More Trials and Tribulations of the Landlords.

September 29^th Up early to try and get the Youtube upload and one of our Dashcam videos compiled before setting off for Sanya. Here’s the Youtube link for Huan’s show https://youtu.be/2vsJ9OnAkMY
 
Arrived in Sanya and found an illegal parking place near enough to the apartment to unload the car. Once everything had been carted upstairs we tried to find a parking space. It took a while but we found one, probably a kilometre away, just before lunch.
 
Huan’s appointment with the workman was for lunch time, he didn’t turn up, his daughter’s husband’s father was sent in his place. According to him he had done most of the work and we therefore owed him the money we had initially agreed with our man, without taking into account the deposit we had already paid. If I thought Huan was shouting last week you should have heard her today. Just like last time I ran away and had a coffee and a fag outside. By the time I came back voices were more normal and everything appeared to have been sorted out fairly amicably.
 
Was the apartment sorted out? Not really, the kitchen units hadn’t been touched, the walls had not had enough coats of paint, the old ceiling lamps had not been removed, etc.
 
Needless to say Huan put me to work almost immediately, well after a burger lunch. My first job was the kitchen units, there’s absolutely no chance of taking the stone back to its original colour but at least I got the tiles done.

Next up was all the switches and sockets, Jif works wonders. It’s a pity it can’t sort out the loose sockets too. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to sort all those out. The cleaning was OK though, what do you think?

Dinner was next, no burgers this time, a pork steak for me and I’m really not sure what Huan’s was. It was definitely noodles but the topping looked like cheese, didn’t taste anything like cheese though. Still, the food did the job and filled us up.

I needed filling up of course because I had another big job before I was finished for the day, blowing up the air bed. Yes, the pump packed in years ago and we never got round to buying another one. Still, I have a lot of puff!

Here’s Huan making sure I did a good job!

September 30^th The sink was skew-whiff so our hardware man had to come back and do the job again. He told us it would definitely be all right by tomorrow morning but that if it wasn’t he was only just across the road!

He visited us three times today, each visit meaning he had to run back to the shop to sort things out. The first job was the sink, the second was the fan and the third was the water heater. Yes, he and Huan decided it would have to be replaced. That job alone took him four of five trips to and from his shop. At least it meant I got a shower this evening.

And what did I do all day today? I cleaned the window frames and windows, the bedroom one and the one above the door. Above the door I had to use the grease removing spray again, for the bedroom, Jif was enough. Here I am hard at work.

While I was busy all day we also had the hardware shop man from across the road into to sort things out. Our previous tenants had destroyed all the ceiling lights so he replaced those for us. They had also ‘lost’ the sink and the bathroom fan, so said he’d replace those too, with instructions not to use the sink before the morning. Usually sinks would be screwed to the wall and then the pedestal placed underneath. Here the sink is placed on the pedestal and then glued to the wall. The fan had to be delayed until the morning; the one he brought was too small for the enormous hole left behind by the old one.

I finished my evening sitting on the steps outside having a couple of ice cold beers. They were foreign, (Corona), only ¥8.00 each. I was hoping they would help me sleep, a vain hope. Apart from the airbed not being as comfortable as I remembered I also had a headache, probably from the grease removal spray I’d been using all day. 

Some more good news, the washing machine arrived yesterday and the fridge arrived this evening. We needed some clothes washing, sweating cobblers with all this work. The fridge means I will able to have cold coffee and water without running to the shop every time.

The TV also arrived yesterday and the ISP men turned up today. My job was to mount it on the wall so that Huan could sort out what she could watch. There was a tiny sticker on the screen, taking it off showed some slight pixel problems! It’ only small and the TV is not for us so we are just going to ignore it.

Bad news, Huan annoyed the neighbours across the alley; they asked her to stop playing the Hulusi so their baby could sleep. Mind you, that’s good news for me I suppose. To be fair to both of them, it was half past ten but Huan thought it was only about nine.
 
More bad news, the air-conditioner has packed up, Huan thinks I broke it! All I did was clean the filters and the outside. Ah well, let’s see what tomorrow brings.
 
October 1st “October gave a party; The leaves by hundreds came, The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples, And leaves of every name. The Sunshine spread a carpet, And everything was grand, Miss Weather led the dancing, Professor Wind the band. (October's Party by George Cooper)
 
We slept marginally better last night, partly because we were both exhausted and partly because I gave the bed some more hot air! However, Huan, poor lady, woke up with her ‘menopausal morning sickness’, it’s been a while since the last one. I left her in bed and went out alone.
 
