June 21st The new camera was ordered last
night after the Blog was posted. There seem to be a lot of problems finding
cameras in
Huan’s computer was working all night and this morning was still busy trying to repair itself. We left it to its own devices and went off to Ledong for the day. Huan had to collect the next year’s rent which meant she also had to go bearing gifts. Don’t ask me why. This time she took some sticky rice dumplings, some ordinary dumplings and some soft belly pork from the Wuzhishan black pig. At least I got to taste the latter two, I don’t like the first.
Arriving at the apartment complex Huan insisted that we have a photograph of the pool cleaner.
Overhead the Chinese Air Force were practicing, I thought I would try and get a snap with my phone. Up to the roof I headed only to find that the access door was locked. Back down to the apartment then only to find that there was too much cloud cover. I settled for a view from the balcony instead showing how much the greenery has grown across the road.
We had planned a walk along the river in Ledong and had the
June 22nd Another ‘admin’ day today, I was the (un)armed escort for Huan’s trip to the bank to deposit her proceedings from yesterday. First though, we set off towards the river for a little lizard hunting taking a couple of shots on the way.
Much to Huan’s delight we were also successful in our lizard hunt, here are the two we spotted. I quite like that the first has a ‘play’ button tattooed on its flank.
Back in the town a water stop was needed and for a change I bought a slightly larger bottle!
Huan took a fancy to this view through the trees, a view that I also like.
On our way back into town Bigfoot was in attendance. She was just too worn out to move today though and all we got was a little wag of her tail. She was too content under “Daddys” chair.
Sometimes things change quickly in this little old town of ours. A public convenience appeared overnight, near the food market. I guess it will save a few hundred metre walk.
While Huan was doing her duty as Minister of Finance in the bank I took this photo of an engine compartment of a local truck. Notice the adherence to H&S, if the engine was running there was nothing to stop me putting my fingers in the works! Still, at least this one had a bonnet over the engine and a radiator with cover in front of it.
There is an advantage to old bangers like this though, even a dummy like me could repair it. You have no worries with anything like this!
Huan’s duty complete I decided a couple of photos on the final stretch towards home would be a fine thing. Here are the first two.
And finally, do you remember the riverside farmers planting peanuts back on the 10th June? Well they have begun sprouting, I wonder how long before we can go scrumping.
P.S. MS Word Spellcheck tells me that scrumping is spelt, (or spelled for our American brethren), wrong. I can assure you that it is in fact correct and also warn you not to Google it! You will get answers that I have never heard of despite my advancing years.
June 23rd Huan’s computer was still attempting to repair its hard disk this
morning, it has gone back to square one three times at least. Time to unplug it
and take it to the store methinks. Huan herself was not too fine this morning,
and she thought the weather was a bit too warm so no walk. Message received
from Amazon, not for the new camera but for the SD card. It has been sent,
yesterday, and we should receive it by (wait for it) 29th July! It
must be on a ‘Slow Boat to
As per the Minister of Health’s instructions we went out for an evening walk after dinner. I got to choose the route so I chose the old ammo dump. On the way we passed this little chap. I don’t know why he is looking like he is, he had just got my hand with his claws, drew blood too!
The way we went is quite a pleasant walk in the evening.
It has the added benefit of a number of canine companions.
More nice scenery followed.
The route was taking us to a place that Huan had not forgotten. On the way we passed a small construction site, with people in attendance today and also their laundry room.
You might remember the destination from previous posts where I hypothesized that is was an old, or possibly a new, M.O.T. type testing station. Today we met someone who told us that it was in fact a new testing station and that they would shortly be building a new access road to it.
Crossing the main road we thought we would explore a possible way over the mountain to the river on the other side.
At the top of the little hill we met a guy who told us that there was no way over. The only way we could have gone was through the sewage works which may not have pleased their security guards very much. Discretion won the day.
Back to the main road we went and headed for home, only five kilometres today.
June 24th Huan was feeling
back to normal this morning and she chose the route, along the road to
This is a ‘hard road’ route, for most of the way anyway, but it is still very pleasant. There is ample shade and traffic, since the highway opened, is minimal.
Huan is always wanting to see snakes, well she got her wish today. Thankfully, as is nearly always the case, it was a stiff, dead one.
Soon it was time to turn off the hardtop and head into the wilderness.
There were signs of civilisation, the first abandoned and the second still in use. That was what I thought, but on the way back Huan discovered that both are actually being lived in.
Onwards we went refreshing our memories along the way. I think we both forgot that we would come to not exactly a dead end, but certainly a much more difficult way. After the bananas we realised we would have to turn back, earlier than planned.
Huan asked me to go through the motions of drinking water from a standpipe so I did. With our previous experience of really bad water from one, I didn’t actually drink any of this.
Posers next, one of each, one smiling, (Madame) one grimacing (Monsieur).
Pretty soon after that we were back on the main road where Huan picked this up and told me what it was in Chinese, 无花果 (Wúhuāguǒ). I forgot until we arrived home and translated, it is of course a fig. Ooh, I do miss fig rolls!
Away in the distance we could see Wuzhishan, not our house though. The good thing about this walk is that once you are on the main road heading home, it is downhill all the way.
We dxid have some more views of the road on the way home but we’ll skip them in favour of a bird that we got reasonably near to today.
I know that there are strikes in the
We were quite worn out by the time we reached home, me probably more so than Huan. Our walk today was just over twelve kilometres. Next time we go on that route it will probably be more as we intend to look for a ‘viewing platform that should be just a little further than we went today. We have never seen said platform before and the sign is new, to us anyway. We will of course keep you informed!
June 25th Market day with a weather forecast of rain at two in the afternoon. (PS The rain never came at all today.) Huan was busy with her phone within metres of our gate. She was taking pictures of me taking pictures of a friend.
