found the restaurant, and pond, that are both actually
operational. There was a chap fishing and a few people in the restaurant. I did
take a few pictures, unfortunately, none of them were any good!
We carried on, heading
towards the river, to make our way home. To our surprise, when we got to the
main road there was a lot of activity going on. A couple of ladies on one side
of the road were waving poles with streamers on. Huan took photos of them;
guess what, none turned out well enough. Across the road some dancers, we
believe from Xinjiang, were waiting to start. I took a few photos here. The
dancers didn’t start while we were waiting but what you can see is just how
many snowbirds were also there. PS There were just as many people on the other
side of the road with the streamer ladies.
Back home we went, along the
river side, and even more snowbirds were seen, all over the place. One group,
from Huan’s Monday, Wednesday and Thursday classes, were down at the river’s
edge singing. Another much larger group was by the Fodelai hotel, also singing.
In fact there were crowds of people every where. I think it’s safe to say that
winter has arrived up north! We also found the start / finish line of the
amateur triathlon that’s taking place in Wuzhishan tomorrow. It’s a four
kilometre run, a four kilometre swim and a sixteen kilometre cycle race. It
seems not all participants have to enter the cycle race. I’m not really sure
where they will have people swim four kilometres either. It’s not possible in
the river unless they go upriver and downriver many times. Just in case you
were wondering, no, we are not entering! Actually, I’m not allowed, too old,
and we can’t have Huan going alone now, can we? We do have free tickets for the
after event party in the town square tomorrow evening though, including one
free beer each. I know I’ll be forced to drink Huan’s to make sure she doesn’t
get all red and itchy!
November 23rd What a busy day we had today, and it’s not finished yet. Our walk was
almost identical to yesterday’s, except that we turned right after the fish
farm thus joining the main road just a little further away from home. The moon
was stronger than the sun this morning so it was a very pleasant day for
walking. The reason we took the same route was so that we could come back along
the riverside and check out the farmer’s market again. First up for you are some
cute little chickens, priced at only ¥4.00 each. People will buy them today to
take home and fatten up before Chinese New Year, poor little mites.
Next up are some creatures
I don’t think you’d like in your camp bed at night time. Now, just for a change,
these were not for eating, but to show where the Chinese medicine, that the man
was selling, came from. I was reminded of the snake oil salesmen of the old
wild west!
And lastly for this
morning, something that everyone wants, particularly every mother. I well
remember mine telling us “Money doesn’t grow on trees you know!” She was wrong!
Being Saturday we were back to a
fried breakfast of course, not quite a full English this week, we’ve run out of
bacon until our next trip up north. After a little rest we were then off
shopping. Now I know the weekly shop is usually Monday, but it’s the
supermarket’s birthday and today was the last day. Spend ¥100.00 and get a
voucher for ¥50.00. That’s what they said. When Huan got to the information counter
to get our vouchers they only gave her ¥80.00, telling her that they had run
out. When she told me I dragged her back to complain further and pointed out
that we had spent ¥390.00 and therefore should have received vouchers for 50%
of that amount. Someone was visibly losing face and still maintained that
“there were no vouchers left, what could she do, it wasn’t her fault”. Someone
slightly higher up the ladder then turned up and rooted around in the drawer
and topped us up to ¥130.00 which, while still not correct, at least was better
than ¥80.00. We’re still not sure whether they did actually run out of vouchers
or if they were trying to cheat people.
Huan then went for another visit to the dentist
while I drove home and ‘struggled’ upstairs with all the shopping. The day is
still not over, we have to attend the event in the square tonight, I now know
it’s the “Closing Ceremony” of the “Wuzhishan Adventure Challenge” and
includes, as well as the free beer, a raffle. There will also be a brass jazz
performance, a Li fashion show and a DJ, that could be where the ‘foreigner’
comes in. Quite what all the snowbirds will make of a western style DJ I’m not
sure. The whole event is due to last only two and a half hours, starting at
seven o’clock. We’ll see how it goes.
Well it seems like we had
quite a few things wrong. This was an ‘International’ triathlon, probably with
only people from Hainan though. Thirteen
nations were represented with three hundred competitors, at least according to tonight’s compère. I didn’t
see that many but there were a lot. I had a chat to the compère, Frank, before the start to tell him about Tropical Hainan and
suggest he sent the completed video to them for publishing. If that happens, I
will try and remember to share it for you. One young lady from India
November 24th After a late night last night, not the event, but the video editing
afterwards, we both managed to be up early enough for a nice walk this morning.
Today’s route was up the main street, take the second turning, and around the
back way to the third then into the countryside. Usually we go to a village up
there then turn around and come back. Today we were not on the road but on
small tracks through the fields so we went a long way past the village.
