A Plethora of Poinsettias, Bigfoot, A Quiet Christmas & A Twixtmas Walk

December 21^st No rain this morning so Huan went off to Yefeng for her hulusi class. Before she went she confined me to barracks, I was on Taobao watch waiting for my new shoes. We’re off to a wedding party in January and I have no shoes left! I took the opportunity of confinement to cook tonight’s dinner early, apart from the noodles. Yes, I know I said last week we would be having salads with the fowl in the bag but with the miserable weather I decided nice hot soup noodles would be better. It could be a while before the weather improves, looking at my PC, next Monday will only have a maximum of 13ºC in the daytime, 11ºC in the night. I may have to search the spare bedroom for the hot water bottle!

My shoes came home with Huan, the delivery driver turned up as she did. Of course I had to try them on immediately, and as I expected, both pairs were too small. You may wonder why I ordered them if I knew they would be too small. Chinese sizes seem to bear no relation to European and British sizes. In the UK I used to be 8½ or 9 and usually 43 on the continent. Since we came to China I’ve had a lot of difficulty finding shoes to fit, more so down south here than up north in Harbin. Anyway, the seller had a size chart on his page showing sizes available up to 48 so we ordered two different pairs, both in a size 45 with confirmation that should they not fit I could send them back for replacement. The seller then spoke with Huan, who gave them my measurements upon which they told us to order size 44. Both pairs were too small so back onto Taobao went my buyer to chat with the seller. “Sorry, we don’t have any bigger sizes than 44” they said. Basically, they lied to Huan to get her to order size 44 because they didn’t have what was shown on the page!

After lunch we took the shoes to one of the express delivery shops and sent them back, to two different places. This confirmed to me that the seller we had chosen was a middleman. Now we wait to be sure our money is returned to us. The way that Taobao works we usually have no problems, our money goes into escrow until we confirm that the ‘goods’ have been satisfactorily received. In this case, the seller was telling Huan that if the shoes had any signs of wear they would refuse to send the money back. Photos were taken of the soles and the tops just in case!

Since we were already out I suggested that we walk around the town, past the river and back via our assorted shoe shops on the off chance someone may have a big size in stock. Down by the riverside we met someone else with big feet; she is going to grow to be a big girl!

Our ‘big girl’ then followed us a long way towards home, we had to resort to subterfuge to fool her. I guess I’ve made another friend. Not to be outdone, as we got nearer home, Huan found a new friend, it was furry too, but with more ‘paws’ than mine. Huan thought it was dangerous so I had to remove it with the end of my comb.

Needless to say we found no shoes to fit me so while Huan was out in the evening I did a lot of Taobao searching again, bookmarked many pages for her to look at tomorrow, after school.

December 22^nd Much the same as yesterday, Huan out for hulusi class, I was up too late to be the escort today so I stayed in. The weather was miserable again and I took the opportunity of cooking dinner early.

Walkies called after lunch, Huan needed to check her Taobao account before we tried shopping again this evening. I forgot to take the big camera with me, sods law, we actually saw a lot of white birds today, none of which photographed well. These goats did though.

After the bank Huan decided to part company with me and went home for a rest, she needed to, far too much music occupying her every waking minute at the moment. Once she’d wandered off I went looking for yesterday’s canine friends, no sign of any of them. I do hope they haven’t got lost somewhere. Back along the river these flowers reminded me of how much we would prefer to live in a house instead of a flat. We do have plants on the balcony but it’s not the same.

Now that the dry, or should I say drier, season is upon us, people have started making farms in the river again. They hope that we will have no large rainstorms meaning the sluice gates have to be opened. Most years they have no problems but we have seen a couple of farms completely washed away. This is one where they have just started planting.

And here’s another one right under our little square. Note also the abundance of fishermen, I often wonder how so many people expect to catch their dinner when they are all in one place. As I am most definitely not a fisherman I can’t understand at all.

When I arrived home Huan wasn’t rested at all, she had bumped into an old neighbour and stood talking for ages. She made up for it by falling asleep on the sofa while the washing machine was doing its thing. I had to wait for that to finish before I could turn anything on in the kitchen, same wires to the fuse box which I don’t trust, so I let her snooze away.