Huan carried on but I gave up after taking one of the mantis on my finger. Instead I had a nice chat with it, you know, just passing the time of day.
Soon it decided it wanted more than a chat and went exploring all around my head. At least it didn’t disappear down my ear! It tickled a lot though.
Our task today was to buy dinner for the two days of the weekend, and the dish was to be duck. This is cooked on a spit a bit like chicken in other parts of the world but the duck is ‘flat’ and a lot less oily. Of course if we could find said chicken we would buy it in a flash. However, this duck tastes fine; here it is before we bought it.
And here it is being removed from its cooking frame and then wrapped up in greaseproof paper. It could be a ‘she’ of course, with ‘er ‘ead tucked underneath ‘er arm, ‘er arm, ‘er arm, with ‘er ‘ead tucked underneath ‘er arm!
We eat it cold with a lovely big salad and very tasty it is too. In the manner of our slightly differing cultures, Huan has the neck and the head while I have the Parson’s Nose.
Huan decided she would buy something else, a fruit that we have shown you before. I warned her that she would be eating it all, I’m not keen. The taste is fine I suppose, I am just not a fan.
On our way home we spotted Snoopy again, he does get around. On this car he was advertising free road tests if you fancied buying one, hence the electronics box on the roof.
Finally, for today, yet another attempt to snap one of the birds that always hide under the shop fronts and sometimes on the signs. I could see the little red face on this one so I thought it was worth an attempt. With so much cropping needed though I’m not sure you would agree!
June 26th The expeditionary force leader decided that we should take the Atuoling Road route again today but turn off at Zahao village to refamiliarise ourselves with the scenery there. Flora starts the gallery today with a couple of photos taken down by the riverside.
On the road out of town we came across a lot of new cars under test, they were the Hong Qi (Red Flag) brand and MPV style. I tried to sneak as many photos as I could but only kept one.
The turn off to Zahao is nearer than Friday’s turn off so we weren’t so tired when we reached it.
One of Huan’s favourite animals (another one) is a squirrel. Usually we see quite small grey ones but today we were lucky. The camera wasn’t as lucky as we were but we did get a shot or two.
Once past the village we discovered that the track we used to walk on was no longer! It had been transformed into a concrete road.
Here we took the right hand fork on our way out. On our right, just out of the photograph, there is a covered farm with pigs inside. Our plan was to show you what it was like inside but the farmer was not impressed at all and would not let us take any photographs.
We were unsure whether or not we had been this way before, especially as it looked so much different this time. After the first picture below we met a farmer who told us that the road petered out at the edge of the mountain. We assumed that was the second photo and turned for home.
On our way back we explored some of the stepping stones across the stream and took the occasional photos on the other side. Here’s one that I took and then one that Huan took of me coming back over the stones.
And here’s one that Huan took and her coming back over different stepping stones.
Soon we were back in the village, standing on the bridge.
Huan had been hoping that the squirrel would reappear, it didn’t, but we had a closer look at the tree we had seen it on. Perhaps it was after the figs?
All too soon we were back in town, it always seems a lot easier coming back down the hills than it does going out and up them. Test cars were out in force again, not sure which ones this time, but there were a lot of them. You can see six in this photo alone.
Passing by the school we passed all these electric buses. Today, and yesterday, were Zhongkao days. Last time we told you that we were wrong, those days were Gaokao days. Students come in from schools in towns and villages all around the area and the buses are the free transport.
We started with flora today so let’s finish with it too. I like this plant because it appeared to have three different flowers on it. Huan tells me that there are only two, the pink in the middle and the white on the right are the same. What do you think?
After another eleven kilometre walk it was time for lunch and a nap followed by duck a la salad. I wonder what delicacies we can come up with for next weekend.
June 27th Monday Monday, So Good To Me… Well not really, it was just another shopping day with nothing to report from Baijiahui. Huan insisted on taking my photo in the fishmarket though. The ladies who “love me” told us that this fish was tasty, I was enthralled by how it felt. Its skin is silky smooth, no feeling of any fish scales at all. Maybe we will have to try one but not this week, Huan had already bought this week’s selection.
Normally there is no walking on a Monday, I like to think of it as a day off. However, today was different. Soon Huan will be going out to her hulusi practice sessions again so I decided I needed to practice walking solo! I headed off over the bridge to somewhere intending to go through “Luo Bo Te” village. For some reason they partly block the bridge these days, it doesn’t stop cars and bikes going through but I suppose trucks would have a hard time.
I guess I will skip most of the countryside photos for today, you will have seen most of them and this week’s ‘collection’ is quite large. Instead, here is a Royal Blue Dragonfly!
My bovine buddies were in residence today but I could not get them to come to the front of the byre at all. Maybe the sounds of “Luo Bo Te” coming from the children from further up the hill made them nervous or maybe they just fancied a rest.
Lost in my thoughts I took a wrong turning down towards the river. I had misremembered where the steep hill sign was and should have turned right. There was no sign of the steep hill sign (see what I did there) and my error only became obvious when I came across these two little rascals.
I had to include these next two photos, particularly the first one. I am assuming that this is the patriarch who let me get quite close. The rest of the family is in the undergrowth.
Finally, you have no doubt heard of a ‘house of cards’ whether it be the game you used to play as a child or one of the TV series named as such. Outside our apartments I found a ‘tree of cards’! Maybe someone through a pack out of the window somewhere, but I couldn’t see any cards on the ground. Maybe youngsters were flicking the cards into the tree as weapons. What do you think? Can you be a detective and come up with an answer?
And with that it’s time for me to fold and turn in my hand. Never fear, I will be back next week to let you know how I managed going out all on my own! Take care one and all, and behave!
