Rigsby’s Still Despondent, Huan’s Still Worrying

October 13^th A new week, and a much better me this morning, I must have done something right yesterday. Noodle soup for breakfast went down well, the fly screen from the bedroom was delivered for repair and the door installer arrived. We thought that they would give us a nice finish as they had done for the front door but it seems this time we need to make it all nice ourselves. He did a good job for us though, here’s the new door, from both sides, but with the outside wall not yet filled, sanded and painted.

Once the doorman had gone and we had cleaned up the mess he left behind we set out for lunch and to try and find a local tile shop to ‘finish’ the floor under the new door. What a farce that turned out to be. Our doorman told us where to find a shop, we didn’t go there first, instead we prowled our local streets. Typhoon Nangka is about to attack Hainan so there was a lot of rain. I bought Huan a new brolly, I got soaked! We found nothing around our streets so went to where the doorman told us to go, guess what, there was nothing there either. “Let’s try across the river” we thought, still getting wet as we went, well me anyway. Someone told us which street to find a tile shop on, much later on we still hadn’t found that street and weren’t even sure it existed. Finally someone pointed us in the right direction, we took a taxi there and I thought our day would end happily. Once again, I was wrong! I had convinced Huan that it would be better to replace the whole toilet floor than just repair the door sill. The area we found the tile shops in had plenty, big ones, small ones, all sorts of assorted sizes. There was a problem though. Not one of them was willing to take on the job of a bathroom floor, not enough money in it for them. We couldn’t even find one to cut one tile for us if we bought one from them. In the end we gave up and decided to talk to the hardware man tomorrow. Having walked we think at least fifteen kilometres today, well over four hours anyway, we took another taxi back home.

Tonight’s dinner, with no argument from either of us, was from the burger shop downstairs. We shared a whole chicken and some chips, makes us sound greedy doesn’t it? I included Huan’s ‘small’ hand in the photo so that you can see our eyes were not bigger than our bellies!

October 14^th Rain stopped early this morning, not too long before we raised ourselves for another day, and easier one today though. Typhoon Nangka has now passed over Hainan and is on its way towards Vietnam. So far, there is no sign of the other two ‘promised’ typhoons, maybe they’ll fizzle out before they start.

I only had two little jobs this morning, the first was putting some cable cleats back on the internet wire that Huan had managed to knock off, the second was installing an edging strip to cover where the previous tenants had managed to destroy the tile corners in the kitchen. Huan likes it, I’m not so impressed.

After lunch the hardware store man returned to install the cooker extractor fan and a new sink. He tried to sell us an expensive extractor fan but knowing how Chinese tenants look after things we stuck to the cheap version. That was not too difficult to do. I know there’s dust everywhere, these photos are not the ‘advertising’ versions.

He also installed a new sink for us which I’m convinced is not the one he showed us! This one necessitated him cutting the stone to make a bigger hole and it had two ‘tap’ holes. Most Chinese kitchens only have cold water in the kitchen, as this apartment does, so a second hole was not required. Still, I’m only the banker on this occasion, Huan decides and I pay! Spot the sealant all around which I had asked not to have, was assured we wouldn’t have, but had to have to keep the sink in place.

Next up the sill between the bathroom and the outer room, he found a tile that fitted, but would not go into all the nooks and crannies and more sealant was used to hold it down. We can use the bathroom today but we mustn’t step on that piece.

Next up, Huan had been going to fill the wall above the bathroom door, she likes doing it and she’s good at it, but somewhere along the way she had agreed to let the hardware man loose on it. According to him, the hole was too deep and a different filler was needed to start with.

For some reason, Huan changed her mind and she decided to fill the hole, first with some black stuff that she cadged from a local building site and then with a tube of ready prepared filler. Here she is doing the tube application. I think she prefers the stuff that you mix up yourself but she couldn’t find the powder locally. Tomorrow will be sanding down, refilling if necessary and then painting, two jobs for me, maybe one for Huan.

No long walks today, we’re both too tired.

October 15^th Mostly a very boring day but at least with some light at the end of the tunnel I suppose. We are waiting for a couple more Taobao deliveries and then we can bring things to a close. Today Huan had me painting again.

I spoke far too early about the rain; it was going all night last night and has been at it for most of today as well. Because of that, dinner was a very small local restaurant.

Was it good? Well Huan chose fish, which was shown on the ‘wall menu’ as a whole one, and I chose pork and garlic legs, or I thought I did. As you can see, Huan’s fish was not exactly whole but at least it was fish. Mine was completely wrong, Huan told me that she had ordered the wrong one, she will insist on not wearing her glasses to read!

October 16^th Alone again, for a few minutes anyway, Huan has gone out to put some adverts up on the public notice boards. More light can be seen at the end of the tunnel, I took the ladder back to the car this morning. Jobs in the apartment were cleaning the bathroom door frame, lubricating the front door locks and hinges with the Chinese equivalent of WD40 etc. Once the cheapo kitchen shelf thing has arrived, I will be able to pack up the tools and move them to the car as well.

We couldn’t go anywhere as we were waiting for Taobao deliveries, the first one turned up just before lunch, two ‘hooks’ to fill two holes in the bathroom wall that were not the right distance apart to be able to replace with something similar to what was there before. Still, the holes got hidden and the new tenants should be able to put their small hand towels on them, or flannels as we would probably call them. Huan tells me that not many Chinese people us large bath towels as we do.

