April 19th Mornings seem to be not so easy at the moment, mostly due to pills. The
first two have to be taken before eating breakfast, and I then have to wait another
hour before I can do that. Huan is trying to help by bringing the morning pills
in as soon as she wakes up. That works as long as I don’t drop off again.
Anyway, this morning it was too late to go walkies, instead I searched YouTube
for a ‘how to’ repair my
Feeling proud of ourselves we did go for an afternoon walk and Huan did manage to find lots more bugs. How does she do it? It was down to me to take the pics of course, here’s the first one, a caterpillar trying to head butt the camera.
Another caterpillar and two ants that were in close proximity.
Two different spiders, one from the front and one from the rear, I couldn’t get to its front.
There were even more bugs, another caterpillar and a butterfly, but I thought we should save some clicks for our walk in the country. This is where we were headed, the left turn, no hills to speak of and not too far from home.
And here is the next panoramic view, living where we do it takes only a few minutes to get away from the sounds of the city to the quiet and scenic countryside.
Huan insisted I pose for her so I reciprocated.
Selfie time was next, with the camera set to wide angle. We’ve sussed out how to fit us both in the frame well enough but we still have problems including the background. In this case it was a little farmhouse with a floral roof alongside some banana trees.
A quick hop over the main road took us to one our favourite routes, in fact the same one that we went to last week for our first foray outside the town again.
The director of photography was going crazy today; I had to keep stopping her trying to take sneaky photos of me. For this next one I ran ahead and took a few of the boss coming towards me and then got her to run ahead and do the same for me. Hers came out reasonably well, mine not so well, I seem to have forgotten to smile!
I managed to find a farmhouse pooch but you don’t need another photograph of my rather large posterior, not just yet anyway. Huan threatened to send these next two photos to Dr. Mǎ, she thought I was off hill climbing again. In fact it was only a few metres to the road into the village.
As I sprinted off towards the village shop for two bottles of water, one cold for me and one not cold for Huan, she found a beautiful flower. Not only did she find it but she captured it too. Huan thought it looked snakelike, what do you think?
To keep SWMBO happy, I willingly posed for this next one, with my lovely water.
Would you believe it, bugs came back to the fore, this is one of mine.
These two are both Huan’s, I particularly like the first one.
Our last picture from today’s marathon photo shoot comes not from a phone camera but from a phone screen shot. Our plan was to do approximately six kilometres but we must have gone a little bit wrong somewhere! At least we were slow enough.
April 20th Huan went out alone this morning to check if she could pay the Ledong apartment internet without visiting Ledong. It seems that it is possible but the renewal is not due just yet. In fact it isn’t due until the end of June! Out alone she still managed to find another bug.
After lunch I suggested a town walk, we maybe overdid it a little yesterday. The commander agreed so off we went looking for something to take pictures of on the way. We mostly failed. I tried some birds in a cage but the aim and focus was not so great.
Huan found another bug; we think it was on its last legs.
Finally, Huan wanted a picture of one of the riverside trees looking up. Her idea was good but the implementation wasn’t. To save me lying on the floor to try and bring Huan’s idea to life I took a few shots and created a vertical panorama instead.
April 21st Yahoo, another walk in the countryside this morning! We headed off towards Changhao although I had no intention of walking that far.
As you know by now Huan is not always clued up when it comes to remembering routes, even more so if have turned off anywhere. She may have thought we were going to carry on all the way to Changhao until I pointed out the little turning on the right.
Once we turned Huan remembered the road, and our walk through the river towards Changhao the last time we had come this way.
Of course today we weren’t going anywhere near the river, instead we were going a way Huan had forgotten, under the highway.
The concrete road then went down the other side of the highway, for a while anyway. I knew it would disappear and I had been hoping that the recent rain would not have left the forest floor too wet. I had no desire to retrace our steps. All was fine, I needn’t have worried.
By now Huan was starting to remember various things along the route and she asked me if there was a stone footpath coming up. There was.
Surprisingly, despite remembering the footpath Huan had forgotten where it led, our own river.
Once it came into view she knew it well. We also took a photo of the bridge to somewhere which I don’t think we’ve showed you from this angle before. The grassy hill on the right is concealing our apartments.
We stopped at Shīfù’s store for a short water break, and admired his wife’s chillies.
Our last photo of the day was something else from their farm, and I
was explaining how Huan, on one of her solo journeys to
April 22nd Laziness set in again today, for both of us, so we didn’t go out until after dinner. Mind you, Huan did find a bug on the balcony, before I was even awake!
We did rouse ourselves after dinner and had an evening walk in the country. Straight away Huan found another small creature.
She managed it yet again by spotting a lizard, where we have never spotted one before. With only having our phones the image is far from perfect but at least you can see it.
