Dentist (Again), Rigsby Bearing Gifts, More Food, More Walks, More Needles!

April 27^th It was another one of those days again today, be careful not to walk too far, overcast sky and a forecast of rain. Consequently we only went round the river, keeping an eye on the clouds all the way. Because of the inclement weather Freddy Fuji stayed at home so we were reliant on our phones for pictures. I tried a macro just outside our gate.

Remember the goats in front of our house last week? If they had been there today they would have had to be very good swimmers. 

During our many walks we are never far from fruit trees of one sort or another. Even in town we can pass trees bearing fruit, some edible as in the first picture, some medicinal as in the second. To save me explaining what they are, you can follow this link which details the fruits of Hainan - https://www.sunnyhainan.com/tropical-fruits-on-hainan-island/ 

Today’s trip had an ulterior motive, for me anyway, this weekend, for a change, I am cooking just a vegetable stew. That keeps Huan happy but just for a little extra we went to the bap and sausage market to buy a couple of sausages. Bad news again, the stall holders are not leaving but they are not going to be making any sausages during the warmer months! The market is in a place called 翡翠花园 (Fěi cuì huāyuán) translates as ‘Emerald Garde’, I hope that’s right. We learnt this week that we actually have a subscriber to the Blog that lives there, hi Zack!

One of us, namely me, had forgotten to take the bread out for lunch time so I made an executive decision and bought a French baguette for our bacon and egg sandwiches. It’s an unusual lunch for us but there was a reason, I needed bacon for today’s dinner and we always freeze it in bags of six rashers. Here is today’s recipe, courtesy of “Tasty”, with no ingredients photo because apart from using a whole garlic and adding a “healthy” onion I didn’t change anything.

Was it tasty? Yes, it was, with only one minor complaint from me, none from Huan. In fact she was surprised that the broccoli was not soft as it usually is in ‘foreign cooking’, it was crunchier, the Chinese way. What was my complaint? Due to a shortage of Parmesan cheese there wasn’t a cheesy enough taste for me. After dinner, a quick Taobao search was done where we found Parmesan cheaper than buying it in Haikou or Sanya. Anyway, here is my dinner, along with the requisite (small) glass of red wine, Chinese not Italian, but a nice tipple all the same.

April 28^th “What a drag it is getting old.” by the Strolling Bones of course. At least I don’t have to reach for “Mother’s Little Helper”. Huan woke me this morning just before she left for the OAP school, why I hadn’t woken earlier I have no idea. She gave me orders, 1) Don’t go on the computer after breakfast, 2) Don’t walk too far and watch the weather. Being a good little boy I followed her orders, to the letter. The first two photos are of the island bridge(s), showing the water coming out and going in.

Since we started this week with flowers, here’s a couple more for you.

And we’ll continue with things that grow on trees, the first one is not edible, the second one is, although I am not a big fan.

More flowers were next but I skipped them, instead I thought I’d show you another bug. There’s a bonus in this photo though, a bit of pareidolia, can you see the face?

I tried my hardest today to find some wildlife, even walking on the opposite side of the road by the river and sneaking behind the hoardings, but, sad to say, I was unsuccessful.

Coming back on the other side of the river I did my usual check on the progress of the new construction. All the bays now have electricity, water and drainage although this one seems to have something extra. I wonder if it may be a WC.

Our question about the eventual function has now also been answered. This will be “Wuzhishan Food Court”. With 80 bays it will be interesting to see just how much variety of food there will be. Disappointment surely awaits me though, it’s guaranteed to have no “Bratwurst” stall or a “Fish and Chip” one.

After meeting Huan from her school we walked back and again tried to catch a snap of those pesky birds. This one seemed to be waiting for someone in the tea shop to come out and feed it. We still found it difficult to get close enough; maybe we should have gone and sat inside to see what happened next.

Back to the ‘getting old’ bit, I had to have a solo OAP nap this afternoon, Huan didn’t need one. The ‘nap’ turned into two and a half hours leaving me wondering what is wrong with me. Still, it meant I slept through my coffee and gag break meaning one less to count today. Rain stopped play after dinner so no extra walk for me or extra hulusi for Huan. Of course she more than made up for that indoors!

