New Boots, Sick Huan, Wedding in Haikou

January 11^th Spring is in the air, well almost. February the 1^st will bring the Chinese New Year which is also known as Spring Festival. I know for many of you February is still brass monkey weather! Anyway, I woke up this morning to find Huan in full spring cleaning mode so there went any morning walks. I did get her out after lunch but that was more so that we could take the latest Taobao delivery to the couriers for return shipment.

Only having my phone with me and not seeing a great deal to snap I decided a selfie would be in order, that’s the library in the background, hope you like it.

Next we have a little story about a little creature. Seeing it on the floor, not moving I thought it was probably dead but took a picture anyway.

Huan was convinced that it was alive so I asked her to pick it up and move it to the foliage at the side of the road. It didn’t like that and decided to climb up my leg instead.

Huan tried again but this time it flew into the side of the road by itself.

I still suspected that it was not in a good way and would more than likely end up as bird food but there was nothing further we could do.

January 12^th Huan was doing yet more spring cleaning this morning and then when she was done she gave me the job of music again, both sheet and mp3 creation. She does like to keep me busy. After lunch she had me attempting to fix the bedroom balcony door, with superglue!

All that work wore Huan out so I went out alone; I needed to test my new boots. My planned route wasn’t too far, just downriver, through the countryside and then back home. First I thought you might like a downriver panorama, I don’t think I’ve made one of this view before.

On my way down to the riverside I spotted this creation which I initially thought was bananas, but a closer look shows it’s not. Google was not much help, among other results I got magnolias. Perhaps it is, if you know then please be a gem and let me know too.

Now I’m sure you know that when we go downriver we have to climb a big staircase at the end but today I didn’t do that, I spotted this opening in the undergrowth. I could see our usual paved road at the top and it looked a good place to test my new boots.

The middle of the track was fairly level but the beginning and end were a bit more challenging.

The ‘going’ was firm so I made it to the top without too much trouble then took a photo to show the Chief Training Officer where I had been.

Through the mansions on the hill, sans chandeliers, I was soon looking out over the irrigation canal again, what a nice view.

Passing by the byre, my bovine buddies were out today, playing in the fields somewhere. Of course I had to take photos of geese, ducks, chickens and a solitary turkey to keep the Producer happy, but those photos aren’t here. Instead I give you two black and white photos of the village of “Zafang Cun”. Why black and white? Well the village was quiet this afternoon; everyone was probably sleeping, black and white seemed more apt somehow.

Midway through the village I went down a path that we’ve been down before to create another panorama for you, in fact I created two. The first is looking over the fields.

Looking across the fields I could see another paved road, one we haven’t been on before, so I headed for that. The second panorama is looking back to where I took the first one from.

You could tell it was still lunch time, the machines were quiet.

Turning right onto the paved road I was almost immediately faced with another choice. The sign in the second photo led me to believe that in that direction the road would only go down to the river thus necessitating a U-turn. I turned right!

The road actually led me round to another part of Zafang Cun so that’s another nice little walk we can add to our catalogue.

The other day Huan was telling me about one of her hulusi friends who likes to take photos ‘through the trees’ so just to show willing I tried one today. I don’t think it’s anything special but Huan likes it so here it is.

There is progress on the road to nowhere, the road I was walking on, towards home, had disappeared and I was faced with this.

 

They had left room for us to get by of course so within a few minutes I was back on the road to soon to be somewhere, heading home.

Her ladyship was on the mend when I got home and let myself in. With last week still fresh in my memory, instead of asking her to lock the door while I was out, I locked it on my way out. Don’t worry, I’m not a big meanie, she does have her own keys!

What was the verdict on the boots? They’ll do!

January 13th Today was not a good day; Huan took a turn for the worse and spent most of the day prone on the sofa. I stayed in to give moral support. Being a meanie I did have to take a couple of photos of her there but in accordance with her wishes I will not be sharing them here!

January 14^th More of the same today, poor Huan still needed more rest so just like yesterday I was the emotional support animal! There were no walks, obviously, and no pictures either. My only bit of news? I found a way to stream ‘Elementary’.

January 15^th We’re on the road again, today that means literally as we had to drive up to Haikou for a wedding tomorrow. Young Jake is marrying young Rachel and I am to be the celebrant. Here we are in the hotel, me with a gentleman who seems to have dropped something (!) and Huan behind the fishpond.

Our hotel was right across the road from Evergreen Park so once we were settled in that’s where we went and did a little touristy stuff. It’s a very nice park indeed, well worth spending an hour or two wandering around, or even just sitting idly watching the world go by. We did the former.

The park was very busy today, I would guess mostly because it’s Sunday but it may also be that some school holidays have already begun. Tents were in abundance as were children, kites and other assorted playthings, this is a small sample.

We walked as far as we could towards the seaside and were rewarded with this view.

This picture shows me failing! I went behind the rock intending to try and jump up so that Huan could see my face and click the shutter. My strength seemed to have completely disappeared!

