July 7th It was a bad day for
plans again, mine anyway. Huan had planned to stay home and make dumplings this
morning, for our tenants in Ledong so I decided a walk via landfill mountain
would be in order. Huan is not keen on that walk, too much dust from passing
highway construction traffic. When I roused my weary bones this morning, the
good lady was already hard at work and had decided we would walk together
today. Now I do enjoy, nay love, her company but just sometimes, a solo walk
goes down a treat. There will be more soon, OAP singing school has started
again.
So, today was a walk round the river, not my mountain route or
Huan’s scenic mountain route, we had to get back for when the pastry had risen.
Huan knew that taking photos with Marvin was this week’s plan so I got a lot of
‘direction’. We came home with 116 photos! The worst sixteen have been removed,
the rest have been uploaded to Google Photos, only a few will be used here.
First up is bridge progress, it looks like they
have finished the centre droppers now, they’re working faster than they ever
have in the last two years. This photo was taken at 3x zoom, which in Marvin’s
case, is optical and not electronic.
Next up is the Gaokao. Due to
Covid-19 all the exams were delayed this year and the Gaokao was rescheduled
for today. I’m sure you know by now that the Gaokao is the Chinese university
entrance exam, the most important step for most students. When it takes place,
roads get blocked off to cars although we can still walk past. Here’s the road
block and the stairs to the school.
I wonder how students feel
walking up there on the dreaded day. I know that I was terrified of exams and I
guess we had less pressure. Even through my army training the routine tests
were fine but when it came to the three monthly tests, what we called, barrier
tests, I became a bag of nerves and only just scraped a pass mark each time.
Lots of different types of
photos were taken on the way round, some more successful than others. It would
appear that Android phone cameras are almost as hard to get the hang of as
‘real’ cameras. These were two macros, for me, the second seems much better
than the first.
Marvin, like all modern
phones, professes to be able to do a lot of things. In this case, we have an
optical zoom of 3x and then a digital zoom up to 30x. The 3x is quite good, but
don’t try and zoom into the photos on a 27 inch monitor! 5x is not too bad, 10x
is worse and 30x is awful. This view was taken at 1x, if you check the album,
(see bottom of this post), you will see comparison photos taken from the same
spot.
Tilt-shift was my next
test, I thought it should do more than this. Perhaps there are other controls
for this that I haven’t found yet.
Walking back along the
river took quite some time, Huan was calling me back every few minutes to
provide me with more subjects. Insects seemed to be high on the agenda again
today, here’s the first, taken with Macro.
The next one was taken with
3x zoom.
And this one was taken with
1x zoom.
Quite a few more photos were taken on the way round, playing around
with various options on the camera, ‘beautifying’ Huan, another tilt-shift,
some B&W etc. I have no idea why Chinese people, maybe westerners now for
all I know, seem to like these beautifying filters. To me, it looks like
everyone has been embalmed! Follow the album link to see more.
My turn to cook dinner today, a planned two day
dinner because we won’t be here tomorrow in the daytime. I’m not exactly sure
what to call this, we always call it Shepherd’s pie but it isn’t really. Google
says – “What's the difference between Shepherd's Pie and Cottage Pie?
Shepherd's Pie contains lamb and is an Irish specialty. Cottage Pie is English
and contains beef. Both have mashed potatoes on top. My version had pork mince,
onions, garlic, celery, carrot, tomato and mushroom under, with some Italian
seasoning, a little salt, a little soya sauce and a dash of tomato sauce. On
top it was a mix of sweet potato, normal potato and carrot mashed, with butter
and milk of course, topped off with Mozzarella, the only cheese we had open in
the fridge.
That’s Huan’s plate, mine broke up so wasn’t good enough to photo.
Her portion may look small, but once the photo was taken I added to it. We
would often have peas with this but today we had enough vegetables inside it.
