Bob’s Tests, Bob’s Results, Bob’s OK(?), Bob’s a Woman(!?)

August 10^th We were woken by the horrible alarm phone this morning, at least Huan was, I had been awake since twenty past four waiting for the alarm to go off at five. Why so early? You may have noticed that there have been no monthly hormone injections since March, today was test day. The results will decide how the treatment continues in the future, or hopefully, it won’t have to continue at all! We were on the road by half past five and arrived at the hospital to find that the parking had all changed. Not finding any spaces and getting irritated by the number of cars going the wrong way we went and parked outside the hotel and then went for breakfast.

Our appointment was for quarter to ten, all arranged over WeChat, so we had time for breakfast first. Dr. Zhang looked over my records and then gave me two slips of paper to head back to the cash desk with. One was for the blood tests which is what I had expected.

The second one was something I hadn’t expected and was much more expensive although to be fair it was still cheaper than the previous monthly hormone injections. I had to have another CT scan, cue my nerves setting off again.

Back to the hotel we went, not our usual floor, that’s under refurbishment, so we had to have a lower floor without the huge shared balcony. The rain had also started again so what to do, have another afternoon sleep of course.

Dinner was a buffet style meal just across from the hospital; we had to go back there to collect the CT scan results. It’s quite efficient, scan your barcode on the large envelope provided and then wait for the results to be printed, four image sheets and one A4 printout. This is the machine that does all the work.

And here’s  the images laid out on the bed when we got back.

Of course these images mean nothing at all to me so with Huan’s assistance and Google translate we translated the A4 document. I think I’m fine but we won’t know for sure until Dr. Zhang has seen them and contacts us via WeChat. The blood test results will be available tomorrow afternoon, those I do know how to analyse.

August 11^th Sleep is always good in this hotel, the mattresses are great. Unfortunately they have no manufacturer’s labels and the hotel staff have no idea where they came from. If they knew, we’d probably try and buy the same ones. As usual in Haikou breakfast was not cereal. I bet you can guess which one was mine, you’re right, the fried noodles. Huan’s looked so good though I think I may be having that tomorrow.

After breakfast with lots of time to waste until my results were ready this afternoon, we had a walk up to Baishamen park. We stumbled across a section full of statues, or sculptures, I’m not sure what the difference is, that we have never seen before. There were far too many to show you here so we’ll limit it to two, very different ones, along with the Chinese descriptions. The two sculptors could possibly be related but we’re not sure.

We’ve been to this park numerous times in the past but today we took some different paths, those less well travelled by the looks of it.

Huan was doing her usual thing of trying to get me to photograph all the birds we saw and the chipmunks, or are they squirrels? If I refused she used her phone. Back at the hotel, after showing Huan the results, all seventy odd photos from her phone were binned, there were no creatures to be seen at all. I had Freddy with me so I was slightly more successful, still not really good enough though.

We have a sign to show you today as well, no Chinglish on this one though. Do you know why the instruction at the bottom is included? Some Chinese people, practicing Buddhists I believe, will release live animals back into the wild, usually fish or birds that have been bought in the local markets. Obviously this is not good for the existing ecosystem.

From the park we headed off to find Dr. Tim’s wife’s coffee shop, we thought we’d have lunch there. We failed, got too warm, headed back and had lunch on the way. If you’re reading this Dr. Tim, please put us right for the next time we visit!

Huan was lucky, after lunch she got to have a nap, I on the other hand, was far too busy. First I had to go through all the photos from her phone looking for any microscopic signs of life. Once that was done I then had to go through the 170 photos from Freddy. These were eventually whittled down to 93. If you want to see more, I have added them to our Baishamen album which you can find here - https://photos.app.goo.gl/er7R8gM8WTTxcm9HA

As we were heading out for dinner the hotel reception staff told us it would start raining soon. “We’ll be all right” we thought, if it does rain we can wait it out in a restaurant. Well they were right, it did rain, harder than we thought it would, sending us into a restaurant not of our choice, it was just near enough. The food was fine; the wifi did something strange to both our phones. Mine was back up and running fairly quickly, I had to put Huan’s into English to sort it out. All that time wasted and the rain still hadn’t stopped so we set off for the bank and the hospital, as we had planned for this evening. What we hadn’t planned for were the rivers in the streets, quite a few of which we had to cross!

We were not the only ones who took our shoes off but I think we were the only ones who seemed to be having so much fun walking through all the obvious running water and any other puddles we could find. We did keep an eye out for potholes or open manholes!

The hospital visit was to collect my blood test results. I can’t be sure until I compare them with the previous results back home in Wuzhishan but I think they’re all OK. Huan tells me that the Chinese says I’m well within the female range for my testosterone!

Once back at the hotel it was hot showers all round, followed by sorting out this post and making sure all the data was also backed up to our travelling external HDD.

August 12^th I was wrong, no noodle soup for me today, SWMBO chose a dumpling restaurant where she proceeded to have rice soup! I had dumplings, with crispy bottoms, there’s nothing like a crispy bottom is there? Dumplings! What did you think I meant, you’ve been watching too many ‘Carry On’ films.

Our mission in Haikou was almost finished, all that was left was the important shopping. A quick trip to “The Grocery” saw us loaded up with butter, cheese, sandwich meats, whipping cream, pickled red cabbage, pickled beetroot, pickled gherkins, desiccated coconut, coconut milk, one tin of corned beef and, we emptied the shelves of Raisin Bran. Well, it could be months before we’re back up north again!

On our way home we stopped at Fengmu for lunch and of course a toilet break. You’ll be pleased to know that you can get free toilet paper by scanning a QR code.

