Cold, Visa Approved, Another Needle, Fitness App Fun, Supermarket Ban

January 5th What is going on with the weather? Most of the year I sit in the house with my shorts on, and nothing else. This was me this morning, wearing a woolly jumper, and half an hour later I had my hoody and half gloves on too! Maybe it’s just old age!

Huan was at school again this morning but free in the afternoon. We didn’t go anywhere! If we were umpteen years younger and all my bits still worked I think there would be the pitter patter of tiny feet a few months down the line! We did go out after dinner, past the market again but were only successful in buying sausages. I’m going to have to brave a morning walk soon! Down by the riverside we noticed that the walkway was completely submerged. Perhaps they are not letting it rush away because of the work going on down our end.

Further on we saw Huan’s singing teacher holding her evening class, a lot more people than she sees in the mornings and a whole audience looking on from above.

On the way home I dropped Huan at our square to do some hulusi and dancing. I did take some photos but despite using Norman the Nokia, they were rubbish. At home I did manage a decent one of the bridge down below. They have installed lights now, thankfully not bright flashing ones like the bridges in town. This one looks quite nice and will not disturb us when we go to bed. They do switch them off around midnight.

January 6^th There was a list waiting for me this morning, not made by the boss mind you, made by my own fair hand before going to bed last night. #1, send birthday greetings to number one son, (Done). #2, take down the decorations, (Done). #3, hang up the washing, (Done). #4, cook tonight’s dinner, (Done). #5, scan and file household paperwork, (Done). #6, clean desk, (Not done). Five out of six isn’t too bad even though I say it myself. I’m getting the hang of this being a house-husband you know!

An afternoon walk was called for so we set off to the bap and sausage market yet again. Here we are looking suitably cool on the main bridge over the river.

Going upriver on the other side we noticed a crowd of people practicing their Xinjiang dancing. If you look closely, you’ll also spot a lone swimmer in the water. Rather him than me today, I bet it’s a bit on the chilly side!

Passing by the outdoor gymnasium we had to have a little play. Note the observer.

Success at the bap stall, twenty more bought to stick in the freezer. We walked back along the river to see if there was any progress on whatever they’re building. Nothing to report there yet, maybe next week.

Today was another Norman the Nokia day, I’ve been trying to make sure the camera does better than Marvin the Paranoid Android. Huan’s cheapo phone is giving her a lot of problems, the Wifi keeps having tantrums and the battery has nowhere near the life she needs so I may do a swap with her and go back to Norman until I can find something better that I can afford. Norman seems to be coping fairly well, this is one taken through the closed kitchen window, probably a not so clean window at that.

And our last photo of the day is a view down our cloudy street; both of these pictures are the same photo. The second one is a crop from the high resolution version, definitely much better than I can obtain with Marvin.

January 7^th Up at the unearthly hour of half past five in the morning. Now I know some people think there is only one half past five, and that it is in the afternoon. I wish you were right. Today was needle day and visa day, neither of which filled me with much joy. There was even less joy when we stopped at the last service station on the way, just before half past seven, to find everything still locked up!

On we proceeded and met with our first bit of good luck, straight into the visa office car park without having to queue outside and wait for a space. Mind you, our spirits took a nosedive when we reached the location of the office. Not only were there no people there, there were holes in the desks where their computer cables used to be and no computers! Luckily for us they had not moved buildings, just gone downstairs. I now have to attend the office with the grand label of “One Stop Service Window for Talents in Hainan Free Trade Port”. Whatever, at least everything worked out fine in the end, I got my visa, I’m now legal for another eleven months.

The visa office is very close to a large shopping centre called Mova Plaza so that was our next stop. Huan noticed yesterday that my toenails had made holes in top of my casual shoes, my one and only pair of shoes in fact! This part of our plan was a failure, the place doesn’t open until half past ten. We decided to try RT Supermarket where I found a few pairs that suited my very fussy tastes. Unfortunately, nothing above a size 42 was available. Next stop was Carrefour on Haidian Island, where the hospital is, to save time. The story there was similar, they said they had a size 44 but I couldn’t get my feet in them. At that point we gave up and went to part three of today’s plan, grocery shopping, you know, the cheese and sandwich meat that I’m not supposed to eat any more!

