January 25th Good evening all, here I am doing today’s post, a little late, I’ve been lazy today, even had to have one of those infamous OAP snoozes this afternoon. We did get out this morning but not for a long walk, just a town stroll. There was a new sign down by the river, at least one I hadn’t seen before so I got Huan to translate it for, along with Google. 和谐人与水, Héxié rén yǔ shuǐ, harmony between people and water; then 魅力家乡河, mèilì jiāxiāng hé, charming hometown river. I can’t argue with that!
We wanted to see the New Year market although I may visit again in the evening sans Huan, the colours are brighter then. We did find some tigers.
And helping to sell the tigers a lonely little bear.
This afternoon I spent a fair bit of time looking for something to do with ‘dog day mornings’, I’m sure you know about dog days “The dog days or dog days of summer are the hot, sultry days of summer. They were historically the period following the heliacal rising of the star system Sirius, which Hellenistic astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck. (Wikipedia)” Apart from a lovely little Youtube video about a football match in an English school, I came up with nothing. Why was I searching for dog day stuff? These photos will show you, you may recognise Bigfoot in the first one.
As you can see I had no shortage of canine company today, there were even a couple more but they missed out on internet fame.
Our last photo of the day is the entrance to Shangri-La. Now I don’t know about you but if I was going to visit a place of such high esteem I would expect to see a much more ornate welcoming arch, even if it is only temporary for the New Year.
January 26th The countryside beckoned us again today so off we set, me with a plaster on my right heel still. Darn those pesky blisters and why does everything take longer to heal when you get older? Across the bridge to ‘soon to be somewhere’ we went and courtesy of the builders down a new stairway to the road to the mansions on the hill.
Through the allotments we went and then turned towards the river instead of my bovine buddies. A butterfly graced us with its presence but didn’t pose very well.
Upon reaching the planned turn off towards the village the commander decided that we should take the left fork instead down to the river. At least we got some photos of ducks down there.
Look carefully at this next photo and you will see where Huan was standing looking for a place to cross last week. You may also spot eight white ducks but I have to confess that there were only four. Somehow, while creating the panorama, they doubled!
Being the dummies we are we had to explore a little on this side of the river too and followed a path that would possibly lead to another way up and out. It didn’t, but the view was great.
Retracing our steps, Huan went the same way while I decided to take the high road.
Huan’s path was easy; I ended up in the farm.
Not only was I in the farm, but I was also locked in!
I had to climb over the fencing using strategically placed boulders which would have made a great photo. Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for me, Huan was so worried that I might fall she didn’t get her phone out!
Before long we were at the right place to show Huan how I had found this particular route. Maybe you remember the left portion of this photo. I created a small panorama today to show that we would not be going through the fields but taking the ‘real’ road to the right.
Almost back in town we spotted this little chappie, or chapess, how you tell the difference I have no idea. It kept trying to cross the road, not such a good idea, and we kept trying to guide it away. Hopefully it didn’t try again after we left.
Our last job of the day was to buy Wednesday’s and Thursday’s lottery tickets, which meant a trip past the covered market. Outside the market the 城管, Chéngguǎn, Urban Management usually keep this area and the steps quite clear. Obviously today there are different rules!
January 27th We woke up to an overcast day, me much later than Huan, so our walk was delayed until the afternoon. For a change I did my Chinese lesson early, I wish it was ‘going in’ more efficiently though.
Our initial plan after lunch was another trip to the countryside, passing over our little island first. There we found another harmonious message so Huan posed under it and I tried to upload myself to the cloud, something I rarely use.
Walking along the riverside I foolishly said “I wonder how we get up there” pointing in the general direction of the mountains. Her Maj decided we should walk the route we had once before to see if there was a way so off we went. To my surprise, Huan remembered the turn-off. Mind you, she did think there was a village on this road, I knew there wasn’t.
Both of us had forgotten just how
steep this road was in places but it wasn’t long before we reached the point of
no return, an apartment complex with no
rear entrance.
We did find a track leading upwards, that will do for another time, and a possible route down through the woods, worth trying today.
Within minutes I had managed to ‘fill my boots’, with sand so I had to take them off to remove it. As soon as I have any problems, Huan gets busy with the phone camera!
“Oops, we did it again” comes to mind although luckily there were no injuries today. We found a way down through the rubber trees than had to go up the other side.
Prickly plants were there but we were able to avoid them. Going through the undergrowth was not always so easy but we persevered. Here we are behind what we had to get through.
The worst was yet to come! We reached a point where turning back would have been a long way home but going on was a little scary. Unusually, Huan was too worried to take photos; I really believe she thought I was going to fall. Mind you, even though I was also worried I did manage to get a snap of her!
This next photo gives you an idea of why we were both worried. Had we lost our footing we would have disappeared down the middle of the picture instead of the bottom left. It wasn’t too far, maybe two or three metres, but I think it would definitely have hurt!
Suddenly, just like magic, we found a door, not the sort of thing you expect to find stumbling through the countryside. Still, we hadn’t really left town so I guess we shouldn’t have been too surprised.
What did we find the other side of the doorway? A small village behind the town bus station. I tried to create a nice panorama for you and it’s not too bad. Just don’t look at the overhead wires, I must have moved too much.
All that was left to do was to drag our sorry a**** home and take a shower. Hopefully we didn’t get too many strange looks!