Oh, I forgot to add my Endomondo woes. The voice coach works well
now, I get a notification every kilometres including the time for that particular
one. The GPS may or may not be giving me the correct info, although the
tracking on the map looks right. It told us today we had walked over eight
kilometres, I believe it was nearer seven and a half. In the audio notification
for Endomondo there is also a GPS warning, I guess it tells you whenever the
coverage changes, how many satellites etc. However, it is just an audible
sound, not a voice, and mine was going permanently, it was driving me crazy. I
could disable it in settings but as soon as I started a new workout, it enabled
itself again. I can’t seem to find the problem at all so I’ve sent a message to
Endomondo, fingers crossed, but not hopeful.
July 8th Both up nice and
early ready for today’s trip to Ledong. I was up before Huan so, as I always
do, I quickly popped in the bathroom, grabbed my shorts and went to the kitchen
trying not to disturb her too much. Halfway through my cereal she appeared, in
a bit of a panic. When I popped into the bathroom, I didn’t notice anything
amiss, when she went in, for longer, she spotted a problem. It’s not a new
problem for us, although it is new in the bathroom, it is – water coming
through from upstairs! We’ve had it in two bedrooms and the kitchen but this is
the first time in the bathroom. Not much I could do of course except to try and
calm Huan down, telling her that it was too early to go looking for answers and
to eat her breakfast and drink her tea first. She listened and agreed, for a
change! Somebody was supposed to have the key for the flat above us but they
are now denying it, Huan thinks they are telling lies to avoid having to pay
any bills. Eventually it was sorted out in the usual way, the water to that
apartment was turned off and a note left for them telling them to contact the
maintenance company when, or if, they return. I did try and take a picture of
it but Huan had cleaned up so there wasn’t much to see.
So, with the problems sorted off we went to
Ledong. The security people wouldn’t allow us in with the car which angered
Huan a little as we are ‘owners’ but there was a parking space outside, very
near so I parked there to calm everyone down a little. Luckily for me I was
allowed in this time. The swimming pool is still full, but empty of people,
nearly all the occupants have gone back up north. I think most pools are still
closed after the virus problems too.
Our tenants were pleased to
see us, and we them. I do like our visits, just not when they drag on too long.
Today was fine, we were a little later than usual so it was approaching lunch
time and they didn’t press us to stay longer as they usually do. Here they are,
with Huan, going through the bills and next year’s contract.
The last picture of Ledong
is our new water meter, it took a long time to replace and today is the first
time we saw it in situ.
I spent the afternoon trying to get on line to the west, with no
success. When I wasn’t doing that I was scanning all the Ledong paperwork and
my last lot of hospital paperwork and combining and converting all the files from
the dashcam. We need it nice and clean for Friday.
Come evening time and I walked down to the town
square with the ladies, I wanted to try out some photos with the night filter
on, some worked and some didn’t. Here’s the first one, with no moving subjects,
it turned out reasonably well.
Pictures with moving
subjects were, obviously, nowhere near as good, you can see them in the album.
The general street views were not too bad, for me anyway. However, I think I
have a lot of learning to do with this camera. Roll on the day they put a pdf
manual on the internet!
July 9th Today is Thursday and as such should have been a solo walk for yours
truly. However, Yu and Huan are both skiving off their singing classes this
week, they are going to start next week, or so they say. I suppose it did give
Huan and I a chance to take the mountain scenic walk which has been planned for
a few days now. Our first picture is our local bridge again, the walkway
supports in the middle have now been completed, we await the two ends being
done.
On the island I managed to
get a look in the big hole and see how the cable stays are anchored to the
ground. Behind what you can see is an enormous amount of rebar and cement.
Lots of photos were taken
on our way round today, over two hundred in fact, after some pruning I got it
down to one hundred and forty eight. Not all will be here! We passed by the
irrigation canal, joined the main road and passed the school where it seems
Goako is finished and coaches were being laid on to take the students back to
their home towns. We thought, with life being very much back to normal, that
we’d try the shortcut to the scenic walk. Unfortunately, the staff at that
residential complex had other ideas.
Huan was happy enough to
have her photo taken by this little car, which makes a change, but she wasn’t
very happy about my suggestion of buying one just like it for her!