Struggling to the top of a hill we thought we might be able to reach ‘turn off
four’ by going over the top. It wasn’t to be, at least not today anyway. This
was the view when we got there, with no apparent way forward.
We retraced our steps and
then just before we got back to the village I took this photo, it’s Huan’s
favourite of the day. I couldn’t get closer without falling in the water.
This one was my favourite,
again I couldn’t get closer, not because I would fall in the water but because
the cat kept escaping whenever I got nearer.
After a stop in the village for some much needed water, and a chat
with a couple of old ladies, we made our way back home. Huan needed to plant
the flowers she had nicked from the mountainside and I needed to cook our
Sunday brunch.
Afternoon was a salty bath for me and another dentist visit for
Huan. The dentist stuck some medicine in her tooth and told her to come back
again in a few days. This was met with much displeasure by her Ladyship of
course, but I pointed out that it’s not costing her a fortune, she’s not in
pain and I’m sure the dentist knows what he’s doing.
No rest for Huan, after our evening sarnies she was off dancing
again and then to stand outside the supermarket with all the other ladies to
see who’s won the raffle. PS She got home just after ten, left early because
the raffle still hadn’t been drawn. It was advertised as half past eight,
obviously that was for all the other rubbish first!
November 25th I’m glad I decided Monday’s would be ‘lazy’ days again and today
there wasn’t even any shopping to do. Huan went out to school, I had a slow
start to a relaxing morning. I did do three practice sessions on the guitar and
another eleven Chinese review tests so I wasn’t a complete layabout. In the
afternoon even Huan relaxed with some TV, no ‘earworms’ for me to put up with
for a change. After some more guitar practice, I got lost down YouTube where I
found a UK
November 26th Orders for the day, as given to me by the 2IC,
(me), a bit of escape and evasion, just like the good old army days. I was to
escape from the house and evade the rain. Well about one and a half kilometres
out, I felt I was doing very well, the sun had come out to play, giving me this
wonderful view.
However,
at the four kilometre mark it became obvious that the sun had gone home and
wasn’t going to come out again.
I plotted a new course, and being
the fool that I am, made sure it would give me the six kilometres I needed to
make ten. The last one was a wet one! As for the ‘escape’ part of the plan,
well the good old “bungee cord of love” pulled me right back home again! That
was just as well though, it gave me time to prepare the cheese and onion baps
for the C-in-C’s lunch, and mine of course.
The afternoon was spent trying to
make sense of Huan’s homework. They were given a few bars of notes and then
told to write the ‘sonophones’ of these notes in the bars below. Google
translated the Chinese to ‘sonophones’, which I understood as ‘sounds the
same’. A more accurate description would be enharmonic equivalents. What was
making this very difficult, apart from the language differences, was that
Huan’s book has answers in it and the answers to the first exercise were wrong!
For example, the enharmonic equivalent of the note C was shown as C with two
flats, instead of D with two flats. Now obviously bbC does not sound
the same as C, but bbD does. With the aid of Huan’s keyboard I was
able to explain what I meant although I wasn’t sure that Huan was quite getting
the idea. Having said that, she saw that the answers to the second exercise
were correct, in the manner that I had explained. Now she will be able to
explain it to her classmates who, also being totally confused, had been sending
her WeChat messages all afternoon. As ‘singers’, they should never have to
bother with double flats or double sharps so maybe this is just a way of
getting them to learn more about music.
The rain eased off
enough for Huan’s dama dancing, so I was able to do some guitar and Chinese,
not really enough of either though!
November 27th No ‘real’ walk this morning, I was under
orders to meet the ‘class’ for lunch, yet another teacher is leaving. This one
is going back up north for a while, something about giving and receiving annual
bonuses. Chinese New Year will be in January next year. The ‘Fab Four’ were on
their bikes today, three normal and one electric so they were going straight
from the class to the restaurant. Muggins was walking! “Get there by eleven”
was the command as they would finish class early. I was there, on time, and
guess what? The class finished late! Mind you, that gave me a chance to not
only have a drink and a rest but also to video them arriving. Here they are,
posing!
The
class or I suppose you could say, the choir, has grown considerably. The food
was great and interspersed throughout the lunch there were quite a few solos.
Once everybody had had their fill, the choir all sang together to finish off
the occasion. Here’s a not very good screen shot of the video I filmed.
The
ladies cycled home together, and I walked home, alone… (sniff, sniff).
