Snowbird Choir, Ordinary Birds, One (Wo)Man Band, Good Tenants!

 December 29^th What a beautiful day it was today, and we were stuck inside for another of Huan’s shows. This was the weather when I arrived a little early.

I managed to get myself a front row seat so lots of photographs were taken. Here’s the first one, the assembled cast along with teacher in the middle.

Two photos of my superstar wifey next, both not of the best quality I’m afraid. Blame the photographer. In the first one the choir are singing a Chinese New Year greeting song, sung to the tune of Clementine, in the second she is playing the hulusi. Having only been asked yesterday to join the hulusi group and not having played one of the songs before, she did very well. I was certainly proud of her!

Next up is one very happy and relaxed Huan, when it was all over and her nerves were not frayed any more. She is not keen on having her photo taken but I like this one.

After that we all had to hang around for a while waiting for lunch to be prepared. In the rehearsal room I was cajoled into singing a couple of songs, it was very difficult for them to get me to agree. (Hahahahaha, those who know me will know that I didn’t need asking twice!) Huan took a video but it was bad quality, the video, not my singing, and I couldn’t even use a screen shot as proof. You’ll have to take my word for it. Their teacher seemed impressed; he asked Huan if I had had a singing teacher!

Both of us needed an OAP kip when we got home, in my case I think it was a food coma! I then spent the evening sorting out the photos while Huan did her usual in the residence square. I keep asking her to relax more but my pleas fall on deaf ears.

December 30^th We should have been out today, with one of two tourist groups. The first one cancelled the trip because of the weather. It is very strange weather recently, a temperature drop of thirteen degrees in one day, bye bye sun and hello ominous black rain clouds. The second tourist group was going ahead, and still did, but they decided foreigners were not allowed!

I spent the morning cooking, noticing that the skies were clearing and maybe an afternoon walk would be on the cards. False hopes were raised, as soon as lunch was over those ominous clouds returned. More downloading karaoke for me and various practices for Huan.

The promised rain didn’t appear so we managed a walk after dinner. What was dinner? It was a very nice shellfish noodle soup, the management was well pleased.

Our first two photos of our walk, and the only two worth sharing, show more construction work, or maybe I should say destruction work. We had thought they may just repair the sluice gates in our little dam but instead it looks like they are going to remove it completely. Hopefully some other kind of dam will replace it or we’ll never see any water in the river.

December 31^st New Year’s eve is upon us, just another day really. It was another overcast and cool day, I prefer to say cold but you guys further north will not believe me. Just like yesterday I spent the morning cooking dinner. Huan was lazy, she only practiced singing, hulusi and playing the keyboard! Dancing was put on the back burner. Mind you, she’s going to have to find even more hours in the day because drum lessons are next to be included in the timetable!

After lunch we set off for an afternoon walk, a little chilly to start with, but we warmed up with time. Other people were obviously feeling it too, there were no shorts on display today and quite a number of quilted coats. We’re not ready to go that far nor to wear long underwear outdoors, this is supposed to be a sub-tropical island after all.

Huan’s idea was to find creatures to photograph so we searched along the riverside, mostly in vain. There were quite a few birds around but as usual, they were not easy to zoom in on. The first one was fine, the second was a little too far away.

The third one was not quite so far but still not really near enough, (you may struggle to see it), while the fourth one gave us a little more to aim at by flying a short way.

As luck would have it Huan spotted some more in the rushes very near where we were walking. It was impossible to sneak up and most of them flew away from us out towards the river but we did manage to get an almost decent picture of one.

How about a couple more ‘birds’, one quite pretty exotic type and one ugly duckling!

Our last creature of the day is a cute little rabbit. The owner took it out of its hutch, really a cage, and gave it to me to hold and I almost lost it. I’ve never known little rabbit feet to move so fast in its attempts to escape my clutches. It’s a good job Huan wasn’t holding it or I think it might have been away! Anyway, here it is in the owner’s arms, and as if to prove my earlier point, you can see the owner is wearing a quilted jacket.

Back home we traipsed just in time for me to finish off this evening’s dinner. All I had to do was prepare the noodles for our version of spaghetti bolognaise! The portions were not as small as they appear, more was added after the photo was taken.

