Too Many Needles, Too Many Speeding Offences and Too Much Rain

November 10^th November 10^th The weather changed, for the worse, yet again. Huan was out in the morning for her usual choir practice, I was lazing on the PC. I had to pack the car and meet her at half past ten though for our monthly trip to Haikou. Lunch was taken en route at a service station we haven’t stopped at before, not the northbound side anyway. It was a pleasant enough place to stop, food was varied and cheap, of course I avoided meat today.

Our usual hotel had vacancies so no worries there and we got the fifth floor which I prefer. This particular room has been refurbished since we last stayed in it, it now has a larger table complete with four chairs, handy for having people round for dinner, and it has a chaise longue to boot!

Here’s the new red laptop all ready to go along with the red mouse and the new red headphones. They will be needed as Huan has brought her hulusi with her.

At the hospital we were good people and waited in the queue today, afternoons seem to be easier than mornings. We had a nice chat with the doctor, his English is not bad, although at times he did have ask Huan for clarification. He decided that this month, as well as my PSA test, I had to have my testosterone checked too. Thank God it was only one needle! We will be able to pick the results up tomorrow afternoon.

From there it was back to the other building for my hormone injection, another needle and a bigger one at that. The nurse is used to me now and didn’t wonder why I put my fingers in my ears and covered my eyes.

All that was left was to try and find some cheapo tracksuit bottoms or pyjamas, I had forgotten to bring anything with me to wear in the hotel room. We failed but at least we got a walk out of it, that took us up to dinner time, no meat again. Back at the hotel I did give in though and had a coffee, from a sachet, which means it had sugar in it. Nothing else till after tomorrows barrage of blood tests now!

November 11^th Met Dr. Tim at eight o’clock, he realised very quickly that I had ‘head’ problems, sinus troubles etc so he gave me a quick check up. I’m pleased to say that my ears, nose, throat and chest are fine, the problem is only in my sinuses. Down to the business at hand then, sorting out what tests I would need to have.

Papers in hand, we set off for the cashier first, then the vampire’s room, which was very busy this morning, and finally to the dispensary for some Tylenol. Results were to be ready in the afternoon, the same time as yesterday’s test results.

After breakfast, it was back to the hotel to while away the time until lunch. The weather precluded any ‘touristy’ stuff. We blame the weather for needing yet another OAP nap after lunch! At four thirty all the test results were in. My PSA levels are fine, the rest I’m not so sure about. Dr. Tim was a little busy when we visited his clinic and if we had stayed to chat to him we would probably have made him ‘late home from work’, instead I decided to scan and email the results when we get home.

Evening time and dinner with friends, Patrick, Flora and their son Padraig, Jake and his friend and neighbour Kevin. We didn’t have far to go, the restaurant was right next door to the hotel. Here’s the adults, well four of them anyway.

Finally, for today, here I am going through the motions of eating a crab from the hot-pot. I’m not a fan of small crabs, trying to get anything out of them is beyond me.

All in all we had a wonderful evening with great company, good food and of course some lovely amber nectar. It was only marred for me by a text message, I managed to get yet another speeding fine on my way up here. I’m already paranoid about all these speed cameras, average speed cameras and having been caught going into a tunnel over the limit before I now take extra care. This fine though, was 150 metres coming out of the tunnel; I guess I pressed the cruise control resume button too early!

November 12^th Nothing to do today except buy some groceries and get ourselves back home to Wuzhishan. En route we stopped at Fengmu again, southbound this time, and the sign above the public conveniences intrigued me. Google tells me that it is Malay, an Austronesian language so I guess there must be a community nearby that are perhaps originally foreign born Chinese.

At the same location we saw something that a neighbour had told us about, it’s where he gets a ‘battery swap’ on his electric car when he’s on his way back to Wuzhishan. I think he told us it takes ten to fifteen minutes.

I love how they have translated ‘User Instructions’, into Chinese but not the actual instructions. Still, I could work out enough to know that I had to call the ‘Specialost’.

We arrived home to a sunnier and warmer Wuzhishan than the one we had left two days ago. It won’t stay though as there’s another typhoon not far away, it’s just passed over the Philippines creating havoc there. Hopefully, like the last few, this one will veer south and spare us the worst.

Admin for me, transferring files and photos to the PC, and housework for Huan. She did find some time for some more hulusi practice though. No cooking today, dinner was out.

On the way out I had to stop and say hello to three of my four legged friends, which I always do through the gate as they’re not allowed out. They are an incredibly noisy bunch and more often or not are taken back inside after I’ve passed by. The largest one, a collie, is the one least likely to bite and always jumps up for a stroke and a tickle. Unfortunately, he, or she, hasn’t had his, or her, nails cut for a long time, this is what my arm looked like four hours later.