Next up we could here those familiar melodious tones of someone playing saxophone. Initially me response was to stay away but they seemed to be quite good so we went to have a closer look. There were some boats moored alongside a long restaurant type place that also rented out kayaks. The ‘players’ were actually on a boat; I have to admit they were pretty good. With their permission I took a couple of snaps.

I then took a walk out to the end of the small jetty and took this snap. As you can see the sun was in hiding, but it made for beautiful weather for walking.

Coming back from the jetty I spotted Huan busy with her phone and knowing she would take far too many photos I joined the Ministry of Silly Walks for a while.

Heading back towards the hotel we stumbled across a bar street, something we had been unaware of before. Today we were too early, although we did find an ice cream vendor. The first bar looked as though the drums may have been just for show; the second one was actually called a pub. We may visit again at sometime in the future.

You haven’t seen Huan since this morning so here she is in the middle of bar street, grinning like a Cheshire Cat because it’s closed and Bob can’t have a beer or two!

Pretty soon our stomach’s were telling us it was dinner time so we set off looking for something different, mostly because we were going to upload a video because we had skipped last week’s. This is me making the video, yep, I got it wrong, again!

We had found a new restaurant, in the Guo Mao shopping plaza, definitely something we hadn’t tried before. More photos of the two of us again, Huan playing with her phone and me definitely shooting a video this time.

The cuisine was Vietnamese and it was absolutely delicious, one of the best meals we’ve aver had in Haikou. I would highly recommend it; you can see more details, and some of the food, in the video which you can find here - https://youtu.be/gkLsHbYaP-Q

January 16^th Hotel living, oh I do like it, but there’s always that worry in China, what the breakfast will be like. I needn’t have worried, Huan was well catered for if she wanted Chinese and as for me, well they had the important stuff!

Back up to the room to change, I hadn’t been allowed to eat breakfast with my suit on just in case I spilled any, and then downstairs to ask the concierge to take our photo.

Needless to say, at the wedding Huan took far too many photos, and most of you will not know Jake and Rachel anyway, but we will share a few with you. This one is Rachel about to be given away by her father.

These next three show the bridesmaids on the left, one of whom was also the translator, the bride and groom with me in the middle, and the groomsmen on the right.

I have to say it gives me a lot of pleasure to ‘marry’ people, even if, as is the case here, they are already legally married. It makes their day so much happier and of course, happiness rubs off on all those around, including me.

The reception was fantastic; our second day of good living as far as food was concerned. As well as the usual speeches Jake’s mother had got a few videos together from his family in England. Because of Covid, they weren’t physically able to be here so the videos helped a lot.

Once we were all well and truly satiated, again, we headed back into town where everyone met up for a few drinks before some of them decided to go ‘karting’. They suggested that I should do it too, for the ‘experience’, I ‘reluctantly’ declined.

After that we were taken to a new place in Haikou, for us anyway. The last time we had walked there it was where fishing boats were berthed and fish was on sale. It is now called “The Bund” and while it may look nothing like the one in Shanghai; it is most definitely a place worth visiting. Yet again the food was brilliant! Here are the happy couple, probably relaxing for the first time today.

And here is the whole happy multitude, an awesome group of people who I am proud to know. They gave Jake and Rachel a day to remember and at the same time made sure everyone else was well taken care of too. Huan and I had a wonderful day.

Eventually, we left them all to it and walked back to our hotel along the riverside and through Evergreen Park, which we thought was not too far. It turned out to be probably two and a half to three kilometres and by the time we got there my feet were killing me. The ‘topline’ of the ‘heel stiffeners’ were rubbing up and down on the backs of my ankles; blisters and blood resulted! Ah well, it was all worthwhile for such a lovely day.

January 17^th We weren’t up so early this morning but we were in time for breakfast. Imagine my horror then when we went downstairs and found, due to low occupancy rates, no buffet! The chef offered to cook so I decided to be Chinese as well today. Huan had soup noodles and I had fried noodles. We were quite surprised to get our ordered breakfasts along with sausage, bacon and eggs. Had I known the chef was going to do that I would have skipped the noodles.

Off we set, on our merry way, back home to Wuzhishan. There is a new rest stop on the highway, called Qiongzhong rest stop. Just like Watford Gap in the UK it is not exactly near the place it is named after. We reached there just in time; my eyes were beginning to droop! Small snacks were all that we needed and we ate them standing up, taking in the view behind the buildings.

We managed to stay awake for the rest of the journey and for the rest of the afternoon. I don’t know how Huan managed it but I had two days worth of photos to upload and sort followed by bringing the Blog posts up to date. All was finished bar today before we went out for dinner. This was not a video dinner, just our usual cheapo buffet version. Looking at the photo it is very different to what we’ve eaten over the last two days! Still, it did the job and filled our bellies which is really all we needed this evening.

So we come to the end of another week, an unusual one both busy and not busy. Don’t forget to comment if you want to, ask questions whatever; we’ll be only too pleased to answer. As always, take care, we’ll be back next week. Bye for now.