Just before dinner the long awaited bathroom door hooks arrived. Huan had ordered these but I think I would probably have made the same mistake. “What mistake?” some of you will ask while the more observant among you will have noticed that the hooks are on the outside of the bathroom door. Because the bathroom is so small we asked for the door to open outwards but forgot all about that when ordering the hooks. Ah well, at least they have towel hooks near the bathroom, all they have to do is reach round the door.

For dinner we treated ourselves today and went to a麻辣烫 (má là tang) restaurant, which translates as “Spicy Hot”. You can find them all over China and you can select your preferred level of ‘heat’. We both asked for fairly mild today, mine tasted a little like a Thai coconut curry although of course the textures were completely different. You chose what goes into your dish; they weigh it for the cost and then cook it for you. This place had no fresh meat, just a lot of pre-processed stuff, but it was good enough for us today. This is the counter we chose from, as you can see, it can be as healthy or as unhealthy as you make it.

October 17^th More rain, and more forecast, for the next three days at least. Not to worry, we had to stay in waiting for Taobao again. The storage unit arrived and I was suitably unimpressed. I hadn’t expected to like it much; Huan ordered it against my advice. She thought that a ‘metal’ cupboard would be better for Chinese people and wouldn’t get destroyed as easy. It does look metal but all the coloured panelling you can see is just compressed hardboard. I would give it a month or two at most.

We had a very short walk out at lunchtime, just to buy a few dumplings, Huan had two and I had one with a leftover moon cake from yesterday. We both slept far too much in the afternoon. In the evening we thought we would try the up-market shopping mall across the main road, maybe eat something a it different. It was a waste of time! The only ‘foreign’ option was KFC. Apart from that it was heaving with masses of humanity, Saturday night and all that. Most of the restaurants were noisy and full and even had queues of people outside waiting for their takeaway number to be called. We escaped and went back through the back streets towards home, on the way finding a decent restaurant, cheaper and more importantly, much quieter. Here’s a picture of Huan through the rainy window and one of me with my pre-dinner beer.

The food as usual bore little resemblance to the menu but it wasn’t too bad. Huan made the better choice with fish; my chicken was fine apart from being too oily.

October 18^th What a miserable day! It poured down from morning to night; too much rain to go anywhere, even dinner was taken at the burger restaurant again. Getting from our door to the restaurant door, only about four or five metres away was quite treacherous, the steps are shiny tiles which get very slippery in the rain. Later on, while I was out on a fag break, the burger shop lady fell out of the shop and down the steps. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt.

Huan wasn’t too happy for other reasons. She did manage a short walk to the real estate office where they told her that rents are down all over Sanya, including in our area. For Sanya in general, Covid 19 is the reason, a lot of Snowbirds are not flocking south this year. In our area we have the added factor of all the local owners deciding to build up their lots from two or three storeys to seven or more. Now these owners have already been recompensed for their land, they were all farmers before, so as long as they get some rent, they are not too worried about how much they get. We may well end up letting the flat out for the same price as last year. If it’s to someone who looks after it, I won’t be too unhappy but the Minister for the Treasury may be.

October 19^th This morning we had a rain free start so we popped off to the bathroom door suppliers, one of the hinges looked wrong. It seems that nothing was really wrong, but the manufacturers sometimes sent a hinge that obviously didn’t pass quality control. He gave us a new hinge, free of charge. Of course while we there, the rain came back, in bucketfuls again.

We drove home a long way round and came back into Sanya on the old beach road from the airport. The rain eased off enough for us to go and look at the sea. Now, you may or may not know that Sanya is the wedding capital of China; couples come here to get married and also to have their wedding photographs taken. Here’s a couple doing the latter.

And here’s Huan looking for shells then showing me what she had found. When she was a young girl, in the summer months, she ran off to the beach everyday after school. In those days she never worried about ‘getting brown’, and today she didn’t have to worry either! It wasn’t raining though; the umbrella was for a photo before.

Of course we had to have a selfie with the beach behind us, I’m not smiling much in this one but this is the better one of Huan.

On our way back into Sanya we kept looking for somewhere different to eat, with somewhere to park the car as well, that’s the difficult part. We found a shopping centre with almost no businesses at all open, just a couple of hotpot restaurants on the ground floor, a French café, and an enormous very successful wedding business on the second floor. Luckily for us, and for a change, there was a Pizza hut! It took a while to find the way in, the ground floor section was all closed, but we found a door on the second floor. There were hardly any customers at all, the staff told us it was the rain, but I seriously doubt that. This mall has three floors and apart from what I’ve already mentioned, the third floor is completely closed off. Anyway, somewhere to have lunch and something different. Huan chose Spanish baked seafood rice for herself and then she chose a plate of ‘snacks’ for me! To be honest, I’m not a fan of big lunches anymore and if we weren’t having pizza than I’d be happy with snacks. Here are the obligatory photos, mine before I tucked in and Huan’s after she had broken the cheesy top layer.

I dropped Huan off at the apartment and then spent nearly an hour going around in circles trying to park the car. Once again, it’s about a kilometre away.

In the evening we were caught out by the menu again, this time because the dishes, when they arrived on our table, looked exactly like the pictures, ginormous! Neither of us could finish what we had ordered, but at least we finished the week on a full stomach. We also managed to finish it dry; it didn’t rain until after we got home.

So, as I said, end of the week, and we’re still not finished. All the work is done but no tenants have been found. Let’s hope next week brings better news. Bye for now!