On our way out of the gate we bumped into Yu who convinced Huan that I would probably die if I didn’t have an injection immediately, if not sooner. As I haven’t had a tetanus shot for a long time I bowed down to their arguments on the condition that we had dinner first. It’s a good job I did because they won’t give you any shots on an empty stomach. Anyway, off we went to the hospital, to the A&E department, despite it not actually being an emergency. From reception downstairs we were sent up to the cashier’s office to pay for a doctor’s consultation. This was ¥4.00 more than it would have been during working hours, and that should explain why Chinese A&E departments are not overrun with people looking for freebies. Back downstairs we went to see the doctor, she decided that a tetanus antitoxin shot was needed; printed out some papers for us and sent us back upstairs to the cashier. We did that, paid, and then went back downstairs where the doctor told us to go back upstairs to collect the medication. Off we went, again, got the necessary little bottles and returned to the doctor who then sent us to the ‘infusion room’! First I had a painful needle in my wrist to see if would have an allergic reaction to the tetanus shot. After twenty minutes I was fine and so we moved on to the next stage. To my surprise, the actual shot was going to be in my tender little bum! The way they do it here is that you sit on a stool, lower your trousers a little and then the nurse gets to work. She was asking Huan to tell me to relax, as if that was possible with a needle hovering behind me somewhere. The shot was actually a lot less painful than the test was. Now I have to go to a different clinic in the next day or two to have the tetanus vaccine which as you probably know is good for ten years. Reading through that you may be wondering just what Chinese health care is like. Well, it’s actually pretty good and although not free, fairly cheap. To see the doctor I paid ¥19.30 and the shot cost ¥23.20, a total of ¥42.50, or in real money, about a fiver. Bear in mind I had to pay the full cost, Chinese people are covered by a national health insurance, supplemented by a private health insurance through the companies they work for. They still end up paying, but not the full whack. After all that, home for me, cup of tea, drum practice for Huan.

However, that was not the end of my day. Huan was driving me crazy trying to practice her hulusi while listening to Yu’s recording on her phone. I asked her to send me the file and then split it up into more manageable pieces with Audacity, changing the tempo at the same time but not the pitch. Hopefully that will help her learn and catch up with the others.

November 13th “Friday the 13^th, Keep Calm and Don’t Go Swimming, Don’t Have Sex, Don’t Smoke, Don’t Drink, Don’t Go Out, Don’t Split Up, Don’t Run From The Killer, If You Trip Get Up and Run, and above all Turn On The Stupid Light Before Entering Any Room!” (Stolen from a friend’s Facebook page, thank you Ayne-Marie). We didn’t stay in, instead we took a trip to the traffic police station where they told me that my ‘speeding infraction’ was at the same tunnel as last time, only this time it was on the way out and not on the way in. Luckily, I was within 10% and only had to sign and accept a warning.

From there we had a little walk around the river before doing enough shopping to keep us going until Monday. Huan was cheesed off, the plastic bags are now biodegradable and as such the price has gone up from ¥0.30 to ¥0.80. As for me, well I was so worn out after lunch that yet another OAP nap was needed.

Friday the 13^th it is and it came round to bite me on the bum again. Not long after dinner I received another text message with yet another speeding fine! This time it was nowhere near a tunnel but somewhere on the highway between Haikou and Tunchang on our way home. The speed limit is 120kph and I had the cruise control set on 119kph. We know it’s 3kph fast so setting it at 119 is like setting it at 116. How I was speeding I don’t know, but I guess there’s not much point in arguing. The old dashcam had the speed on the resulting videos, this one doesn’t so I can’t even argue that way.

This is the text message, translated into English by Google - [Hainan Traffic Police] Your small car (my car# here) was on the provincial county-level administrative division of Hainan Highway 56 kilometres 863 meters from Haikou to Tunchang at 11:00 on 2020-11-12. It was recorded by the traffic technology monitoring equipment as "Driving Medium The above-mentioned motor vehicles other than passenger and cargo vehicles and dangerous goods transport vehicles exceed the prescribed speed by 10% or less” illegal behaviour. Please accept the processing within 30 days from the date of receiving this notice. Hopefully, as I was clocked at 10% or less again, I’ll just be issued with another warning.

November 14^th Our weather is all over the place at the moment, yesterday there wasn’t a cloud in the sky; today there wasn’t any sky to see. That made for a pretty boring day, Huan out to choir practice, me cooking dinner early and then binging on “Stingers”. I did get an extra session of guitar practice in the afternoon so the day wasn’t completely wasted.

November 15^th “Listen To The Pouring Rain, Listen To It Pour” (José Feliciano) which is exactly what we did all last night and today. They typhoon I mentioned earlier, Vamoc, did pass us by but the rain clouds associated with it didn’t. This is the Infrared satellite photo of the North West Pacific region, our little island is 110E and 20N, well away from the eye, but still being affected by the storm. Hopefully it will disappear over the next few days although our forecast is for rain until at least Tuesday evening.

Huan was supposed to have an outdoor hulusi and drum practice for our area this morning, that was cancelled. She still managed to let me hear the dulcet tones of her singing and hulusi all round the house though. As for me, I started the character lessons with Yoyo Chinese, the first level is free, I can manage that at the moment. We also brought our regular shopping trip forward a day, I managed to get absolutely soaked in the ten metres between the house and the car. It’s not even warm rain these days, we are wondering where this global warming is, it feels more like the onset of the next ice age for us. We don’t normally feel this chilly before December.

November 16^th Yahoo! The weather was good enough for a walk, albeit a short one, just over five kilometres. Still, that’s better than nothing and should stop my feet from swelling. The first photo is a progress report on the bridge to the island, who knows, it may well be open by the end of the year or by Chinese New year after all.

More proof that I was actually out walking.

And some water lilies.

Boohoo after lunch when Huan took me to the area clinic for that tetanus shot. However, the boohoo soon changed to yahoo, the area clinic does not have tetanus vaccine. I wonder if we will have to see Dr Tim to get it, it’s proving difficult here in Wuzhishan. Huan then had me walk her to school; she had a hulusi class this afternoon, not with the class she wants to join but with someone else. Sat outside waiting we spotted quite a large butterfly. I tried my hardest but it was not staying still long enough and I didn’t have the camera with me, only the phone. You can see the blur of its wings in the second photo.

Another week ends and a new one starts tomorrow. Wish me luck for my visit to the traffic police! See you next time.