Of course her rest didn’t last long, after dinner the first thing we had to do was order more shoes from Taobao. Again we made sure that the shoes could be exchanged if they didn’t fit, today we also confirmed with this store which other sizes are available. No sooner had we finished than Huan was out for another practice. Left to my own devices I had a strawberry daiquiri, well not a real one, just a liqueur chocolate. One of my younger brothers has a birthday today so that was my celebration.

For the last few years we haven’t had much of a Christmas here at all so this year I splurged! This box was not exactly cheap, each chocolate costs almost £1.00, but I have to admit they are nice, and strong to boot. I would not be able to get Huan to eat one, all the more for me!

December 23^rd This morning I was sent out before the Musical Director! She had a later practice and I had to go and collect thirty baps she had ordered. No worries, this was one of my ‘happy days’ which meant a smile on my face wherever I went and whatever I did. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the local municipality was preparing for Christmas with all the poinsettias (or their Chinese equivalents) they are putting out, but they are also used for Chinese New Year.

On I went to the bap market only to find that the seller was not there. Huan had spoken to her the day before yesterday when she had said she wouldn’t be there yesterday but would be today, hence our order. I’m not at all sure that I understood what her neighbours said but it would appear that we have lost another source of good bread, back to Pinduoduo I suppose.

I carried on around our markets, looking for frozen turkey legs, and live markets looking for live turkeys. At the first market they assured me they had turkeys and then offered me pigeons. At the second one the first lady said they had turkeys and sent me to the second lady who offered me either roosters or capons. I guess we will buying a whole big chicken tomorrow then Huan can wait while they ‘prepare it’!

As you may know I much prefer tropical climes to more northern ones but at this time of the year I do find myself missing Harbin a bit. It’s cold outside, (very), can be toasty inside, does have more of a Christmas feel and we used to be able to buy big frozen turkey legs. We had to buy them in boxes but with balconies that served as additional freezers that was no problem.

Back to my walk and I found yet another of those pesky little electric cars for you. I do like that the Chinese car manufacturers are actually making cars that many people want to buy, little city runabouts. Sometimes I do think the names could be improved upon though.

My last picture of the day is one of those traffic islands, completed and with no people or cars to spoil the image. I must admit they do look rather nice, don’t you agree?

Despite no baps and no turkey my happy day continued, even after dinner, Huan stayed in this evening. Despite the fact that we are in different rooms more often than not, it is nice just knowing that she is there.

December 24^th It’s Christmas Eve in the workhouse! Not exactly, Huan went out for another rehearsal I stayed home. Yesterday I found a whole folder full of music and videos that needed some conversion and renaming work. It took me all morning, even found one or two more Christmas songs in amongst all the others.

After lunch we went out looking for our Christmas dinner, via the bap market first. There was still no sign of the bap lady and the chicken market lady was still asleep so headed off along the riverside towards town. My new doggy pal had returned but today she was on a leash. It seems that when she followed me the other day she never returned home!

On we went to the market where yesterday they had tried to sell me pigeons when I asked for turkeys. Today I let Huan do the talking and we ended up with a capon. This is the before photo.

I then disappeared, my excuse being that I had to buy the vegetables for tomorrow, the real reason being I’m a wimp! Here is the after photo.

Once we had delivered everything to the fridge back out we went for our Friday dinner. Here I am standing outside the new 尽善咖啡, Jìn shàn kāfēi (Perfect coffee) café.

We will try the coffee another time, today we tried the pizza. It was small, but enough, you can check the video here - https://youtu.be/pA14dFm-YQo

December 25^th Christmas Day arrived bringing with it dreary English weather! Not to worry, I suppose it went well with the full English I was cooking. Normally on Christmas Day I would make us a boiled egg and soldier breakfast. This year, because we had bacon in the freezer that had been there a long time, I decided a fry-up was in order. It’s such a long time since we’ve had one that we both quite enjoyed it although as usual, the sausages let us down. Black pudding was missing too but we made up for that with duck eggs, they’re bigger!