January 28th Here I am writing this on the 29th. Yesterday, as I was informed the night before, Huan had a show on out little island, I do love the advanced planning. A few days notice would have allowed her to run through the songs she would have to play. Instead, it was “we have a show tomorrow; we’ll know what to play when we get there”. Here they are along with our very own drummer, (he lives in our apartments).
And here is Huan alone, posing with an umbrella.
Apart from ‘our’ drummer, there was also a whole other drum band there.
After I had finished taking a lot
of posed photographs by the hulusi players we asked someone else to take a
photo or two of Huan and I. The
After our lot had finished someone
was good enough to get them all together for a group photo. They did ask me to
be in it but as I wasn’t a performer, I opted out.
I was wrong when I thought they had finished, ‘our’ drummer, who was also the organiser, decided that more tunes had to be played. Luckily for Huan this did not include the hulusi. Instead it included all the saxophones, the clarinet, the euphonium, two strange electronic wind instruments and of course the drums.
That was my day finished, well as far as any further walks were concerned anyway. I had taken over two hundred photos during the course of the morning, add to those the ones Huan’s friends sent her by WeChat and that was me busy for the rest of the day.
Being a Friday though I insisted
we had to go out for dinner, we had skipped uploading an “Eating Out in
As always, you can see the video here - https://youtu.be/Y_qtxBidYRo
January 29th The usual market walk was on the cards for this morning, it started off well enough. Our traffic lights have a new floral display, 欢庆春节 Huān qìng chūnjié - Celebrate the Spring Festival. I managed to avoid most of the traffic photo bombers!
No sooner had we arrived in the market than everything started to go wrong. The usual market type con artists were doing their thing. They were unsuccessful in getting me to join their ‘circle of friends’ but I think they must have hypnotised Huan.
There was no prising Huan away from whatever devils had hold of her so I left her leaping up and down shouting me, me, me or something similar.
At a rough guess Huan stood there for between forty five minutes and an hour, I was certainly home long before her. After all that what do you think she arrived home with? Well, the initial J-cloth that they gave her to con her into joining the circle, a torn off piece of some other type of cloth, a comb and a toothbrush. Has she learned her lesson? I certainly hope so!
January 30th A lazy morning was had by both of us today, although I did finish
yesterday’s Blog post. We were expecting visitors today; from the mainland,
Katherine and her partner Wei. Katherine has a Youtube Vlog all about life in
Katherine and Wei, arrived at the appointed time and instead of Chinese food or local specialities, were served with good old English sandwiches, ham and cheese, and Tuna and mayonnaise. After quite a long chatty lunch we set off on an afternoon walk to show Katherine part of what she had seen in one of my videos. Here she is along with Wei posing in front of our river. You may notice that just like Huan and I, Wei is also a tiger!
And here they are again, Katherine filming Wei on her Gopro while he is filming tadpoles on his iPhone. All we needed was for Huan to take a photo of me taking a photo of them!
A little bit of nature up next, baby jackfruit. I guess I should have remembered what it was, we do have a lot of jackfruit trees, even in the town, but it was Katherine who reminded me today.
Our route took us to the same part of the river we were at on Wednesday. The major difference was that Katherine and Wei brought the rain with them! Consequently we were being rained on for most of the nine kilometres that we walked. You saw the ducks on Wednesday so let’s show you some chickens today. The first photo shows ‘Junior’ just about to jump off Mum’s back to join his ‘friends’; you can see them in the second photo.
The third, and last photo, is three ‘old dears’(?) sat on the wall. I almost got close enough to touch these but held back a little so as not to disturb them too much.
Heading back towards home I took one last photo of the view, you may recognise it.
You may also notice the grey sky but just in case you didn’t, and you don’t believe us about the rain, here’s a rather stern looking Huan. The rain caused that effect!
We arrived back in town to start looking for somewhere to eat before our intrepid couple had to return to the comfortable civilization of Sanya. Finding somewhere turned out to be far more difficult than we had imagined, lots of restaurants had already shut up shop for New Year. In the end we ate at a hot pot restaurant in our own apartment complex. It was nice to get inside and start warming up a little; our clothes were all damp. Here’s the gang, sans moi, someone had to be David Bailey, (or Anthony Armstrong-Jones).
We have to thank Wei for our dinner, Huan did try and get in first but he spotted what she was doing and the inevitable conversation followed. He won! All that was left was to walk them to their car; or as far as our back gate anyway. We had a great day; both Katherine and Wei are very interesting people. I also saw just how much ‘field’ work goes into creating a Vlog, all of which then has to be collated, fine tuned and edited before being uploaded to Youtube.
Katherine and Wei, it was a great pleasure to meet you both. For me, having watched your videos on your Youtube channel, it was nice to meet two people who are just as I imagined they would be. Thank you also for putting Huan at her ease, she enjoyed your visit too. Until we meet again, without the rain hopefully, 下次见.
January 31st The bad weather had become even worse so we were both confined to barracks this morning. It wasn’t much better after lunch either but I had a job to do, prepare a New Year’s Eve dinner for Huan. She does like to prepare a nice feast at this time of the year but it’s not so easy with just one induction hob. Maybe our gas will be back before next year!
Bloated after a nice roast pork dinner, it must be time to finish this week’s, this month’s and this (Chinese) year’s last post. First I’ll add our January walks, we didn’t do as much as I would have liked but I guess we didn’t do too badly.
And finally, whether you be family, friend or stranger, we wish a
very Happy Chinese New Year to each and every one of you! We’ll still be here
next week with more updates from our life in