I was looking for a curtain shop; Huan has ordered curtain rails, but the wrong size! We have seen one or two on our wanders but I couldn’t find any of then today. In fact I got lost and ended up by the river behind our place. The apartment is in a warren, with no obvious lay out or planning whatsoever. Initially all the buildings were low, one, two or three storeys, but as they knock those down they are replacing them with six, seven and more storey buildings. No car parking is provided for any of these buildings so the (narrow) roads are a mess, finding a parking spot for a moped is bad enough.
 

Eventually, after about four kilometres, I found my way back to our place and had breakfast where we had eaten yesterday. I had a ‘lonely table, just for one’.

Back to the apartment and try and fix Chinese input on the computer for Huan. Halfway through the keyboard stopped working, so had to look for a fix for that. It works for a while and stops, requiring a restart before it works again. Device driver is fine; perhaps the keyboard is on its way out, this laptop is now maybe seven years old. At least I sorted out the Pinyin input tool.
 
Huan was still in horizontal mode so I went wandering again. This time I walked about six kilometres and up and down what seemed to be hundreds of little streets. I found many restaurants, many massage places, many hair salons, all the usual shops you would expect to find in a town centre. Did I find a curtain shop? No, I was unsuccessful yet again.
 
I skipped lunch, a bottle of coffee, a bottle of water and a can of coke was enough to fill me! When Huan is sick she needs rice soup so I found some in the breakfast place. Once she’d eaten that she resumed the horizontal position, I joined her and immediately zonked out for the next two hours.
 
When we raised ourselves to the vertical position Huan felt a bit better so we decided a walk was in order. If we passed a curtain shop all well and good but our plan was to walk in a complete circle, up one river then across the main roads and down the other one. It was over seven kilometres, guess who’s knackered yet again? I will put an album in my Google Photos, calling it “Sanya Apartment Area”, for now, you can see a snippet or two.

At the end of our walk, here’s a happier Huan.

I thought that would be the end of my day but the hardware man came back to remove the tape that was holding the sink and pedestal to the wall while the ‘glue’ dried. I then had the job of cleaning all around that area, removing bits of tape left behind and Jiffing away like mad. The rest of the room will be cleaned with the degreasing spray and a hosepipe but I thought it better to keep both of those away from the sink and pedestal. Work should start again in earnest tomorrow when we are expecting the furniture to arrive.

October 2^nd Two grumpy old folks this morning, neither of us slept well at all, maybe we had too much sleep yesterday afternoon. Off to breakfast we went and the first thing we saw was a problem in the making. This is our building internet lines.

They drooped down even further later on, so much so that I could grasp them with my hand. Luckily, when the garbage truck came along, the driver climbed on top of his truck and carried out a temporary repair. As my Filipino technicians would have said to me in the Middle East, it’s done boss, temporary-permanent!
 
After breakfast we went looking for an Air Conditioner repair man and, unlike the curtain shop, we found one within a few minutes. He quoted Huan ¥300.00 to replace the electronic panel, and ¥500.00 to replace the indoor unit complete. Huan was all set to go for the cheaper price so I gently asked her to take a look at the rest of the unit, which was now visible in all its glory, and tell me it was good for another year or two. We went for the new (second hand) unit, here’s the fitter hard at work making a mess so that I will have to repaint the wall!

Taobao was our next job, ordering tile paint, not quite so easy but we got there. We also had to order a new curtain rod for the bedroom, that was not so easy. Just as the computer was shutting down for lunch Huan had a panic as to whether she had ordered one piece two metres long or two pieces one metre long. Back on went the laptop and there then followed a long chat with the supplier, we had ordered a two metre rod but that included the decorative end pieces, we needed two metres plus one end piece and one blocking piece. At least the keyboard kept working while Huan was chatting to them.

After lunch I made a start on cleaning the bathroom walls, used lots of degreasing spray, rubbed like mad with a mildly abrasive cloth, all was going well. Using the hose to clean the walls down didn’t work so well, first the hose fell off the tap and then the tap fell off the wall! Our hardware man was required yet again; the internal thread had broken and had to be removed before a new tap could be fitted. The walls finally got rinsed.
 
