July 6th All good things come to an end, in our case it was the weather. We woke up to rain which then persisted all morning. There was good news too though; we had a tenant coming in the evening to sign a contract for a year’s rent.
After lunch the rain had eased off so we took our last walk in Sanya. Hearing a strange noise from the trees at the side of the river we investigated and managed to capture some snaps of a young egret, or two, we weren’t sure if this was the same one twice!
For our walk I suggested to Huan that we went somewhere we hadn’t
been before and we walked on the marina side near the new Sanya Duty Free
complex. That still has some way to go before it’s complete. The marina could
also do with a few more visitors. I wonder if sailing into
Exploring further we found a way round the centre and came across the tram terminus.
Spotting a sign for
Because there was no one to stop us we carried on past the old heliport with its fading signs and walked to the end of the dock. From there we could see across to one of Sanya’s famous islands, accessible by bridge but not by us today.
The dock there is still in use, although I think cruise ships normally berth on the other side.
In this next photo you can see the whole island along with the access road on the right hand side.
Looking back you can see just how deserted the harbour is. I don’t know if there is a new one somewhere, there may well be because we thing this area will be redeveloped.
These boys had the right idea. Looking at the cargo they were possibly heading somewhere to work, maybe going fishing, but definitely going drinking!
We had to take these next two photographs because Huan’s younger
sister used to ‘drive’ cranes similar to this at the docks in
Before we knew it we were walking in a newly landscaped area so the redevelopment seems to be real thing, it should look nice.
A large part of the development is a new hotel, a very large one in fact. Here is her ladyship not very happy about being asked to pose!
By the time we reached civilisation again the rain had returned, we both arrived back at the apartment very wet.
Our dinner plan had been to have a strange looking cheeseburger downstairs, with cheese not only on the inside but poured over the outside as well. That must play havoc with your fingers! Anyway, there were no pickles so that plan was cancelled.
Our tenant duly arrived, a young working girl, and signed the contract with Huan. There was a slight worry when her boyfriend telephoned her and asked her to make sure we were the legal owners of the apartment. That entailed me going back to the car and unpacking the computer to show the proof. All’s well that ends well.
The drive home was untoward and we were back in Wuzhishan just after nine o’clock. I will miss Sanya, much more than Huan will, but I do have to say it was nice to get back home and sleep in our own bed.
July 7th Rain stopped play
here today, just as well I suppose, we had the shopping to do and then admin
for me. All the photos and files needed uploading from the laptop, paperwork
scanned for Huan etc. Because we had a lot of problems with the camera again
this week, I also began the search for a replacement, more than likely a
compact zoom this time. That will be easier to hide from the rain, just put it
in my pocket, and certainly easier on the wallet. Getting the
July 8th Rain stopped play yet again today, every time we thought there would be enough time for a walk the rain came down again. Still, it meant Huan had a very relaxing day and I did lots of surfing trying to find a camera. It’s not as easy as it sounds you know! First you use the English speaking web to try and narrow down choices and then use Taobao to try and find those choices. Finding compact superzooms was not easy at all, I guess most Chinese now are happy with the quality of photos on their smartphones. To be honest, the high end phones are very good but our mid range phones not so good. They really fail when we try to zoom in. ‘Bridge’ cameras, which also have long zoom abilities are all way out of our price range, this year anyway. Finally, we did something we haven’t done before and ordered second hand, a Fujifilm Finepix S1, very similar to a camera we sold eleven or so years ago. It’s weather sealed, has a 50X superzoom which should help us with those elusive birds. The disadvantage, due to its age, (anything up to seven years), is that is only has a small sensor. For the price, just less than a hundred quid, if it lasts a year we’ll be happy. If we don’t send it back I might be forced to keep it longer than that though, Huan paid for a three year warranty! We’ll do a couple of comparison shots when it arrives so you can tell us if we made a good choice or not.
July 9th Today, after looking at the skies, we took the risk of going walkies. Phones and computers forecasted rain, we were right and they were wrong, makes a change I suppose. Our first photo was right outside our apartment building entrance and it was a shock, the tree has been chopped down. Perhaps they thought the roots were a danger to the building. It was a fruit bearing tree, more details here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longan.
The director was very busy today so you can credit (or blame) her for the content. A snail was her first choice, she was wondering how well they can see because as I got nearer it started to retract its head back inside its shell.
This next one was my choice, I thought the buildings on the hill looked quite pretty in the sun but by the time I got the photo the clouds had moved a little further over.
With all the talk of birds and cameras today we were lucky enough to come across two that didn’t fly away immediately they saw us. In fact one hung around long enough for us to get a fairly decent picture of it.