It’s been quite a long
while since we did the mountain scenic walk, we always take the road up, cross
the river, and come down through the forest. We had hoped that the road works
on the way up would have been completed by now. Huan’s initial response was
that it would probably be done by the end of the year. She changed her mind
when we got a bit further up and I pointed out that work hadn’t even started
there yet. Still, at least it’s still navigable.
Lots and lots of photos
were taken, at every corner so you could see what is coming up next, mostly normal,
no zoom photos, and one or two with a zoom. This is when we reached the bridge
to cross over and go back down the other side and this is 3x zoom.
We say that we go down the
other side, well, there is a little bit of up too. However, it is much easier
going round the way we do instead of park first and road second. Here are a
couple of photos just to let you see what it’s like, we enjoy it.
Our last photo for today
was not taken by Marvin, shock, horror etc. No, it’s actually a screen shot of
Endomondo on the PC just to let you see that the route tracking appears to be
OK although the distance tracking seems to be off, especially at the beginning.
With a reported eleven and a half kilometres, which we consider at least ten
and a half, maybe eleven, I’m not complaining today. It’s been a long while since
I got my ten kilometres a day in! I haven’t sorted out the GPS warning
notifications yet so it was driving me crazy all the way round.
July 10th Up with the pigs going to market again, watching them on the backs of
motorbikes while having my (early) morning coffee at four o’clock. Marvin tried
a few more ‘night filter’ photos, not so good, but then again, it could be just
me!
We pulled in for a stop on
the way only to find that not only were the restaurants and shop closed but the
petrol station was too. Fuel wasn’t on our agenda but a drink from the
forecourt shop would have been nice. Why do we go so early? Well this is the
car park queue shortly after half past seven, we were already in. They are queuing
from the main road and further to the right of this photo, not too bad today,
it’s Friday!
By arriving early, this is
Huan in the upstairs queue, always shorter than the downstairs one but can
still get very long after seven thirty.
By twenty to nine we were
all done. I had tried to be brave and not cover my ears and eyes, but as usual,
I failed. I did keep them open while the nurse cleaned the ‘target area’ but as
soon as she started un-boxing the needle I gave up. By nine we were at “The
Grocery” stocking up on necessities, not too many this month. I’ll have to
remedy that and drain Huan’s wallet a bit more next month!
Not too long after, at
eleven in fact, we were at our usual roadside stop on the way home. Today I had
planned to take the next of the only two available stops but my eyes were
drooping so the first one it was. It has changed, for the better, both food
outlet and shop wise. It’s nothing like a motorway stop in the UK
One or two more photos were taken, you can see them in the album. We
were home by one in the afternoon, earlier than usual and by quarter past one
we were both in the land of nod, another OAP nap. It was nearly two hours
before I surfaced, Huan woke much earlier than me. Dinner was leftover pizza
that we had previously frozen, quick, easy and good enough for us.
Lots of work for me then, dashcam uploading, combining and
converting, Marvin uploading to PC and Google ,
SD
July 11th Huan treated Marvin and I to a trip to the “Motor Show” otherwise known
as “Central Hainan (Wuzhishan) Car Buying
Festival, 2020”. To be honest, I can’t see them selling too many, especially as
most of the snowbirds have disappeared back up North. Still, it gave me a
chance to browse what was on offer even though, as per one of the salesmen, if
you don’t have a Haikou
There isn’t a great deal of room down by the river and despite there
not being many probable buyers, there were quite a lot of people going through
the motions. I didn’t get much chance to have a sit and I didn’t want to waste
the salesmen’s time but I did get to sit in the Rover, or as it’s called in China
Today was also riverside market day, the first
time since the virus reared its ugly head. As usual I took lots of photos
there, you can find them in the album for this week. There are also some of the
scenery, even one or two of me, that I’m not impressed with at all. On our last
lap we spotted, would you believe it, goats again. These kids are only twenty
days old and the owner told us that their mother had died giving birth to them,
he is now their surrogate Mum.
Remember the cats we tried
with Huan’s phone, well we passed them today as well so took three photos, 1x
zoom, 3x zoom and 5x zoom, this is the latter.