The doors were open to the handicapped toilets and the nursing room so I snapped them too. This is the first time I’ve seen such a little loo for the little people. It’s also good to see that parents with babies are well catered for with facilities.

Back home in Wuzhishan Huan went straight to bed, she is still not right yet. Normally when we visit Haikou we try and meet our ‘northern friends’, this time we avoided them due to us both being a little under the weather. I seem to be recovering faster than Huan so more looking after her will be needed.

It doesn’t help that we keep getting caught in the rain which we did again this evening. We went out for dinner and also to buy urgent supplies for tomorrow’s breakfasts. We were prepared, we had two umbrellas, but with me carrying two heavy shopping bags I couldn’t hold mine. I told Huan to take care of herself and made sure I had a hot shower when we got home, again!

August 13th NTR, just shopping and admin.

August 14^th Another lazy(ish) day although we did get out for a walk, being careful to avoid the raindrops. In that we were successful, it only drizzled slightly when we were out, the ‘real’ rain came back after dinner again. Our walk was not too bad, just over seven kilometres although we both thought my phone was telling lies and that it should have been further. Not much was seen today but Huan did take lots of photos of me and a four legged friend again. She needs to get closer; the crops are never so good. The owner of this particular pooch is always pleased to see us and tells all his friends, every time, that the dog and I are fellow countrymen!

Apart from that, all we have to show you is the progress on the repair of our villa side road. As you can see, the progress on the road is ‘zero’ but they have begun the construction of the sides of the dam, possibly control room(s). We assume that they will fix our road once that’s done. The curved piece of concrete you can see at the front of the photo is something they built to divert the rainwater away from the existing landslip and stop it getting any bigger.

August 15^th We awoke to an overcast sky this morning but that was good, it meant our planned walk could go ahead. It’s been a while since we’ve had a ‘real’ walk so we were going around the mountain park walk today. From now onwards that walk shall be known as Feicui Park walk.

Chinglish is our first photo, although I’m not sure if a spelling mistake counts. This was on the newly erected safety fence along the irrigation canal. Later on in the day, around Feicui Park, we did spot correct versions of this sign.

This one was difficult to photograph, it was buzzing around quite wildly, worrying me quite a bit as I tried to get close enough. Later in the day, its sibling tried attacking Huan!

Huan wondered why the creature was buzzing her, was it her perfume? In the end she decided it must have been the softener in her clothes. I didn’t agree because when I diverted its attention it chased after me and I certainly didn’t smell of softener! Forgetting all about her brush with danger Huan soon found some flowers to pick and take home for replanting.

Before too long we were at the bridge, ready to make our way down the ‘park’ side. Normally we are pretty exhausted by this stage; the hill has no shaded for most of the way. Today, with the sun hiding behind the clouds most of the time, we felt fine.

The paths through the wood were not too bad, often after heavy rain, they are too slippery to walk on. The rain had obviously had some effect though, this tree was down. Looking at the tree and the hole I found myself wondering what had been holding it up in the first place. There didn’t seem to be much evidence of roots!

Earlier on I told you that this walk would be known as Feicui Park from now onwards. To be honest, that’s what Huan has always called it and what I kept forgetting it was called! Today we spotted this sign, I doubt it’s very new but we haven’t seen it before. Maybe they cleaned it!

To save you straining your eyes, I took a photo of the English text. We are not sure how up to date it is because the last time we tried to go all the way to the top we couldn’t. Perhaps we’ll try again sometime in the near future.

Back down at the river, Huan bade me a fond farewell. She was off home for a shower and a cool down in the air conditioning. I was heading upriver, not too far mind you, just far enough to make sure I got me ten for the day!

As you can see, Huan was wearing her mask. I was too, even after we parted ways. More people are wearing masks than before but still nowhere near the same percentage as Haikou. It’s quite funny watching people searching for their masks when they spot me walking towards them. One woman today didn’t have a mask; she avoided me by walking to one side and lowering her umbrella so that she couldn’t see me at all.

My last photo of the day is another view of the quarantine hotel, but this time from the other side of the river. So far, it seems quite empty.

Our weather forecast wasn’t too far off today but the rain did start an hour earlier than expected. Luckily for me I was already home by then. For the rest of the day it was occasional “Sound of Music” from the living room from Huan and more cyber security movies for me. I found a new place to watch movies; it seems to be much more stable than Youtube and has quite a lot available. Today I finished off the Matrix trilogy. The site is https://lookmovie.io/movies

Another one I found was on Facebook, someone has uploaded ‘The Grand Tour’. Having never seen any of Top Gear or The Grand Tour since I arrived in China this pleased me immensely. I know some people don’t like Jeremy, Richard and James but I love them!

August 16^th Normal service has been resumed. Today was our weekly shopping day, more masks were visible today. Before we went I told Huan I wanted to go down to the fifth floor. Whenever we go out we can hear a bird from there so I wanted to investigate. As soon as I got there the ‘birdsong’ changed. What a sad sight to see, the poor little creature seemed very happy to see me, I could have stayed and chatted for ages. Looking around the cage there were some feathers on the floor, obviously it’s pulled them out, probably due to stress. In the UK I would more than likely have contacted the RSPCA, unfortunately there’s nothing like that here. Why is it outside the front door? Maybe they leave it there when they go out to work, maybe it lives there all the time. Whatever the answer I think I may have to pop down and say hello a bit more often. Just look at those little eyes!

On that sad note we will leave you. Stay safe, take care, look after yourselves, look after your nearest and dearest, look after your pets if you have any, just look after all of God’s little creatures. See you next time!