Diplopoda, Nymphs, Thief on the Run, Zygoptera, Bureaucracy

May 5th Today’s plan was a longish walk, up to one of the many fish farms. As it is a public holiday we thought the roads would be truck free. We were wrong and when we reached this signpost for two villages changed our minds. You can see the cement works in the background. Trucks were coming from behind full of sand and from in front full of what looked like ground stone, probably from the tunnel being bored through the mountain for the highway.

Turning right here would take us over the small mountain and back towards home, with no trucks to bother us, so off we went. I was a little worried because Huan was wearing a skirt but, trooper that she is, she got through.

Before too long we were on the track again heading towards our ‘water stop’ village. This little creature was going the same way, what a weird looking one he is. Huan thought he looked like a ‘wheel’, but didn’t forget to warn me ‘not to touch’! Should you be interested, the lighter coloured segments are at the back, and according to Google, it’s a millipede.

This is one of my favourite walks, at least until we hit the tarmac roads again. No man made sounds encroach from anywhere and at the time of day we were passing through, the sun was not directly overhead. On the extreme right the new highway is visible but nobody was working there today, so nature ruled supreme.

So, how long was our ‘long’ walk? Fourteen kilometres. I think that’s good enough for a couple of pensioners, don’t you. By the time we got home, after a bottle and a half of water each, I didn’t fancy a ‘real’ lunch so suggested to Huan that we could have milkshakes. Now Huan thinks my milkshakes are much better than the ones we get outside so she readily agreed. To be honest, they are nothing special, today’s was made with vanilla ice cream with chocolate streaks in it, one banana, one bottle of Nescafe ‘Smoovlatte’ topped up with milk and then whizzed in our little Braun machine. We deserved it!

May 6^th Went to bed last night with strange red blotches on my feet. They weren’t itchy, they weren’t raised, they weren’t painful and I could still feel my feet. Dr. Google was of no help at all so I, (or should I say the Royal ‘we’) decided to adopt a policy of ‘wait and see’. Let’s hope it’s the right one!

Because of the strange red marks and because we were due for a TV walk this afternoon we stuck to a stroll around the river this morning. To our surprise a lot of the snowbirds were still in residence, I guess many could be from Harbin and can’t go home yet. Anyway, there were groups of musicians all over the shop and here’s one we haven’t seen before. Not only do they have a violinist and an accordionist, they also have a guitarist with a very special guitar, a ‘silent’ one. If you want to learn more just Google Yamaha Silent Guitars.

Remember the insects we saw in the early stages of metamorphosis, well we passed by for another look and found the empty carcasses, (the nymphs), the adults had obviously flown away. I was quite surprised by how ‘complete’ the nymphs left on the trees were.

Our walking speed was once again phenomenal this morning, about four kilometres in fifteen minutes. You can see why by checking this screenshot of my fitness app, the start and end points of this walk should be in the same place, just about central on the map. For some reason the start is way off to the left and then it took over four kilometres to 'sync' again. This is a relatively new problem but it seems to be happening more frequently. Questions. Is it the network? Could it be the satellites? Or do I need a new phone? Answers in the comments or on a postcard please.

May 7^th The CMO, otherwise known as SWMBO, ordered me to be “excused boots” today, there’s a good old army term for you. She decided that my foot problem was related to either my boots or my socks so today was a ‘sandal’ day. We still got a fairly long walk in, nearly nine and a half kilometres and today, Endomondo gave us what seemed to be a fairly accurate data. For a change we walked down to the river and had a closer look, a place we never normally walk.

There were some beautiful flowers down there. Huan did try to get one or two to take home but she would have had to walk into the water. Here’s the flowers in question and Huan appearing to be running away with her second choice!

It was a very pleasant walk today, once back on the path the sun was hot, but we had a breeze to keep us a little cooler. For a change we came home via the back gate of our apartment complex where we had seen them repairing the access control when we went out. Before, we used a small plastic disk which operated a proximity sensor and opened the gate. This is what they have replaced it with. I don’t know if they have thought about what you should do with this type of access control when someone moves out. In theory, the code should be changed and all residents then informed of the new code. I don’t see that happening at all. I’m fairly sure that you can also spot the deliberate error in the installation!

May 8^th Sandals again today, by order, so just a ramble through the town, stopping off here and there for a chat with some of my four legged friends. I also forgot the Fuji, so today’s photos are only concerned with engineering marvels. Around here, instead of the western style pick-ups, there are a lot of little three wheeled ones, with a flatbed back and a motorcycle front. In this particular case, the driver obviously didn’t like handlebars and converted his machine to one with a steering wheel. Note the liberal use of lubricating grease.

The second is the marvel of modern technology, the mobile phone. Not content with this week’s earlier inaccuracies, according to our phone, walked eighteen kilometres today in just an hour and a quarter. One day good, one day bad, I wonder why? I really don’t want to buy a new phone just yet, perhaps later in the year I’ll be ready for one. In the meantime, I guess I’ll have to keep deleting the incredibly inaccurate workouts and manually enter more correct versions.

May 9^th Our house was inhabited by two aliens this morning, two fat lazy lumps of lard who couldn’t be bothered to go out, even for a slow walk. Still, it gave me a chance to add a YouTube link to Blogger as well as a Google translation tool. Now anybody can read it in any language.