We were too early and in the wrong place for a decent sunset but this view wasn’t bad.
We were heading towards the newer part of the road to somewhere and on the way found a few cows. Unlike my other bovine buddies, these were all very wary of me.
Finding a way across the road to somewhere proved rather difficult today. It has become much higher than it was before, definitely not sandal accessible. We knew there was a tunnel so we searched it out, even less accessible for sandals.
We ended up walking all the way to the ‘shallower’ end.
Once up we did a smart U-turn and set off along the road to somewhere. Progress is not bad, perhaps Huan is right and it will be finished by the end of the year. She still won’t bet me though!
Eagle Eyes spotted a fruit she hadn’t seen before so I was despatched to take a closer look and a photograph for a Google search. While I was there the farmer came past and told Huan she couldn’t eat it, just as well I suppose.
Google told us it was 西沙诺丽, Xīshā nuò lì, known in English as the noni fruit. In many cultures it is called a famine fruit, you eat this when there is nothing else. However, it is also used medicinally and some cultures eat it normally. More information can be found here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morinda_citrifolia I guess the farmer was telling Huan that she couldn’t eat it because it wasn’t ripe enough yet.
April 23rd Saturday = market day by the river side, was it there this week? Yes it was.
The director of photography had her phone with her today so she decided you should see some knee medicine in operation. I think she has an ulterior motive, something to do with my ancient knees, but I wormed my way out. It’s not because it’s Chinese medicine, I have very good experience of that, it’s because it’s just a sales lady in the market.
Here’s one I don’t think you’ve seen before, “little boxes”, and they’re all made of ticky tacky and they all look the same. You youngsters may need to Google that reference but the oldies should get it. Anyway, these little boxes are ¥10.00 each and you take pot luck as to what may or may not be inside. Strangely enough, Huan wouldn’t let me buy one!
Is it time for another pooch? OK, go on then, this is a new one. The other old guy in the frame is someone we often chat to along with his wife, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. Today it was just him.
Somebody wasn’t so pleased though, maybe he thought I was a dog thief.
Although there is no smile there we did get him to say bye-bye when we left. As we arrived home Huan went to collect her latest Pinduoduo delivery, fruit and veg. I followed her to take a photo of my favourite des res. Since we moved here we’ve always had plans for this house. Even when someone bought it we still had plans of making them an offer they couldn’t refuse ‘when’ we won the lottery. Of course the rules have since changed and we will never be able to buy it.
Last night the spare part for the
The last snap for the day was a quickie off the balcony just to check that I had put the lens back together correctly.
Somehow the quality does not look as good, we’ll see over the next few days. Maybe the camera body needs a good clean inside now.
April 24th Yesterday we had a call from Sam, up at the Wuzhishan Rainforest Resort, asking us if we would like to go to a tea plantation, have a taste and give our opinion. Who could refuse such a nice offer? We were collected this morning by the Deputy Director of Agriculture Bureau, Wuzhishan, Mr. Liu and his driver. The car was an electric Maxus so that was our first trip in an electric car. It coped well with the mountain roads although it wasn’t as quiet as I expected. It was very spacious, check the rear legroom, I have very long legs.
First we went to the office in Shuiman Xiang and then we went to see
some tea picking. I wasn’t needed for this so I just took in the views of ‘
It was a good job I wasn’t needed, I didn’t fancy the uphill trek.
Here’s me being the tea expert, just for Huan’s benefit though. The smaller leaves, two open and one closed, are picked and dried then sold as Wuzhishan Black Tea. The large leaf is boiled for their own use.
We also spotted some seeds and learned a little botany. The left hand seed is a tea seed, from which the tea trees will grow. The right hand one is used for making tea oil. This is not the same as tea tree oil which is what I thought they meant to start with. More details can be found on this wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_seed_oil.
We had a pit stop en route to the tasting location where far too many photos were taken again. You are seeing a lot of collages today due to Huan’s itchy trigger finger, she took 275 photos. I took around 150 but once my panoramas are stitched and the best photo of each pair is chosen that number shrinks considerably. Anyway, here we had another lesson, this time about what we in the west know as the miracle fruit, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum. We will try some tomorrow!
Arriving at the tasting location I was surprised to see a hill! We were going to taste the tea in its natural surroundings. Had I known this yesterday I may well have said no, but because we were already there I just took it slowly, onwards and upwards.
When I caught up with the ladies this was the view down, and (more) up!
The view was worth it though.
Preparation was next, trying to get our rustic table ready and explain to us all what we would have to do and say.
Tasting came next. Now the tea is called in Chinese ‘red tea’ but in English ‘black tea’. You would expect black tea to be much more like a strong bitter English tea but it wasn’t. It was quite mellow and I would probably choose this over green tea.
