Another Visa Saga, Another Needle, A Ferret, Bob’s Still Alive.

December 15^th Up with the larks, Huan asked if we should pack an overnight bag so I said no, “positive thinking”. I should have listened! We had a fairly miserable drive up to Haikou, through the clouds a lot of the time. You couldn’t see any ‘rain’ but you could feel the water. Here’s what our usual coffee stop looked like.

There was a new display up above the conveniences, quite interesting. I did wonder though why the various ppm figures differed between the ladies and the gents.

Full of optimism we arrived at the visa office only to find out that this year we have even more hurdles to jump. The usual questions were asked about where we live and when I last left China etc. I explained that we lived in Wuzhishan and told the young lady about the file I had prepared. That was of no use at all, she just told me that the fact that ‘we’ own four properties makes no difference because foreigners (moi) cannot own properties in Hainan. She also needed my old passport yet again, why I don’t know. How do they expect me to sneak out of the country and back in on an expired passport with the corner cut off? At least I still have mine, many people won’t, they’ll have binned their old one when they received their new one. The next thing was that, despite not having left the country since 2012, I now need to have another medical. This could not be done today, it’s another office either in Haikou or Sanya and you must be there between 8 and 9 in the morning. Once that is completed it will take three days for the results which I then have to deliver to the visa office. As if all that wasn’t enough, Huan also had to write a letter inviting me to join her in China! It now looks as if we are going to Sanya on Friday for my medical. The plan is to kill two birds with one stone, perhaps even three. The car is due a service and I need to visit my bank to change and withdraw some precious loot.

We were back early enough to go shopping. I don’t normally take any photos when we do that but I felt you just had to see this. Could it be related to ‘Big Bird’ of Sesame Street fame?

No cooking fo either of us today, instead a visit to our friend’s burger shop. She isn’t there anymore but the burgers are. This was our dinner, one burger, one wrap, two chicken legs, a bag of 鸡米花 (Jī mǐhuā) which is small pieces of fried, flour covered chicken, a bag of chips and a cup of hot coffee. We could have had two cold drinks but the weather wasn’t conducive to that. The cost was less than a fiver, and well worth it I would say.

December 16^th Not much to report this morning, Huan went off to play the hulusi and I walked into town to get some passport sized photographs. At least they weren’t “eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs, With circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one”! If you need that explaining I suggest Googling ‘Alice’s Restaurant’. When they do your ID photos here they open and tweak them in Photoshop. I had to ask the young lady, more than once, not to try and beautify me as they were for government use. The end result is still horrendous and I’m not sharing it with you, so there!

Huan came home having spotted a lizard outside the school and taken a photograph of it to show me. Despite the camera on her phone being absolutely useless the photo is not too bad. Some cropping and tweaking has been done with Picasa.

After lunch I was extremely lazy and just sat with the computer not doing a lot of anything. It’s a good job I didn’t go out because the doorbell went at around four o’clock and I opened the door to see three policemen from the area police station. They had come to ask me to sign a form, “Visa Application Interview Service Form” and to apply my thumbprint. We managed to communicate reasonably well with my sub-standard Chinese and the younger policeman’s not so bad English. Again, this is something new on the Visa front.

December 17^th I like Thursdays, I have the pleasure of Huan’s company for my daily walk. You may spot something different in this selfie, yes, I’m wearing a cap. Wearing a cap doesn’t look so good when you’re wearing shorts and sandals so as you can probably guess I’m not wearing those today. In fact I was wearing shoes and socks, a long sleeved shirt and my cords. Who remembers them?

We walked anticlockwise around the river again, stopping to chat to my three and a half legged friend on the way, no photos of him, you’ve seen him before. Today, the water level was quite low so we were able to pop down for a closer look. As you can see, as soon as the water level goes down, the ‘farmers’, who are mostly snowbirds, get busy.

Three snowbirds who weren’t farming were all fishing. Just in case the photo doesn’t make it obvious for you, they are all ladies The one who was sitting was on the phone to her husband telling him to start cooking their lunch while one of the others was saying they’d all be home soon to ‘drink some alcohol’!