We decided to try and walk a few calories off after breakfast and almost immediately got caught in the rain. Huan asked me take pictures of it, never an easy job, but I did get a wet wife!

Being fully refuelled I tried uprooting a tree!

And then we found another treasure trove of poinsettias.

Of course I had to take a photo of my Christmas treasure next to the Christmas flowers.

One of our reasons for going for a stroll today was that it’s Saturday, market day. Due to the rain the market was a little sparser than usual with some traders having covered their stalls and gone into hiding somewhere and others had already packed up and left.

On our way home we found our first Father Christmas. This version usually sways while he plays the saxophone but for some reason this one had no power.

Lots of photos had been planned for our dinner today, we ended up with only one, the one before the chicken went into the oven.

I know; the head is still on. Anyway, before I could take any ‘cooked’ photos Huan had already begun eating. She was really enjoying it, even though I had forgotten the sprouts. Also Chinese white radishes do not make a good substitute for parsnips. For someone who doesn’t like to eat too much meat Huan did very well today, she had both feet, both wings, the neck and the gizzard. I had a leg and a bit plus the liver and the heart and had to finish off Huan’s roast potatoes! Like most families around the world, we will be finishing our Christmas dinner tomorrow.

The last photo we forgot to take was much later on before Huan went out for some music practice. While we were in Haikou we had bought a Black Forest Gateaux for our Christmas Day dessert. I have to say that despite being a frozen version it tasted absolutely scrumptious! Even Huan, who does not have a sweet tooth, had two pieces. My suggestion of sharing a little with the neighbours went down like a lead balloon! So we had a good Christmas Day although a lot of the evidence, despite our good intentions, remains in our heads.

December 26^th After our last full English of the year we had planned a fairly normal Boxing Day walk, something many British families do and something we have also got used to doing. The weather had other ideas in the form of rain so we stayed in and did not a lot. In fact apart from warming up yesterday’s chicken and adding some new vegetables it was another lazy day. Ah well, it is Christmas! And at the risk of being different to everybody else, I think Adam Sandler movies make great Christmas feel good movies. I watched ‘The Waterboy’ and ‘Big Daddy’ back to back and loved them both.

December 27^th Twixmas time, although Twixtmas sounds better, but really both are wrong. These days are between Christmas and New Year, not between Christmas and Christmas. Who am I to argue about the vagaries of the English language? At least we managed to get a walk in today, a nice long one, eight kilometres. Our first photos are of two birds, one with gorgeous colouring and one who is just gorgeous.

While I was looking up to take the second photo, Huan had been busy looking down.

Huan chose our route today; she wanted to go downriver then back into town to visit her bank to check whether the ‘shoe money’ had been returned. As you can see the weather was pretty good for walking today, almost like Boxing Day weather!

The only part of this walk I don’t like is the steps which we have to take when we leave the river to take the country paths. Today I walked up the side instead of the steps and found it a little easier. Huan took at least twenty photos of my little ascent.

Our bovine buddies were pleased to see us today; they all came to the gate.

Today I tried to get Huan to have her photo taken with the cows but she refused. She thought that they might hurt her, despite them never hurting me.

Out through the village and a nice panorama for you. You may have seen this view before but I wanted to show you again today and take note of the yellow house in the trees on the left as well as the one to its right.

Love was in the air, or at least on the wall, I almost got close enough to touch these two.

For a change we went through the village and up around the top road today, the road that we would live on if we were allowed to. This house, which we both quite fancy, and is not for sale of course, is right next to the yellow one I mentioned earlier.

That brings us to this view, looking back across the valley at where we took the panorama from. Wouldn’t you like to wake up to a view like this every day? Mind you, we can’t really complain, at least we don’t have to look into other people’s apartments from our bedroom; instead we look over the river and our own little island!

On our way through the village we had seen a few dogs, managed to chat to some but Huan had missed the photo ops. She then tried to get me with a little kitten, with a little success but I thought this one was a better picture, if only because I am not in it!

Our last photo of the day, and the week, is another panorama. This is looking backwards across the fields just before we take the path leading us back onto the main road and into town.