April 29^th Nice day for a walk so went to Maodao. Actually, I tell lies, we drove to the Maoda highway access road because we had another trip to Ledong today, this time not ‘landlord’ problems but delivery. The old gent had asked Huan to order a hulusi for him and the old lady’s phone had packed up. Consequently we were delivering a hulusi, our old Chili phone, some tea and some dumplings. The access road for Maodao appeared before the village itself so we left that until the return journey.

Our tenants were surprised to see us, Huan hadn’t told them we were coming. In fact we disturbed the old fella’s ‘smoky stuff on the belly’ medicine time. Not to worry, we left him to it and took his wife off to the mobile service provider, her SIM card was too old and the wrong size for her new phone. She told us we didn’t need the car as it wasn’t far to China Telecom, our first stop. There we found out that her old SIM card wasn’t theirs, but China Mobile’s. More walking was involved, slowly but surely. In recent years cellphone policy has changed in China and now some proof of identity is required, for Chinese people their Hukou card. Guess where the old lady’s card was? You’re right, at home. I left Huan and her there while I walked back to get the Hukou card and then drove the car back to the shop. We didn’t want her walking any further. It still took some time but eventually we got a new SIM card and headed off home.

Once there, as the phone is different to the one she had before, I asked Huan to show her how to make and answer calls etc. They then asked me to set up WeChat for them. What a nightmare that was! I had to put the phone into English first, none of them were very adept at the technical side of things. Eventually her account was set up and she invited Huan and her husband to join her. Huan was no problem, but we could not get her husband to ‘receive the invite’. It turns out that this number used to be his, which I already know from my travails with my phone and Alipay, can cause problems down the line. Still, she’s all set up now and should be able to invite her daughter later on today.

I left them then, after eating two of the dumplings we had delivered. The old fella needed some too, he is diabetic and we had kept them busy long past his lunch time. As I departed, Huan was giving hulusi instruction and I headed off for the bank, mine does have a branch in Ledong. Updating my passbook was easy enough but, long story short, I was not able to change any Pounds into Renminbi. We’ll have to wait until we go to Sanya or Haikou again. I arrived back, wet through from the rain, just in time to collect Huan and off we drove.

We took the Maodao turn off on the way home to check just how far we would have to walk to get there. Our calculations were approximately twenty kilometres. That would mean carrying lunch with us or eating there, we didn’t spot any restaurants. I suggested an alternative to Huan, we take us a bus to Maodao and then walk around that area, we did see two different possible routes, one to a bamboo shoot farm, the other more of a long walk. We’ll see how it goes.

Being Thursday, you probably expected to see a recipe today, or a photo of my cooking. Time didn’t allow that so Huan cooked instead. She also cooked the flatbread that I will need tomorrow before I cooked the chicken breast, also needed for tomorrow.

No walking today, apart from around Ledong, no photos either, sorry.

April 30^th No photos yesterday but oodles today! Our route this morning was over the bridge to nowhere to check on the latest progress. We now know why the irrigation canal has been drained; they are building a new section that the road will eventually go over. Whether this section of the canal will end up covered over or not remains to be seen. Obviously there was no way for us to cross here so we had to backtrack a little. Once across, we took the second photo, you can see where the irrigation canal comes from.

From there we headed off to the countryside thinking we’d be on a ‘hard top’ all the way. We were wrong, but luckily the ground underfoot was just about suitable for my sandals.

Bugs are up next, dragonflies to be precise, different colours as well.

What would a countryside walk be without a visit to my bovine buddies. I couldn’t get this group to come any nearer but the photo shows they were all curious.

More food growing locally, this time not wild but on farms, chillies and courgettes. My friend Drew would be happy to be let loose in the chilli field!

Our route took us to an old fish farm cum restaurant that we been to before, from another direction. It’s just about deserted now but there was one family there along with one rather worried looking watchdog.

Something you don’t want to see ‘growing’ in the countryside is garbage of course. This little road is where old electronic stuff used to brought for breaking and recycling. All the fridges and washing machines have gone but there are still a handful of CRTs waiting to be disposed of. I’m sure they will also be gone before too long.

Arriving back home, via the back gate for a change, we spotted the reticent birds again. After a few photos of one facing and one not, the second one deigned to turn around and even gave us a little song, how about that. It is still difficult to see their eyes though because of their facial colouring and if I lighten the picture too much it just doesn’t work.