Our day finished by
arriving home to find that the changeover of rubbish bins has been completed.
This is what we now have, for six buildings with at least fifty apartments in
each building. “It’ll be fine, they will get emptied every day” was the
maintenance company’s response to our queries. I’ll believe that when I see it
and I know just what will happen during any holiday periods!
Did I say our day finished? I was wrong, Huan found water all over
the dining room floor, this time not from an upstairs neighbour but from our
very own water cooler. I don’t know, it never rains but it pours! Taking the
back off I can’t see any obvious problems but when we move the bottle around on
the top water appears inside. We suspect that the plastic may be broken. I just
checked on the internet, it says we have two years warranty, that’s probably a
joke. I cheered us up with a full English for dinner, that always works!
July 12th Today was Marvin’s last big day out so we took him for a Sunday
saunter, past the bap shop and back along the river. Yesterday you had the car
show, today you have a car, well, at least I think it’s a car. It is an
electric one and, believe it or not, it’s a four door, four seater!
Next up is the “Thinker”,
I’m sure you all know about him but I’m just as sure that you never expected to
find him languishing in the bushes of a Chinese apartment block. This one is
taken at 3x zoom, you can see the 1x and the 5x in the album.
Another famous persona,
perhaps even more so here is of course “Monkey King” and here he is, being his
usual cowardly self and hiding behind Piggy. The four statues have been stored
while the garden is being landscaped so who knows, they may get moved to a
better spot later.
We were fairly early
arriving at the bap bakery but not really early enough. They only had four left
which we took, I guess they really are baking less with no snowbirds to cater
for. With no customers to be seen, apart from us, pets were out in force though.
Cats being cats, were too haughty to stay and talk but the little puppy was
happy to.
Our Sunday saunter was over seven
kilometres, if Endomondo is right, and we are so unused to it that we both
needed an afternoon sleep, again longer for me than Huan. I don’t know how she
does it, twenty minutes to half an hour and she is fighting fit again, for me,
I have to drag myself up after an hour and a half or two, or more!
July 13th Today is Monday which as
you know is shopping day so Marvin didn’t get much ‘exposure’ today. (See what
I did there?) Climbing into the car, through the passenger door, would have
been a good shot but Huan was busy having a gossip! Why the passenger door?
Well I had had to climb out of that door when we parked in the only available
slot when we last came home. Once in with the car started Marvin got his
chance, just look at the temperature! Oh, and those of you thinking you know
the song that’s displayed, it’s a disco version and sounds nothing at all like
the original.
One of these days I may try
and take some photos inside the supermarket but they can get very funny about
cameras, industrial espionage you know… When we arrived home we found a
stowaway on the back window, at least we think he was a stowaway. He may have
hitched a lift from the supermarket, from the street outside the covered market
or perhaps he just dropped off the tree where we parked at home. I almost
managed to tickle this one under the chin but I couldn’t really get a very
decent photo.
None of this week’s photos have been played with in any way. They
have not been cropped, colours have not been altered, neither has sharpness,
contrast or anything else. I wanted you to see them as we took them straight
from the camera, apart from the size reduction for uploading of course. You can
see the whole week’s worth here - Xiaomi Redmi 10X Pro -
What’s my verdict? As far as the camera goes the Redmi comes nowhere
near the Nokia. It has lots of bells and whistles on it but the finished result
goes to the Nokia every time. This is most obvious when you zoom in on a photo
on a PC but you can see the difference even without doing that. And the phone?
I’ll put up with it because I have to but given the choice, and if the three or
four apps that I need were available for it, I would stick with a Windows phone
every time. Android, for me, is a nightmare mish mash of notifications and
permissions, some apps will work where others won’t. Some apps won’t work
unless you allow them access to parts of the phone that in my mind, they don’t
need access to. Now this could be the Chinese user interfaces and software
overlaid over the base android OS so maybe it’s not a fair comparison. I’d be
happy to be proved wrong!
Tomorrow back to normal, no more pressure for poor old Marvin, he
can relax for a while. Don’t tell him that he’s for the high jump just as soon
as we win the lottery! See you next week.
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