The last part of our plan was not my favourite part, getting a HUGE needle stuck in my belly again. Well, it feels big to me anyway. This was the queue waiting to pay for an appointment with the doctor; it was quite a bit longer before I took the photo.

We may grumble a bit about our hospital visits but to be honest, we shouldn’t. There may appear to be a little bit too much bureaucracy, but we do get in to see the doctor the day we go and we do get whatever treatment is required. Despite that long queue we were #3 for our doctor and in no time at all I was downstairs getting jabbed again. It wasn’t the same nurse as last month, thank God, but I hadn’t seen this one before either. She did seem to be a little more caring, even asking me if I was “a little bit scared / afraid”. That could have been because I had taken up my usual pose of thumbs over my earholes and fingers over my eyes! As usual, I worried too much and although I felt the needle, it wasn’t too bad. Also as usual, and I don’t think I’ve told you this before, I then have to lie back with my finger holding the end of a cotton bud on the entry hole for ten minutes. Huan of course is the other side of the curtain having fun on her phone. This is my wonderful view.

All that was left was to drive home to Wuzhishan, stopping for dinner on the way. The drive up was miserable, no sun, mostly mist and rain, and that continued all the time we were in Haikou. The drive back was almost as bad, but the rain and mist disappeared when we reached home. The sun didn’t show his face, I reckon he’s gone AWOL. Unusually for us, we had the heater on in the car all day, the downside of which was walking into a house that felt like a fridge when we got home. I know, I know, we live on a tropical island!

January 8^th More domesticity pour moi, doing the ironing after cleaning up the breakfast dishes. After that it was time to get stuck into sorting out the phones, changing the SIM cards over and changing various bits of software. Marvin was ready for Huan by the time she came home, only needing verification from another one of her friends to ensure she was who she said she was on WeChat. Hopefully she will have less problems with Marvin than she did with Chuck (the Chilli Pepper Mate30X).

The rest of the afternoon was spent cooking and trying to sort out a phone for me, either Chuck, or Horatio (Huawei Honor budget phone). By the time Huan came home for dinner I still hadn’t succeeded! The Huawei is not a bad phone although it does have a chipped screen. It’s biggest problem is the hardware limitations, 4GB internal and the same on the SD card. It’s not a very old phone but it doesn’t take lone for the phone to give up the ghost. It may be enough for me if that’s what I have to do. The Chilli Pepper on the other hand has 64GB of storage, more than enough for my needs. My problem there is I can’t get my new fitness apk file into the phone.

After dinner we decided to visit the phone repair shops to see if they could help. If we needed a new screen, maybe some simple bits of hardware replaced they could have helped. For my small problem they told us we would need to visit a computer repair shop! We’ll try again tomorrow.

Yesterday, I forgot to tell you, we received messages on both our phones telling us that masks were required everywhere in Haikou, there’s been a case of a student returning with Covid. Today, we received messages again; the directive is now island wide. This evening it appeared that many people had not got the message, another thing to check tomorrow.

January 9^th Mornin’ all! Confined to barracks again today, at least until Her Majesty returns from keyboard classes. First job, do the Chinese practice I didn’t do last night. One day I’ll spend a little money and move onto the next stage. Second job, check if I can put the apk file into Chuck by using ‘developer mode’. I can, but, the file will not install so another trip to town is called for. There’s a lesson here, “don’t buy cheap and nasty phones”!

Onwards and upwards, well not quite, office to kitchen is more like it. This weekend’s two day gastronomic delight is chicken curry. However, to try and keep it on the healthy side there is only one breast between us and a bunch of vegetables.

After lunch it was off to the phone shop again, this time a new shop with someone who we thought might know a bit more than we do. We were wrong! Back home I decided to give Huan’s #1 son a chat on WeChat, he is a software engineer in Shanghai. He knows a darn sight more than the guys down here, that’s for sure. Unfortunately though, despite his knowledge and help, it was still not possible to install the apk file for Mapmywalk. It looks like I will have to try and use Horatio with a large (physical) size sim card and hope the memory and storage is enough.

Our curry was not bad at all but, if you decide to use sweet potatoes in yours, I suggest you use more curry powder than we did.

January 10^th Sunday morning but no rest for the wicked! Huan was out for keyboard practice and I was practicing my singing in the house. Spare a thought for our poor neighbours!

After lunch I went out for a much needed walk, half way round I realised I was overdressed today. Long trousers with a long sleeved shirt and hoodie may well have been enough, I had the first two as well as a pullover and a fleece lined jacket, plus a cap and the required mask!