October 3^rd Another night sleeping on the floor, a little better than previous nights, we stayed awake all day and dossed down about half past ten. We also had the air conditioner on, good for me, not so good for Huan.
 
Still no sign of the furniture after breakfast so I finished off the bathroom. The bowl needed cleaning, inside and out, loads of Jif required followed by a good spray with the hosepipe. The floor was next, also loads of Jif, it’s better now but still not up to the standard I would like. Unfortunately, the only way to do that is to redo the tiles completely.
 
Still waiting for the furniture after lunch, we could see it was moving around Sanya but we had no idea where. Warehouse names are given but no actual locations. After dozing off again, we found out that it seems to be going around in circles and it is now back to where it was at eleven o’clock this morning.
 
Dinner was downstairs at the burger shop again, to avoid going too far. I had curry with rice, a couple of limp lettuce leaves and their usual chicken. The curry was very good, worth having again. In these small Chinese burger shops the chicken is always covered with a spicy coating, didn’t quite mix well with the curry. Once again it did the job and filled a hole.
 
No chance of a furniture delivery today so we went looking for Huan’s bank to pop some more money into her Taobao account. It took us a while, three hours in fact when we probably walked twelve kilometres. The exercise did us good! On our way round we spotted a woman creating a mural on a wall, probably a new restaurant. She was pretty good!

The moon was rising as we were the other side of the river walking towards the famous walking bridge so Huan insisted I take photos of it. I must admit it looked beautiful but I only had my phone with me. I tried, if you look at this one from a distance, it’s not too bad!

We had found Huan’s bank just before moonrise so we walked back across that famous bridge. It also looks beautiful at night time and this photo is not too bad. There are Chinese characters dancing along in lights, not visible here, they say “Beautiful Sanya, Romantic World’s End”. Historically, Sanya was known as the end of the world and where ‘bad’ Chinese nobility were banished to.

October 4^th After a fifth night on the floor, the waiting game started again. We started off with an early river walk again just to prepare ourselves. The delivery eventually arrived just before lunch and then came the problem of getting the boxes upstairs, courier companies only deliver to the building. Huan tried to find someone to help but once they saw me they decided I was made of money and upped their price. I ended up carrying all but the heaviest box myself. That one was 188kg and we convinced our hardware man and his son to help, for a much cheaper price.
 
Once it was all upstairs and we had finished lunch then work started in earnest. Clearing the bedroom floor I started with the wardrobe, here I am trying to understand the instructions, which at least were pictorial and not Chinese, then doing the assembly and finally the wardrobe in its final resting place.

After a break for dinner, downstairs at the burger joint again, it was time to assemble the bed. Apart from a minor hiccough where we had the two end pieces upside down it was all done before eight o’clock, here I am putting the finishing touches in place.

The next job was the computer table, so that we could finish the bedroom this evening. No photos of me working, just the finished unit, it was easy to assemble.

After a short break I managed to assemble one of the bedside tables by which time I was exhausted and decided to leave the second one until the morning.
 
October 5th After a surprisingly good sleep and a hearty breakfast we decided to take a trip to the ‘suppliers’ area in Sanya and ordered a new toilet and a new bathroom door. I have no idea what our previous tenants did with the nice toilet we left them but the one they left us was not coping with what it should! As for the door, well suffice to say it was no longer fit for purpose. Job done, now we await the deliveries and installation. Thank God the Site Foreman is not making me do that too!
 
Once home I finished the second bedside table, so easy when you’ve already done one. No rest for the wicked of course, I then had to assemble the table and chairs, which came with no instructions. However, Taobao has its plus points and Huan talking to the supplier got us a link to a video showing the assembly. Huan took no photos of me assembling the table, I guess she thought it was too easy but she did take a few of me doing the chairs.

By the time that was done it was out for dinner again, this time something different. We sat by the side of the East side river, near ‘Lover’s Bridge’ and ate a Xinjiang (naan) bread each with bananas, they go together quite well! Somewhere on the way home Huan bought me a new pair of shorts, my black ones were no longer decent to sit on the steps outside with. After that I managed to get us both a little lost meaning we had another six or seven kilometre walk! We were both done in when we got home but at least there was no work for this evening.
 
You will no doubt have noticed that this upload is late. My apologies for that but I need to be in Wuzhishan on the desktop to be able to sort things out correctly and to stay connected long enough to upload. Stay tuned for more when the Commander gives me my orders for tomorrow! Bye for now.