We weren’t lazy in the afternoon though and we kept our promise to do the three mile TV walk. Our programme is three times a week which seems to be working out well enough. Mind you, the temperature outside today, as we were exercising ourselves as best we could, was 35ºC. An hour later the computer said it was 39ºC. Whatever it was, we were really feeling it and one of us, namely me, was virtually melting away. Spot where I was working out!

May 10^th Happy Huan today, I agreed to the mountain scenic walk, and, I was allowed to wear my boots and socks! Both the routes we used to take to approach the road up the mountain have been closed off so went exploring, through the farmer’s fields. These aren’t real farms of course, they are just like allotments which local Chinese will use as much as they can before the land is further closed off for construction. Crops grow very easily here in Hainan and also very quickly so it’s quite a lucrative side business for many people.

Anyway, behind us we saw a woman coming down from the road near the residential compound that we can’t go through anymore. Working on the assumption that if she could come down we could go up off we went. It was a short climb up to the road but quite steep and with me trying to hold the camera too it was almost a hands and knees climb. I should have taken a photo so you can see just how intrepid we explorers can be at times but I got distracted. Trying to keep my balance and focus at the same time I took this next photo instead. Now Huan and I have always thought about these creatures being baby dragonflies but a quick Google search tonight tells me we have almost definitely been wrong. They are from the same scientific family, (Odonata), the suborder is ‘Zygoptera’ but you may know then as ‘Damselflies’. So that you can see it a little clearer I have had to use the soft focus tool in Picasa.

Lastly, for today, Endomondo and my phone played very well together! Checking the satellite route when we got home we can see that it’s very accurate today, no errors of any consequence at all. Our walk was over ten kilometres and less than eleven as I had expected, in fact it was 10.63 km in 2h:57m:49s and used up 984 calories. I put no faith in the calorie count at all though; it seems to be based purely on distance. The bad news is that I have red blotches on my feet again so either the boots or the socks are giving me problems.

May 11^th Needle time again which meant another trip to Haikou. It was also the day to pick up my visa and we had planned on staying overnight. I was really looking forward to it! Arriving over the bridge onto Haidian Dao, the island where the hospital is, the first thing we noticed is that Haikou is definitely back to normal, and very busy. Apart from the cars in this dashcam screenshot, check out the number of two wheeled vehicles waiting on every corner!

The hospital was also back to its usual hustle and bustle too but we were early enough not to be too far back in any of the queues we had to join. Apart from having my monthly needle I also had to have my quarterly PSA tests today so double worrying for me. Those who know me will know that I really can’t stand needles! Anyway, we were soon done and then off to the police office that deals with visas. That was my first and biggest disappointment of the day, they had issued me with a visa, but only for eight months. To explain, I am on a spousal visa, being married to Huan of course. Now for Huan to be able to ‘sponsor’ me here in Hainan she needs a local ‘Hukou card’ which she has had since 2015 and which she renews every year. In the past my visa was not ‘tied’ to her local card, my first visa was for sixteen months and my second was for three years. We had been informed that three years would not be possible this time, only one or two. I was hoping for two of course but would have been happy with one, I was definitely not expecting only eight months. This means that both my visa and Huan’s local Hukou expire on the same day. Can you predict the problems next January when I have to renew again?

PS to the above. Huan’s son works in Shanghai, his Hukou is issued from Dalian so he also has to have a locally issued one. This allows him to continue paying his pension contributions, his health insurance etc and he can go to hospital, if necessary, in the same way that he would in Dalian. Huan however, gets no benefits for having a local card at all because she is retired. Her pension is paid by Dalian and should she have any health problems she would need to pay the full whack here and then go off up to Dalian with all the receipts to try and claim a refund. “Why the difference?” you may ask. Well Huan’s son pays tax in Shanghai, and Huan, being retired, does not pay tax in Hainan.

Anyway, I got my visa. Off we scooted muttering to each other in the car, and went back onto Haidian Dao to our normal hotel. They weren’t very keen on having us at all, they said the floor we usually stay in was under refurbishment and that if we stayed in any of the other two floors, we would be continually disturbed by the noise. We found another hotel, a little more expensive, but with a decent size car park and a western style breakfast which we would have to pay extra for. After all the formalities had been gone through, my passport with visa, Huan’s Hukou card and my bank card, the receptionist then asked for our health checks on our phones. Well, according to the news, these checks are no longer necessary so Huan had removed her app. She could have reinstalled it, but the hotel wanted us both to have the check and as you know, it can’t be installed on my phone. So that was it then, no stay in a hotel this time, another disappointment.

At least when we got back to the hospital to pick up my blood test results, there wasn’t any bad news there. Everything seems within the limits; even my TSTII is low enough to put me in the female category!

More good news on the shopping front, we found the spices I need and as usual we bought the necessities like cheese. This time we were lucky enough to find some ciabatta, all I have to do now is work out what to eat it with.

Driving back to Wuzhishan was much better than last month, I wasn’t falling asleep at the wheel! We were also graced with a rainbow for quite a large part of the journey and when we stopped, we both took photos of it. Here, for your perusal, is Huan’s.

Not only did we see the rainbow but we ate some very tasty grilled Taiwan sausages, Huan managed to get the chef to show her the packet, photos were taken, we’ll search them out either on our next visit to Haikou, or on Taobao. So, a day that started out good, then turned into one of disappointments, finally ended on a good note!