The first thing I spotted for you today was a little more Chinglish. The translation isn’t too bad though, Huan tells me it means “Civilized Dinner”.

I passed by the outdoor sausage and bap market again, not to buy anything, just to put a few kilometres on the new Huawei fitness app I installed. It’s quiet in the early afternoon, the stall holders were just setting up as I passed by.

My route then took along the riverside so I thought I’d give you a panorama, the white buildings centre and left are a vocational school that just seems to keep growing and growing.

A little further on I spotted the municipality workers ‘weeding’ along the river bank. Both Huan and I will be disappointed to see the large rushes being chopped down. You can see both before and after in this photo.

As promised I passed by the new construction on the riverside, it seems that we were right, it is not going to be over the road, like a pedestrian street, just over the sidewalk. We also suspect that it will make it easier for them to rent out the market pitches on a Saturday.

Arriving home I decided to go and check on the ladies. They were practicing something the teacher had left on the board for them but they were not all practicing together. All of them were practicing the piece individually, what a cacophony! They were having fun though.

Once home I checked the fitness app, it had recorded quite well on the phone with one ‘minor’ problem. “This session will not be recorded in your personal results because key data (such as distance) is missing or abnormal.” This means I will not be able to see my records, only the individual walks, one by one. I suspect it may be because Huawei looks for a ‘step count’ and ‘cheapo Chuck’ is probably not capable of that. Another failure thus uninstalled. Tomorrow I will try again with ‘Sports Tracker’. There is yet another problem; my data from Endomondo uses different files so I can’t import it. Endomondo was a great app with a very good user interface, and all the data I would ever want. It even had a great name to boot, such a shame it was sold and then retired.

January 11^th I learnt something last night, if you pour super glue straight onto your skin, it burns! This is not something I wanted to learn and neither did I do it on purpose, I just missed the point I was aiming for. P.S. Don’t try this at home!

This morning I learnt something else, it’s too cold to go out for a walk this morning! This must be the coldest it’s been in Wuzhishan since we moved here five and a half years ago.

It may have been too cold for a walk this morning but I had to go out after lunch. The girls needed walking to school and we needed to stock up on walnuts. They’re good for you; check it out on Google if you don’t believe Dr. Bob. At the place where the girls have their lessons I thought I’d take a few more pictures, let you see that despite being apartment blocks, they are not too bad. To start with, they will have a swimming pool.

You’ve seen photos from outside the building where they learn and have their shows, these two photos are from further up looking back towards the building. The swimming pool is directly behind me for the first one and a little bit further behind for the second one. It’s a nice place to live, it would look even better if the sun was shining!

I left the ladies making noises and headed off into town. Walnuts were no problem at all; I even bought Huan some ready shelled almonds, very generous today! However, I faced a problem at the supermarket, the largest one in town, the only one where I can buy my coconut milk (that cholesterol problem, remember). I pranced up to the entrance, held out my hand to have my temperature taken, only to be told I had to go to the and of a (short) queue, which I hadn’t seen, and scan a QR code to activate the health code on my phone. Of course my phone is not capable of that at the moment, maybe Huan can sort it out for me tomorrow. I made a big fuss of course, telling them that foreigners phones were not capable of doing as they asked. I even asked them if they wanted me not to eat. As you probably guessed, arguing was pointless, it was worth a try.

And that’s it, I arrived home and froze waiting for Huan. After dinner we both froze a bit more. Huan decided to order some northern style quilted pyjamas for us both, not for wearing to bed, but to keep us warm in the house. For me, they can’t come soon enough.

Today’s walk was with the Sports Tracker app which is also no really good enough for me. It did track my distance and time, even my elevation, but there was no visible map on the phone. It shows me a map to confirm my location during setup but not during walking. Just like Map My Walk it asks for Google play which although Endomondo asked for, it used to work just fine without it. At home, I waited for the website to update with today’s walk and of course it wouldn’t. Eventually I had to activate the VPN on my phone (which only stays activated for a few minutes for some reason) and then the walk was uploaded. Sports Tracker uses Open Street View on their website which does not give the option of a satellite view. In other words, another failure, I wonder what I should try tomorrow?

And that’s all for now folks, the end of another week in heavenly Hainan. See you next time.