I love to see scenery like this; it shows that China is not all overcrowded cities with too many people. Fresh air is abundant, traffic is almost non-existent and the sun is usually shining. OK, it’s not shining today, but the weather was perfect for walking.

Christmas is over, life is back to normal and Huan is back to school! She has her deportment classes this afternoon and tomorrow morning, hulusi tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday morning, and Thursday morning and then the final show of the year on Thursday.

I just stayed in and cooked dinner, I bet you can’t guess what it was. You could quite possibly have got the correct answer, noodle soup with leftover chicken, stuffing and some new veggies.

So I finish this week’s post sitting in my jammies with my dressing gown on, slippers and half gloves too. My only dilemma is should I warm up the hot water bottle for tonight! I know, we live on a sub-tropical island but to us it feels cold, 13ºC outside. Chinese apartments, at least down south, are not designed for cold weather at all.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, see you next week!

Haikou Trip, Visa, Bob’s Still Female, Dining Out & Lady Tourists.

December 14^th There should be a law against having two four fifteens in the day, waking up at the one in the middle of the night is not so pleasant. Still, needs must, we had to go to Haikou today and visit Dr. Zhang. Our only worry was whether or not we would have enough fuel! The ‘computer’ said we would but once the estimated number of kilometres left gets below about 90km it stops displaying the distance. Why the worry? Well the filling station in Wuzhishan was closed, and both stations on the highway were closed too. Sighs of relief, from me especially, when we got to the first open station in Haikou.

Unlike our last visit we managed to get into the hospital car park today, it was very busy but we found a space. We were early enough for breakfast and we didn’t have to worry about paying to see the doctor first. Huan had arranged, and paid, for the appointment via WeChat last week. I’m not sure if I will ever get used to the queuing system in Chinese hospitals but they do work. Dr. Zhang checked my previous records and decided I only needed to have my PSA checked this time. That was one less worry, no CT scan this time; of course I still worried about the needle!

By half past nine we were out of the hospital and on our way to the visa office. No problems there, other than finding a parking spot and Huan having to pay for the visa. They don’t accept cash and don’t seem at all keen on bank cards so Huan used her phone. She handed over ¥400.00 and I got passport back with a visa through to 22^nd November next year. They also let Huan photograph the requirements for a ten year visa, (Green Card), we’ll get on to that sometime next year, probably after Chinese New Year.

Back to Haidian Dao we went and booked our hotel room for tonight, we will be able to drive back tomorrow. Lunch was at a small restaurant with the same name as last Friday’s, you can see the video here - https://youtu.be/1KIxPkEkbbg

Both of us needed a sleep so back to the hotel we went and sleep we did. I must have had over two hours, Huan a little less. Once everything was unpacked, the computer was set up, today’s videos uploaded we set off for dinner with Patrick, Flora, Padraig and Jake, passing the hospital on the way to collect my results. What were they like? Suffice to say, I am still a woman!

The restaurant chosen by Jake was 新疆烤串 ( Xīnjiāng kǎo chuàn), a nice walk for us to wake up a little. It was great to see friends again, albeit if it meant I didn’t take as much care with the video as perhaps I should have. You can check that here - https://youtu.be/UWDbNYE8d4U

We took a leisurely stroll back to the hotel, passing by one restaurant I just had to take this photo. After all, gruel is not a word we use much these days.

I then spent an inordinate amount of time trying to upload today’s videos to Youtube, with no success at all. I suspect being in a hotel wasn’t really helping me. For a brief respite I went out on the balcony and tried a couple of night time panoramas, they weren’t very good either!

Finally I gave up and went to sleep in my ‘separate bed’; Huan must have had a premonition about my test results!

December 15^th Today all we had planned was shopping so the first stop was breakfast at the local street market. You can see that here - https://youtu.be/bfeS3QElCoQ And here is a photo of me trying to make a video!

From there we first went to Carrefour where I was pleased to see Christmas trees, decorations, hats and baubles on sale. For the first five minutes they even had Christmas music playing, I was in my element. We were soon to be disappointed and ended up buying nothing.