Next up is a photo to show you that I could have been a mean dancer, given the chance. I had not seen that the dry path changed to a thin layer of very slippery stuff and as you can see, I almost did the splits. What saved me was reaching up with my left hand, the bad arm, and holding my entire body weight on the railing above us. There was not a lot of pain in my arm but my nether regions were feeling it and also thankful they hadn’t had to stretch any further!

And that was our day, another restful afternoon and evening for me, dancing in the cold for Huan. What do you mean “it doesn’t get cold here”? I’ll have you know it was 14ºC when she went out and will be down to 13ºC later on tonight. We’re not quite ready for water bottles yet but give us a week or two. There is one other picture, the beautification of our road continues. The pavement is finished, our two rows of trees have been planted and the road is in the process of rejuvenation. I had to take the photo today; by the time I get another chance the road will more than likely be full of vehicles again.

December 18^th Rudely awakened at half past five this morning and on the road before six. No coffee or breakfast for me because of my medical today, Huan joined me in fasting in sympathy. We arrived at the health centre in Sanya forty minutes before it opened, sat-nav can sometimes work out well. We were the first there, the office itself was locked.

I say we were the first but someone else seemed to have been there all night.

Despite being first in the queue, we ended being sixth once we got started. Most of the others were Chinese students going overseas and had already completed their paperwork before arriving at the health centre. My paperwork also seemed a lot more complex than theirs. Anyway, off we went on the grand tour. First was an x-ray, taken with my crucifix in my mouth to keep it out of the way, as suggested by the radiographer. Next was my least favourite pastime, another blood test, or several. At least it was only one needle. After that it was off to the more normal stuff, height, weight, eyes and all the rest of it. Downstairs was now complete so upstairs we went, first off for an ultrasound. I still have a fatty liver, there’s a piece of me missing, and I’m not pregnant. From there we moved to the next office for an ECG, I don’t know much about that. The doctor there then ‘allowed’ me to go the little boys’ room and produce the necessary sample, put it through a hatch into the lab and then return to her for the completed paperwork. Downstairs we went then and handed everything in for processing, we have to return next Wednesday at four in the afternoon to collect the results for onward delivery to Haikou.

After a short trip to the bank to be sure my pension was still coming in and to draw out some much needed cash, straight back home to Wuzhishan we went. Huan was back in time for an afternoon dance session leaving me to cook today’s dinner. Details are of course available on request; please send a stamped addressed envelope to…

December 19^th Today’s weather forecast had me ‘shivering me timbers’! We were to expect a maximum of 13ºC and a minimum of 11ºC which is what it was all morning. Despite having lived in Harbin, (sometimes down to -30 ºC or more), and enjoyed it, we find these temperatures a little on the low side to say the least. I stayed in all morning and got on with the stew. This week we bought what we thought was a potato type of vegetable, it was in the same place as normal potatoes, sweet potatoes of varying types and yams. We were wrong.

It turned out to be more like a weak radish or perhaps a turnip. Even after cooking for over two hours it wasn’t soft. Still, I suppose it added bulk of sorts.

After lunch when Huan went back to keyboard practice I took a walk, a desperately needed one. I set off with my hoodie on, flat cap, cords, shoes not sandals etc. To start with I kept my hands in the hoodie pockets. Nobody was wearing shorts today, all were ‘fully dressed’ as it were, some even had quilted coats on. I’d be willing to bet that many also had long underwear, especially the snowbirds. Mind you, they were few and far between this afternoon, I only spotted the odd saxophone player and a group of dancers.

Going through the town I bumped into Father Christmas, quite a few of them in fact. You can see in the second photo that the most realistic one is trying to escape!

Wildlife was also noticeable by its absence today; perhaps they’ve all decided to hibernate this year. Walking upriver I kept my eye on the undergrowth hoping to spot a lizard or two, all I did was almost go a over t when I didn’t see this. Had I been back in the UK no doubt I could have sued someone, if the fancy had taken me. Here they rely much more on common sense and I didn’t use any!