Next it was my time to talk and to give my opinion. I had teased Li Xiao, the journalist’ in advance that I was going to spit it out and say it tasted bad. I behaved myself and gave an honest opinion, the tea was very good!
During a brief break I managed to sneakily snap the snappers.
Smiles all around, we were finished for the morning.
Going down the mountain was a lot easier than going up and before too long, to my surprise, we were in a restaurant having lunch. I though we would have been on our way home. Of course, being a restaurant, I was forced to eat things I really shouldn’t!😎
We didn’t go home after lunch either, Li Xiao had another job to do in the afternoon. That entailed a short boat trip so Huan somehow inveigled us an invite. Our route took us past the Wuzhishan reservoir dam.
Up to the head of the reservoir we headed and there found that the road disappeared, for today anyway. There is a ford but it’s only passable maybe once a week.
Because we were going in a boat the ‘powers that be’ decided I had to wear a lifejacket.
I’m not sure Huan thought it would be a little boat like this but she seemed to be having fun!
This was the view further up the reservoir from where we disembarked. We only had to walk to the LHS of the frame though; you can just about see some farm buildings there.
Once we had all had some water Li Xiao’s next job started and everyone set off to climb another mountain. I was invited but as I was not needed I decided that discretion was definitely better than valour and stayed behind with the dogs. This plantation is approximately 600mu which is almost 100 acres. Today they were all off to see an ancient tea tree, over 100 years old. Now Huan usually goes crazy with her phone but while away up the hill she must have forgotten. Here is the ancient tree, behind the one with a red sign on it!
From my vantage point down at the bottom I took another view of the reservoir.
The wanderers were away for quite some time so I had a wander around the base of the mountain. I had no idea which way they had gone and looking up, there was no sight or sound of them anywhere. I was not inclined to follow!
To give me something to do, and because it’s a long time since we uploaded a video, I made one while I was wandering about it. You can see it here - https://youtu.be/hQwfIzJ_nGM
When they came down they had a few minutes rest along with a water break before we started on our way back. In that short time Huan managed to find yet another bug, it’s not here though! Here I am sat in the boat with Li Xiao, note how the life jacket rides up when you sit down!
Let’s finish off our trip with one from me and two from Li Xiao. Mine shows the last people getting off the boat and a good view of the mountain behind them. They were all somewhere in the middle, above where the road disappears.
Li Xiao’s photos show the ford in much more detail and the view down the reservoir towards the dam, although I have cropped them from 4:3 to 16:9.
We had said yesterday that we didn’t need anything for today and in fact we had such a nice day that we really weren’t expecting anything at all. As is always the case, we were wrong and came home with two gift bags, one each, of Wuzhishan Black Tea.
By the time we arrived home poor Huan was feeling travel sick. Sitting in the front of our car she has no problem, but in the back of one around the mountain roads it’s a different story. She went straight o bed. I stayed up and sorted out my photographs, that took so long I had no time for Huan’s. Even my Chinese lesson was just a quick review.
April 25th Although it is a Monday, the procurement officer decided that no shopping trip was needed today, just a rest for her. Not one to argue I got on with trying to sort out her photographs. The only way I could find to reduce enough was to create lots of collages hence what you saw in yesterday’s post. After lunch I did yesterday’s post, that took a long time! Once that was done we had a taste of the miracle fruit followed by a slice of lemon. The plan was to have four photos, each of us eating the ‘miracle’ followed by the lemon. Huan won’t let me use any that I took of her so you’ll have to make do with me. The experience wasn’t as ‘strong’ as I thought it would be, perhaps you need to eat more then one miracle fruit. It did make the lemon less sour, more so with the after taste, but it was definitely still a lemon.
Being conscientious we did go out for a walk after dinner, we both thought it was the right thing to do. Surprisingly we also walked a little faster than of late, seven kilometres in five minutes less than two hours. Snowbirds were abundant wherever we went, dancing, making music or singing. At one stage, down by the furthest bridge, we were in earshot of at least ten musical instruments including saxophones, trumpets, hulusis, drums and wind synthesizers. I did try a couple of snowbird photos but they didn’t have the effect of showing you how many are still here. Why are they still here? My guess would be partial lockdowns in the cities they come from and the necessity to quarantine when they do go back up north. Huan stopped by her hulusi ladies on the way home to catch up on the gossip. Lo and behold, one of them is planning to drive back up north at the end of the month.
So, we come to the end of another week, a very enjoyable one because of our trip yesterday. May we have many more trips in the future! I have now been out of hospital a month, my heart has had its ‘go faster’ accessory for five weeks, and life is still good. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, take care, see you soon.