Is a black cat crossing your path lucky or unlucky? I can never
remember which it is. Of course it may also be different in
As we often do we met a mantis, who wanted to make merry, so we joined in. I chose to show you a not very flattering photo, in fact it looks a little scary! However, today for a change, we also made a video; you can see that here - https://youtu.be/XoGxTWcgtE4
On our way home we bumped into one of the local postmen who let us know that there was a letter waiting for us at the post office. We could have gone this morning but I felt that Huan had walked enough so we just went home. We did check on our ‘broken’ road on the way in, no work has started yet so no new photos from there.
After lunch I went off to the post office and left Huan at home. This way I can get my daily ten kilometres in and she doesn’t feel that she has to accompany me. Arriving at the post office I found I had walked only one and a half kilometres so I added some more on the way home. My modified route took me past the pet shop where I noticed far fewer hamsters, no rabbits, more birds and a lot of turtles. Having seen the snail earlier I thought you would appreciate more laid back animals as well. The turtle in the first photo is what got me to stop and look and then see all the other varieties. Is there something wrong with its shell?
My extra dog leg worked fine, I had walked 4.4kms by the time I
reached home which, added to this morning’s 7.2kms gave me a daily total of
11.6kms. Much more of the same is needed! What was our letter from the post
office? We had both thought it might be another anniversary card, my wonderful
siblings do still send us cards even though we keep telling them not to. On
this occasion we were wrong, it was in fact a letter from my pension provider,
dated 20th May, I guess seven weeks is not too slow! Luckily it was
just something for
July 10th Huan is now definitely back to normal life, she had a singing class this morning. As I usually do these days, I walked her there where she pointed out my first subject, another little slowcoach, quite a small one.
Being a Saturday again I headed for the market hoping to find something different to show you but I failed miserably. Birds were out in force today though.
Now I always try and show you different makes of electric cars, some mini EVs and some more normal EVs, but we also have modified older vehicles, especially like these two below. One is an MPV the other a ‘white van’, neither seems to have an exhaust pipe so I am assuming they are 100% EV and not hybrid.
Now the next photo must be looked at with some sympathy for the subject. No comments should be made about the double chin, the large schnoz, the bushy eyebrows or any other part of its anatomy. It is in fact the lesser spotted Bob attempting to conceal itself in a small bamboo grove.
I mentioned birds were out in force today, here’s another one, more than likely the same species as the previous one. This one allowed me to get near enough to take quite a few photos of which I kept three. Not knowing which one you’d prefer, I decided to share two of them. Just look at its little beady eyes, watching the camera.
Finally for today, more EVs but not cars this time. Almost all the buses in our local fleets have now been replaced by electric ones. The blue one is the more recent model, the red one is perhaps two or three years old.
I beat Huan home, not by much though, after walking almost eight kilometres. My plan was to go out again after dinner, which was my turn to cook today. Huan had asked if I could do a two day chicken stew, who am I to disagree. Unfortunately, after we finished eating dinner, I got stuck down an internet wormhole again. This time it was BBC Reel that snagged me and I got so lost that walkies was forgotten about. If you’ve never been there you should visit, just Google it and then choose from the hundreds of amazing videos available.
July 11th Ah, don’t you just love Sundays, the Sabbath, the day of rest? That won’t do for us of course, it’s one of the days when we can walk together, no other activities planned for SWMBO. I decided today that we would have a fairly easy countryside walk in the direction of Changhao village. One of the first things we saw was yet another bird, but we couldn’t get very close at all. It looks like a kingfisher, correct me if I’m wrong. Here’s hoping that we will find one of these when we go out with the new camera, when it arrives.
Before too long we were far away from the hustle and bustle and deep into the peace and quiet of the countryside, well, maybe not quiet but not full of man made noises. We went to check on the ‘hooch still’ which unfortunately wasn’t in operation today. A chat with the owner confirmed that the road Huan wanted to walk on didn’t go anywhere but he did point out another one that we hadn’t been on before. It took us through another part of this small village.
At one stage Huan suggested going off the beaten track and up one of the small mountains. Had we been out earlier I may have agreed but not today. Imagine getting lost in all these rubber trees and not knowing how to find your way home. You could be bouncing around in there forever!
Instead, to satisfy Huan’s need for exploring, we took another new road, we turned left when we left Caobao village and went here.
Our detour started off well, checking the fruits on the trees, guava, better eaten earlier in the year. Huan has learnt that the best way to eat them is to dip them in a little salt.
Our first glimmer of disappointment came when we saw this scene in front of us. There were no trees to provide shade, just a long road to somewhere.
Our disappointment grew when we realised that, beautiful as it was at the end of the road, there was no way through the undergrowth or across the river. We had to retrace our steps.