Actually, I quite enjoyed it, the sun was hiding behind the clouds and I walked
down by the riverside. Come evening time and they were off on their bikes
again, first to the town square for dancing and then down to the riverside for
even more singing. That left me “alone again, naturally”. (Can you remember the
song?) I did go out; I needed to make up the distance from this morning. I had
used ‘Endomondo’ to and from the restaurant but it was only around six and a
half kilometres, not enough! Eight kilometres this evening made it better. I
walked back along the riverside, and on the way I heard, coming towards me the
dulcet tones of “meow, meow etc”. It was only the Fab Four cycling down to
their singing spot and getting some practice in on the way. And they think I’m
crazy…
November 28th this morning, I was out by half
past seven but I didn’t go for a ‘twenty’ or anything like that, because I
wanted some guitar practice before lunch. It was still a long enough walk
though, just over thirteen kilometres in just under three hours. That also
included photography and video stops as I had the Fuji
So what did I see today? First off, very near
the house, I saw a caterpillar that I had never seen before; its legs look like
fern leaves.
To start with, I had no
idea where I was going today, but my feet led me to the quiet of the
countryside again. Sometimes, we forget which roads we have been on, especially
if it’s been a while. One such road took me to this signpost where I remembered
we couldn’t go any further last time. Going up one side of the sign brings you
down the other side!
Dogs, ducks, chickens and
geese were seen aplenty but I decided you don’t need to see them today.
Instead, here’s another insect I’ve never seen before, this one looks like it’s
dressed up for an officer’s mess dinner.
Next, I found myself in the
middle of a herd of cows. I had been taking a video of my walk, stopped to take
some photos of them and then went closer to take anther video. They were
grazing and just kept coming, some of them even nuzzling me, it was quite an
experience. In the past I have had the occasional cow be brave enough to come
and ‘say hello’, today I guess I was just ‘in their way’ and lucky enough that
they continued on the same path. Here are a couple of screen shots from the
video.
I carried on walking,
leaving ‘my friends’ to their food, and finished making the video. A few more
photos were taken on the way home, I thought you may fancy seeing another
‘many-legged’ creature, this one is a crab. It’s in the water, not so very easy
to take a photo of, but you should be able to see it. This was in an irrigation
ditch next to the rice paddies.
After that, I still managed to get home by half past ten and do as
I’d promised myself, some guitar before lunch. I wonder how many years it takes
to get that ‘F’ chord! Being early also gave me some more Chinese review,
that’s almost as difficult as the ‘F’ chord. Mind you, I did understand maybe
half of what the lady in the lift said this afternoon when I went down to
collect Huan’s latest Taobao purchase. What did Huan buy? Shoes, of course!
November 29th We were surrounded by fog this morning, or as I
prefer to think, we were in the clouds. That gave me a chance for a quick
guitar practice before going out, but also meant I would have to have two walks
today. First, I wasted a lot of time watching an excavator mixing concrete in a
large hole at the side of the river. He was then filling up the buckets of two
bulldozers, one large and one small. I could see where the large one was taking
his load, to make the foundation of the riverside path a bit further down. The
smaller one actually left the river and disappeared over the other side somewhere.
I don’t know if he was taking a ‘freebie’ somewhere or it was an official
delivery. Anyway, here’s the mixing pot.
On the way home, another
weird and wonderful beastie was spotted. It was moving incredibly fast but I
did manage a couple of photos, here’s one.
Huan had another trip to the dentist this afternoon, complete with
whinges about the number of visits she was having to make and how much it was
going to eventually cost. For those of you back in the UK
November 30th The ‘better half’ was a little on the sleepy
side this morning. When I got up she was having a good old snore! Consequently,
I decided an amble was probably better than a walk today. Our first photo is
Huan in the wishing well, I bet you are wondering how I got under the water!
Our
route home took us through the Saturday farmer’s market where we took only a
few more pictures this week. You’ve seen most of what is on offer but today we
have ‘fresh’ peanut oil coming from a factory built in the back of a van.
And
I’m not sure if you saw this little creature before. Instead of showing you one
squashed into a very small cage, I’ll show you the advert, without the telephone numbers of course. 果子狸 (guǒzi lí) means
‘civet’.
And
lastly, in fact the last photo of the day and coincidentally, the last photo of
the month is one of me and “Second Brother”. That is his name, in Chinese 二弟, (Èr dì). Whenever he sees me he goes crazy. If his
‘mum’ is holding him, it’s not a problem but if it’s ‘grandma’, like today, she
worries far too much. Huan did try and get a photo of him trying to lick me to
death but unfortunately that one wasn’t clear.
Walkies for me in the evening and
a walk to the square for Huan followed by a limousine ride down to the
riverside. She went to watch a show produced by her classmates and I went to
make up my ten kilometres.
And that’s it, another
month over. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun? It certainly flies as you
get older! Take care all, see you next month.
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