By now ‘Grocery’ was open and we headed off to replenish our butter, cheese, sandwich meat and a few other necessities. We were a little disappointed by the lack of Christmas fare but the sales staff told us we were too early this year. I was also disappointed not to find Rainers Polish Sausage sandwich meat. Once again I cleared the shelves of Raisin Bran.

Corner’s Deli was our next stop where we found signs of Christmas next door.

Corner’s Deli didn’t let us down in more ways than one, they also had Christmas on show.

Unfortunately there was no English cakes or puddings, no selection boxes, no crackers etc, but I did find a Turkish replacement for Christmas chocolates and I found some liqueur ones too. Not only that, but their selection of cheeses and sandwich meats has increased dramatically since we last visited so we topped up a bit more.

From there we drove to RT Supermarket, a last check on Christmas thingies and also to do our ‘shop’ for the rest of this week. The first thing we spotted was an electric car shop so we had to go and have a look.

They have only been open since the October holiday and in that time they have sold thirty cars, over ¥1,000,000.00, not bad eh. Huan had a ‘test sit’ in all three models and is quite taken with all of them. When we mentioned taking a driving test, “next year” was the answer which means it could be another three, five or even ten years!

Should you be interested in the prices of these cars over here in China we took a photo of the price list as well. You can pay outright or you can put a deposit for the registration only and pay the balance over the periods shown.

Playtime over we carried on with our shopping and lo and behold, we found sprouts here! Not only were they available they were fresh, not frozen or canned. Happy bunnies that we were we then headed down to the food court for lunch with me doing a video on the way, or so I thought. Here I am with Huan looking at the video we are supposed to be filming!

After doing a complete circuit of the food court while Huan was ordering I realised I had to go round again, much to the bemusement of some of the catering staff. You can see the resulting video, without the intro, here - https://youtu.be/VbBWsRgwkHs

Driving home after that big lunch was not so easy but I managed it without dropping off. Huan did nod off now and again but I think she worries a lot about me falling asleep which keeps her awake! It didn’t help that today I told her that a full belly and driving into the sun was a recipe for disaster! Sometimes I can be a bad boy! Once we arrived back home my evening was taken up with sorting out this post and uploading all the videos to Youtube. Huan skipped her normal evening activities and had a more relaxed time instead. By bedtime we were both more than ready for our beauty sleep, so much so that we cancelled any long walks for tomorrow.

December 16^th As foretold, no long walks but we did have to go out and put some money into Huan’s Taobao account. Next month we are going back to Haikou, all dressed up and Cinderella Bob has no shoes to wear. Ordering has to be done early because there is every chance the size will be wrong and the shoes will have to be returned and replaced. Foreign feet!

We had to pass some electric moped shops on our way home so I kept asking Huan if she wanted ‘this one’ or ‘that one’ for Christmas. The answer was a definite NO! I couldn’t even get her interested in this little machine. Mind you, she is a little big for it.

Would you believe that we took no more photos today? If you said you didn’t you would be right. I did take one of something in the sky that wasn’t moving at all but our phone cameras are just not good enough to create enlargements from.

I also took one of a butterfly in the market, once again the phone didn’t do so well but at least you can see the result and know what it is.

More naps in the afternoon, I am definitely getting older!

December 17^th NTR really, Huan went to school, I prepared tomorrow’s pork bone and blanched the sprouts for next weekend, end of story! (In other words I was bone idle.)

December 18^th We almost had another bone idle day but decided we should have our weekly walk around the market. This week we even bought something! First of all we fancied some sweet corn for lunch tomorrow. I had never seen multicoloured corn on the cob before we came to China, I rather like it better than the bigger all yellow version now.

Next up could well be an illicit drug! Whenever I start eating this I always want more and have to really force myself to stop. It’s like peanut brittle but with seeds of some sort.

It was too early to think of the Christmas bird, if that is what we are going to have, but there was certainly plenty of choice. This one stall had three different varieties.

Huan had been telling me that according to “someone or other” this winter had a lot less people visiting from the mainland. I suspect whoever that ‘someone’ was didn’t do their homework. These were the views at nearly eleven o’clock by which time normally people are on their way home for lunch and the market is beginning to close up.