Gentleman Bob did his duty after lunch and walked Huan to her “University”!

I left her making lots of noise with all the other students. They asked me to be the teacher, jokingly of course, and I said I needed a big whip, also jokingly, of course.

I left them and continued on my merry way, today was my last chance this month of reaching the daily ten kilometre total, I failed yesterday. With five and a half this morning and over six this afternoon today was a success. Mind you, I only just reached home before the heaven’s opened up. The rain did catch me, a little, it caught Huan a great deal more. Luckily she had her umbrella which I had refused when she had offered it to me as I was leaving them in their class.

Once I got home it was cooking for me, although I couldn’t actually put the dish in the oven before Huan came home. I needed some seeds for the top and I had no idea where they were! As usual, the recipe is below, which I almost followed. I replaced coriander with parsley, well it is supposed to be “Chinese parsely”, dill and tarragon with celery leaves and some other green Chinese leaves. Apart from the chicken and the bread I increased all the quantities, it was our dinner after all. I’m not sure how you would normally eat this, Huan suggested that it would go well with a salad, I tend to agree.

We had nothing extra with it and apart from overdoing the red pepper powder both of us were suitably impressed and scoffed the lot in no time.

No outside hulusi class for Huan tonight, the rain was still bucketing down. Instead, she found work for me to do, cleaning up and printing song sheets for he hulusi class mates. My ears didn’t get much rest after that either!

Would you like to know how far we walked in April? Unfortunately, unlike Endomondo, Map My Walk does not send you a nice email summary so all I have is a screen shot. We didn’t do too badly for a couple of OAPs did we?

May 1st Did you know that Britain didn’t start celebrating the Mayday holiday until 1978? Also on this day Elvis Presley married Priscilla Beaulieu in1967, Star Wars (A long time ago in a galaxy far away…) was released in 1977. All of the above are within my memory but this one isn’t, Joseph Addison, the co-founder of the original “The Spectator” daily newspaper (1711) was born in 1672. (Penguin Pocket Reference ISBN0-141-02715-0).

The weather was a little warm this morning but not too warm for a nice ten kilometre walk, and we succeeded, just, at 10.2km. We kept to the town today but took a couple of detours to make sure we reached the magic number. On one of those detours we spotted something I like to see, people planting trees. I must say, they do that a lot in Hainan.

Next up is the “tree of life”, although that’s not exactly what it means. Written on the tree trunk is 仁帝山 which translates roughly as “Benevolent Emperor Mountain”. It refers to a complex of serviced apartments, very nice they are too, and the tree, with its groupings details all you can avail yourself of should you check in there. I’m not going to translate that though, you can either use an app or ask your local Chinese restaurant!

Next is a butterfly, an unusual colour this time, that was doing a pretty good impression of a pair of sandals from a distance.

Remember those lizards from last week? Well, we spotted some of them again today but rather than show you too many I’ve chosen just two. One is a real poser, just check out that tail, and the other one is shy, trying to hide against the tree colour.

Scenic shots follow, just so that you can see where we walk and how pleasant it is.

Surprisingly, after lunch, neither of us fell prey to the dreaded OAP nap! Apart from watching movies, I was also duty cook for the weekend which, if you remember, entailed a vegetable stew. As usual, here are the ingredients, sans the tomato which I added later. The flatbreads are extras that Huan made, to eat with, and not go in the stew. The jar, despite saying beetroot, as you can probably see, is not. It is chicken stock, with a dash of Italian herbs, some salt and pepper and some star aniseed. It’s left from precooking the chicken for yesterday’s dinner.

As you can probably guess I had to dice everything quite small to get it all to fit in our largest pan. Even then, it was almost too much until the leafy vegetables ‘shrunk’.

Rain stopped play for Huan after dinner again, I just did my Chinese practice and then relaxed watching movies. Oh, it’s a hard life!

May 2^nd Nice weather for a nice long walk today, I decided to take Huan down the river to where I had been recently, taking the two offshoots that she hadn’t seen. Remember the three ‘birds on the wall’, well today there were four birds ‘on the wire’. I had to explain to Huan why birds don’t get electrocuted when they sit on power lines, although these were mostly communications lines and insulated as well.