January 1st (No poems or songs this year, instead we’ll have “On this day”.) “On this day, in 45BC the Julian calendar came into effect.” (Penguin Pocket Reference ISBN0-141-02715-0). That is why I can heartily wish you a Happy New Year today! Let’s hope 2021 is better than 2020. Mind you, that wouldn’t be difficult would it?

A lazy start to the new year for us, Huan cooking and me still finding songs to sing. We did go out after lunch, me for a walk and Huan to yet another new class, she has now taken up the drums. I didn’t find a great deal to take pictures of so you’ll have to make do with the main road through town and a hood ornament for someone getting married.

Huan arrived back from her new class after me, and despite her assurances, she decided to practice in the house! So now I have to put up with dancing, singing, hulusi, keyboard and drums, we had all of them this evening. Anyone know where I can buy a soundproof door?

January 2^nd We changed our plans this morning, Huan was free, it’s Saturday and therefore riverside market day, so off we went. I forgot the big camera, it didn’t really matter though, there was no market. I guess they’re on their New Year holiday too. All we did then was go and check out the progress of dam busting for you. (cue music) These two photos give you more of an idea of just how much has to be destroyed. We’ve still no idea what will replace the dam, if anything.

And that was our day, just about. I cooked this afternoon, Huan practiced hurting my ears! I had a little respite when she went out this evening. I just carried on looking for songs.

January 3^rd This morning was a bit of a late start, for me anyway. I roused my weary bones at just gone half past eight to find Huan busy in the kitchen. She was busy steaming dumplings, not for us though. She had decided we were off to Ledong today to visit our tenants and give them a new year gift. At least the weather was clear enough for driving. You can see from this picture of the car though that last night was a mite chilly. This doesn’t happen very often.

Getting to Ledong is easy these days, the new highway to Sanya passes that way, so before too long we were sat in the old folks’ living room. It’s a pleasure visiting these tenants as they really look after the place, unlike the previous ones. Before long we were having a good old chat. Well, they and Huan were, my input was limited as was my listening comprehension. We both learned something new today, it seems that our tenants were both originally North Koreans. The old boys parents went back to North Korea with his elder siblings but for some reason he and another stayed in China, I’m not quite sure what the old girl’s story was. The old fellow has been back twice, in 1965 and 1975 but now has no relatives left there, they have all passed on. He told us that he didn’t want to go back anymore. Their daughter was learning and speaking Korean when she was a little girl but stopped due to the teasing she received at school. It’s amazing what you learn sometimes.

 I took a short break from sitting down and checked out the view from the balcony. When Huan bought this place the plan from the owner had been to build across the road too. Luckily he hasn’t even started yet.

And just to refresh your memories, this is where the builder lives, in the penthouse just behind our dining room and kitchen. The foliage has grown so you can’t see any on the assorted wildlife that normally lives up there.

For a change, and as we hadn’t driven that way for well over a year, we came back to Wuzhishan via the normal roads. I was getting rather worried about Huan; she kept dozing off and mumbling to herself. The last time I did something like that I was delirious; in Huan’s case I guess it was just exhaustion. We did stop to fill up at a place that provides a ‘free’ car wash, basically just a hose down and rub with clean water, good enough for me. While we were there a chap rode in from Sichuan, approximately 2,000 kilometres away. He did it on this and as you might be able to see, he had cameras all over the place. I quite fancied his bike, some kind of Honda, and to my surprise, so did Huan! Of course I’m limited to 50cc because of my age now anyway.

January 4^th More choir practice for Huan and more downloading for me in the morning. After lunch I walked Huan to her hulusi practice and then took a stroll to the bap and sausage market. On my way I passed this corner, obviously the gardeners haven’t visited for a while. However, I like to see nature taking control, if we had a garden I’d probably have a weed corner!

Disappointment struck at the market, nothing was open, they must have still been on their lunchtime siesta. Down at the riverside I found out why there had been no market yesterday. They are installing some kind of framework which we thought would go over the road. At the moment it looks like it will only be on one side. More progress photos will be shared as the work progresses.

Finally, last photos for the day and for the week, something we don’t see too many of here. We do see campervans, (RVs for my foreign friends), but this is only the second caravan. I’m not quite sure what they were going for with the name.

After our baths Huan had a relaxing, for her, evening in. She still practiced of course. I decided I had to stop searching for songs and do a little work on the blog and also doing my monthly photo upload for my children. As usual, see you next time.