Strange noises were emanating from our small shopping mall as we were walking home so we popped in for a gander. There we found a group of young women, with an older male teacher, doing, or learning the ‘bamboo dance’. (The bamboo dance, also known as "jumping the firewood", is an ancient sacrificial ceremony. Generally, Li people would dress in ceremonial costumes, cook festive meals complete with home brewed rice wine and worship their ancestors at harvest time.) I couldn’t convince Huan to join in!

We did buy something else in the market which I forgot to take a photo of at the time but did it when we got home. You have no doubt heard of, and if you’re old like me maybe even eaten, ‘chicken in a basket’. Today Huan insisted we buy ‘chicken in a bag’ and ‘duck in a bag’! These delicacies are already cooked and I have to admit they are not too bad. Added to that, these were on special offer today so the cost was ¥25.00 for the two. No complaints from me, my midday cooking for this week just became very easy, one bag of bird, some salad and a baked potato on Tuesday, repeat again with the second bird and maybe different potato on Wednesday.

December 19^th This morning I woke up to an empty bed, Huan had gone out early. She had to meet the bus at twenty past six, along with Yú, to go on a tourist trip. I wasn’t allowed to accompany them, “No foreigners allowed”! I think I got off lucky today, the weather was far from pleasant, very overcast with some wind and it was cold too, no a good day for being a tourist. Typhoon Rai is sneaking up on our East coast, it will be at its closest tomorrow evening although by then it will have weakened to a tropical storm or even just a tropical depression. The rain started this evening. I ended up staying in all day, wrapped up nice and warm.

The ladies, as on all tourist trips, had to ‘go to the shops’ first, where various sales people tried to get them to buy mattresses among other things. Needless to say Huan and Yú did not become customers! After lunch they moved on to Tunchang Perfume World.

Of course they went berserk with their phones and came home with one hundred and fifty four photos taken in an hour and a quarter which I then had to heavily edit and dispose of. I still ended up with fifty six photos, far too many for sharing. Here they are, individually, having a nice chat with my favourite amphibians.

Next we have Yú a little worried about going into battle.

Followed by Huan rallying the troops.

There was a lot of posing as they went on, Yú in the midst of the flowers.

And Huan checking out the porcelain skinned foreign lady!

That’s enough of the sexy models for today! They were home by sometime after six, a long day for them, and no dinner had been provided. Complaints were out of the question because the price for this tourist trip was a nice fat zero! The tourist companies make their money from the commission on any sales at the various outlets. Mind you, they are all going to get a lovely frozen chicken, they will be delivered tomorrow sometime.

Huan had enjoyed her day but I’m sure that with better weather she would have enjoyed it more. Her resident chef made sure that she had a nice meal when she got home, a bowl and a half of piping hot pork stew!

December 20^th “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.” It’s a good job that I’m not a member of The Carpenters and that neither of those two things get me down because of course it is Monday today and we woke up to rain this morning! “Don’t forget we have to go shopping this morning” said the boss, she’s busy on Monday afternoons. You’ve seen many photographs of me in my shorts and shirts because that is invariably what we wear when we go out. Well, here I am ready to go shopping, complete with long trousers, a long sleeved shirt, a woolly jumper and even socks, but you can’t see them.

And so we come to the end of another week, and another lazy day for me. I did remove a lot of ‘tags’ from Facebook, a tedious job to say the least. You can select many tags at one time but you can only delete one at a time. Some posts you have to visit the post in order to remove other comments that are preventing you removing the tags. Even worse is that some tags cannot be removed no matter how hard you try. Why do it then? I like to clean up my Facebook every now and then, posts get removed usually on a monthly basis but this is the first time I tried the tags.

The Christmas countdown is here, no more weekends before Christmas and after this post n more Mondays either. All I’m waiting for now is to find out if Huan will actually be available on the day or not. Hopefully she will be and we can have something that vaguely resembles a festive dinner. I’ll probably go for a large chicken this year.

If you haven’t finished yet you’d better get your Christmas shopping done, time is running out. Our next missive will be after Christmas so from the two of us, to all of you, whoever you are and wherever you may be, we wish you a -