Exploring beside the sewage works was next, we went down a path I hadn’t been down before and were met with this sight. The water is flowing downhill and obviously joins the river later on so I suggested that one day we walk that way. Neither of us was prepared for it today. However, Huan’s reply led me to assume that if I want to go that way, I will be going alone! I guess she has some not so fond memories of leeches and worries about snakes.

We continued downriver and passed the usual multitudes of goats where Huan went crazy with her phone taking what seemed like hundreds of photos because they were ‘feeding’.

Spring is definitely in the air! From there I took Huan down to the secluded farm where there were chicks and ducklings galore. Huan liked this photo of the geese swimming though and I liked the one of the two little ducks.

The river, while not in full flow, was flowing fast enough today that there was no place for us to cross so we had to backtrack to where we knew we could. Here we are climbing down the makeshift ladder, (stronger than it looks), to where we could cross.

This is where we crossed, and you can tell by the second photo that it’s not always possible. In fact the first time we ever crossed here in the other direction it was a shoes and socks off job!

Once across we thought we would check up on the ‘pig in the culvert’, you may remember her from previous walks. The first thing we noticed is that the farmer has built her a new house to the side of the culvert and then, peering through the cracks I saw that she’d had four little piggies! Only three are visible in the photo though.

Bovine buddies are next, but these are my best bovine buddies. I usually ‘moo’ as we approach the byre and invariably, if they are in residence, one will poke its head up. We stayed awhile and Huan took forty photos of me petting and chatting to them! I’ll just use on of hers, where ‘Mummy’ is giving Huan a dirty look whilst protecting her baby.

We headed back through one of the little villages, with Huan lost as usual. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone with such a hopeless sense of direction! Here are two views from opposite sides of the village, showing the fields and mountains all around.

Our last photograph for today shows the island bridge on our way home. We went our separate ways when we reached the end with Huan turning right to go home and me turning left to make sure I got my ten kilometres in!

I did, I arrived home not long after Huan having completed 10.2km. At least that meant I was free from further exercise today. I spent the afternoon looking for recipes for this week’s meals, the ones I will cook anyway. What are they? Sorry, you’ll just have to wait and see.

Huan had a call from Taobao this evening; you’ll have read a lot about them over the last few years. Yesterday we ordered some new cheapo boots (¥89.00) for me, I really need something to walk in once Huan starts going to school nearly every day again. I don’t know about you dear readers, but my feet seem to be a part of my body that never stops growing. Now now, no comments about my rotundity please. Anyway, they didn’t have my size in the boots I had ordered. They found out by opening the box before sending the shoes, I was suitably impressed. They did provide many options in the same price range so it wasn’t a ‘con’ as I had first thought. None of the options suited me though so I did end up ordering a slightly more expensive boot, (¥108.00). Why cheapo boots you ask? Purely because we are ordering them online and that’s the one thing we can never seem to get right, my foot size. If they last until we return to Haikou in August I’ll be happy enough.

May 3^rd Ah, Monday, or day of rest, well, from walking anyway, we still have to go shopping of course. Even that is easier now that the population of snowbirds has significantly decreased. Fennel was on the list today, and we found that easily. However, pearl barley was another story altogether, we had to do some Taobao surfing when we got home. Hopefully it will arrive before the weekend which is when I will need it.

After lunch we strolled up to the hospital to see if we could have our second Covid shots. Our luck was in, or out, depending how you feel about needles. This nurse wasn’t at all sure about us taking pictures but she relented. Why is there only a photo of me being jabbed and not Huan? If I was to take Huan’s photo I would have to look at the needle!

That’s both of us fully vaccinated now, the proof is on our phones. Huan’s phone shows that she has had the vaccination; my phone also shows that she has had the vaccination! You guessed it, there is a problem with my phone. Some time ago we made sure that my phone was now in my name, not Huan’s. However, for some reason, my Alipay is still in Huan’s name and we can’t find a way to change it. The ‘health code’ comes under the Alipay suite of apps and Alipay requires a bank card to be associated with it which so far I’m unable to do. We spent a long time this afternoon trying to sort it out; I think we need ‘professional’ help!

The rest of my afternoon was spent looking for recipes that use pearl barley that maybe I can use next week. Huan made a noise in the living room! Mind you, the noise is beginning to sound a lot more musical.

And on that ‘note’ we will leave you until we see in the next episode, have a good week, stay safe, and if you haven’t been vaccinated, get it done!