On our way back up the sunny road we decided to play with one of the ploughs. Who do you think will make the better farmer, the boss, or me?
Our route back took us through a
different part of the village, we found out it has a post office cum tourist
centre cum trading post. Maybe that reminds you of your younger days when
villages where you are from always had a post office cum corner shop. That was
certainly true in the
On our way home I suggested to Huan that we visit the bakery, I had forgotten to take the bread out of the freezer last night. Before you say that I could have taken it out when we got home, it was not individual baps or sliced bread but a whole Russian loaf, probably not a good idea to defrost the whole thing in the microwave. Anyway, Huan vetoed my plan and she bought some Chinese steamed bread instead. Our planned lunch was bacon and egg sandwiches, I had remembered to take the bacon out last night! It worked and filled the hole created by all that walking but it certainly tasted a little different.
No OAP naps were taken after lunch although I did do a good impression of a nodding dog in front of the computer and Huan “thinks she may have dozed off in front of the telly”.
By evening time, after our second day of chicken stew, life was back to normal and our electricity went off again! It’s really not our year this year, the UPS also failed and everything switched off. We don’t need all these additional expenses!
Later, after the power was restored, Huan was summoned to the gatehouse to play hulusi with Yú. Today though, she came home with goodies, some fish from Yú’s daughter, some dumplings made by Yú and a few other little bits and pieces. They were tasty dumplings too, took my mind off the UPS for a while.
July 12th Huan dragged me out shopping early today, she said that the ‘new’ camera would be arriving this morning. I didn’t believe her of course but, she was right. The camera arrived even before we had finished putting the shopping away. The first job was to photograph the condition, it was a little worse than I had expected.
Once lunch was over the second job was to go out and do some comparison shots between both the S1 and the X-T20. Huan took these first two shots with the X-T20, wide angle followed by maximum zoom, (approx 3X).
She also took these with the S1; I wanted her to get an idea of the difference by actually seeing it through the viewfinder. Again it’s wide followed by zoom, (50X)
So far I was quite impressed! It’s not easy to take the long zoom photos but when you get it right they look good, or so I thought at this stage. Our next test was to take selfies with both cameras, the S1 failed miserably. The X-T20 goes down to 16mm where the S1 only goes down to 24mm. A few more were taken around our little island before we each took a zoom photo of our balcony, by now I was the S1 operator and Huan the X-T20 operator. I’m sure you can see which is which!
Next we did a zoom test on a part of the river.
At this stage I was still fairly impressed and thinking to myself “it should be OK once I get used to using it and focussing at zoom distances.” Macros were not so easy with the S1 as they were with the X-T20 but again I thought that was something I could get used to. So far so good eh? We thought so until we got home and checked these next long distance zooms, there is something not quite right with them. They are nowhere near as clear as the ones we took earlier.
Perhaps there was a haze in the air, but we couldn’t see it with our eyes. It was enough of a problem to start me wondering about the condition of the camera, specifically around the lens. Mind you, this next picture sent me back the other way again. This is at maximum zoom and I love the way the barrage dam looks so large behind the fisherman. We reckon we must have been three to four hundred metres away from him.
We came across another praying mantis today, smaller than the one we saw earlier in the week. The X-T20 coped well, the S1 not so well. Part of the trouble was me trying to use it one handed while the mantis played on my other hand, but that had been no problem with the last one and the X-T20. By now I was veering the other way again!
Just to try and test my patience we spotted a couple of birds on our way home so Huan asked me to try snapping them. I did succeed in getting one or two decent pics but it was no easy feat, I took a lot more than that.
By now I was veering more and more to sending the camera back. When we got home and started doing some comparisons on the PC, we could see that the X-T20 definitely has better picture quality, the resultant images can be cropped quite considerably, as we often do of course, with no great loss in definition or quality. As soon as we tried cropping the S1 photos you could see the same effects that we see when we crop our phone photos. I guess that’s hardly surprising, the camera sensor is about the same size as a modern mobile phone sensor. The only advantage of the S1 was the longer zoom, and that showed deficiencies at long distances.
With a little trepidation I asked Huan if she would mind if we sent it back. To my great relief she was more than happy to do so, not so much because of what I had shown her in the photos but because of the condition the camera arrived in. She didn’t trust it not to fail again fairly quickly. I was wondering if there was a lens problem having seen the long distance zooms. Thankfully the Taobao seller was good to his word and the camera was sent back tonight. Huan should be fully recompensed in a couple of days, apart from the shipping costs of returning it. They are minimal anyway, ¥23.00, I’d have paid as much to rent a camera for the day!
Stay tuned to this frequency to find out if we ever get the X-T20 repaired or find a decent camera to replace it. Until next week, it’s goodbye from me and it’s goodbye from the C-in-C.
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