A little further on I was stopped by a gentleman on a small electric scooter, he was trying to sell it to me. The more I declined his sales patter the cheaper it became. Perhaps he nicked it round the corner? Maybe he ordered it off Taobao and decided it was too small, even for him. Eventually I told him I had two feet and didn’t need two wheels, especially two wheels that small. Can you imagine me perched on this driving around the town?

I bet you never knew Huan and I were models did you? This is a sign they created using us as the inspiration and our silhouettes.

Sod’s law, as I reached home the sun showed its face, it had been hiding behind the clouds all day. It had gone again by the time Huan came home though, complaining about how cold it was outside. It didn’t stop her going out to practice hulusi and dancing in our apartment ‘square’ this evening though. I was a coward and stayed in. Checking tomorrow’s forecast, I may well be in all morning again, it’s going to be 10 ºC most of the morning. At this rate we may even see single figures this year!

December 20^th Being a coward I stayed in all morning, and all afternoon! There was enough to keep me busy though. Once Huan had gone out to her keyboard practice I got on with the ironing while listening to (very loud) Christmas music. After a break for coffee it was then into the bathroom to scrub down all the white bits, not mine you dummies! By the time all had been completed the boss was back and ready for her sandwich.

I have no excuses for the afternoon; I just binged on Danger Man and Facebook.

An evening walk was definitely needed today, not too far, only just over seven kilometres. As I often do I guided Huan to where I sometimes see some of my canine friends and I’m glad I did. A new friend was found today, not a dog, but a ferret. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before and certainly never touched one. It was incredibly curious and didn’t mind being handled at all. At least I didn’t end up like Richard Whiteley. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, check out this link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xHEj3Gk4Q&ab_channel=Coecludd. The third photo is the ferret back in his bed with his dinner outside. I didn’t think he’d eaten anything until Huan pointed out that the frog was missing a leg!

December 21^st The temperature was up today, a glorious 13ºC, so a walk was called for. The first stop was the workshop man, I gave him our old kettle, it still works but it was time for us to have a new one. I also gave him the remote control from the bedroom hi-fi unit; it hasn’t been used for more than twelve years and may or may not work. As usual, he was all smiles and pleases with our cast-offs.

Wandering about aimlessly I ended up at the bap and sausage market, so decided to stock up. Three times on the way home I was queried about the quantity and three times I explained that it was ten days worth for two people’s lunchtime sandwiches. Twice I had to explain why I was in Wuzhishan, being a foreigner and all that and once I had to deny being Russian. I was thinking to myself that after five years how can there be so many people who don’t know me. I guess we must have lots of different snowbirds every year. Anyway, here’s what the shopping looked like, chicken sausages on the left and garlic pork sausages on the right.

Huan came home for lunch and told me she was free this afternoon. Yipee! That gave us time to visit the local hospital and see if I could have my fasting cholesterol checked here in Wuzhishan. As usual we had a hard time in the hospital. The first part was easy, pop up to the fourth floor and check if the local laboratory carried out such tests. They do. Next we had to find a doctor to prescribe the test for me. That was the hard part but we got there in the end. Tomorrow morning, no breakfast or coffee for me, straight to the lab for yet another needle.

Walking round the town to do a bit of shopping we spotted some transport variants, the old and the new. Here’s the old, I told Huan this was our next car, she said it wasn’t fast enough.

This was the new variant, being charged from a normal 240v socket. We did spot a strange box between the extension and the office though which we were informed is necessary if you don’t have an ‘earth’ on your supply. That made me laugh, there’s no earth wire into our house never mind in the sockets. This particular model takes nine hours to charge on a domestic charger and is then good for a maximum of 170km. If we had one, and drove it to Sanya, we would have to stay all night charging somewhere before driving back!

So we come to the end of another week, a cold one, for us. We hope life is treating you well enough and the dreaded Covid 19 stays away from your door. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, we’ll see you again next week.

PS That was Christmas 2015, there’ll be no Christmas dinner again this year!