January 17th Our own bed was a blessing last night, we both slept better than we had for a while. The weather was pretty miserable when we woke this morning though so we stayed at home. After lunch our guilty consciences got to us and we decided a short walk was in order. Our first photos show something we are not really sure if we have seen in the past or not. We have lived here since summer 2015 but neither of us really remembers seeing autumnal mountains before.
To our surprise I was able to snap a little birdie today, maximum zoom and cropped.
There has been some progress on the sluice gate bridge. It’s not finished yet and with the New Year being so close it may take a while longer. The gates have been painted, the machinery has returned from being maintained and painted; only the hydraulics remain yet to be done.
Nature always amazes me with its ability to grow things given only the slightest chance. In the time that the gates have been out of action and the river level has been lower than usual, greenery has shot up all around.
At various places around town we have seen some holes dug, usually in pairs, we thought they were perhaps for electricity boxes or water valves, maybe even phone and internet cabinets. In this case we were very wrong; it is a new sign for the library, well anchored in concrete!
Down at the street food market there were lanterns up on all the trees, I thought that this sign may have had something to do with it. Huan told me that I was wrong, this sign is all about the “red leaves on the tree season” when people like to visit Wuzhishan.
Well I suppose lanterns could be mistaken for leaves but they are not only on the trees.
And now a picture of yours truly, with the leader of one of Huan’s old singing classes. We are not looking the same way as there were two cameras. I did look at both so hopefully the leader’s wife will have a better choice of photos.
This is a nice view looking back where we came from.
Another pet place has opened, only cats in this one. Here I am asking the kittens if they want to go home with Huan and me.
Having had fauna today why don’t we add a little flora too. What does it say? 欢度春节Huāndù chūnjié. What does it mean? Celebrate the Spring Festival.
Here’s a final bit of macro flora just to finish off our first walk back at home.
January 18th Miracles happen, I was awake before eight this morning having been dreaming all night. Well it seemed like it was all night and I was very busy setting up a big company in Hainan called “The Emporium”, basically your one stop business in our little island. The corporate HQ was to be in Wuzhishan with factories and other sites in Sanya, Haikou etc. The plan was import / export, tourism and all kinds of other money making activities. The business was to be fronted by a young(ish) Chinese lady with international business experience; we would have an international corporate lawyer, international HR and other international posts as needed. All would be unpaid shareholding directors, as I would also be. I knew we would have to raise a lot of money from somewhere; perhaps that will be in a future dream!
Anyway, having woken early we were out this morning for a change. Our first job was a sign, this time a New Year one. The left hand side is 新年快乐 (Xīnnián kuàilè) Happy New Year and the right hand side is 兔年吉祥 (tù nián jíxiáng) Auspicious Year of the Rabbit.
Then we saw a little friend, ever so happy to see me today, still dressed in 2022 clothes, the year of the tiger. He must have known I was one too.
We walked down the main street in front of the old army barracks towards the three legged dog corner, to begin our search for lizards. The first thing we had to do was to try and stay dry!
Just before the corner we came across one of the new signs I mentioned yesterday. I understand the first half of this, 国无德不兴 (Guó wú dé bù xīng) A country without virtue is not prosperous. However, I’m not so sure about the second, 人无得不立 (Rén wú dé bù lì) people have nothing to stand. Maybe one of my Chinese readers can help.
Our three legged friend is still absent, his Mum must have gone elsewhere to work. We weren’t alone today though there were quite a few snowbirds out and about. The farmer was also present with his herd of cows.
One cow, missing from the previous photos, had his own little island and his own little bird.
Bird watchers were out with their cameras too, much bigger lenses than mine! I tried snapping what they were looking at but the results were not that good. Instead we’ll show you something that puzzled us. Had someone been drawing big blue lines on the sky? Were we in fact part of the Truman Show? I don’t think it had anything to do with a plane. Any ideas out there?
Approaching town we found one of the construction flags on the floor so I had to pick it up didn’t I. Before planting it in the hedge I had to have a little walk with it too.
Heading through the bap market Huan had to check on the ostrich. Its young owner brought it out for us. Huan then fed it some cabbage.
Someone tapped me on my shoulder and I thought they were telling me that the little dog was trying to eat my sausages. It took me a second or two to realise it was the ‘dad’ of one of my little friends just saying hello and telling me that my buddy was there. He’s having a good sniff at my jeans because I just had a cat wrapping itself around my ankles.
Another new sign next, this one right in front of our island park. 生态优先 (Shēngtài yōuxiān) Ecological priority - 绿色发展 (lǜsè fāzhǎn) green development.
The last sign is another New Year
one, just before we reached home. 兔年吉祥 (tù nián jíxiáng) Auspicious
Year of the Rabbit - 恭贺新春 (Gōnghè xīnchūn) congratulations
on the new year.
We were a little short of our ten kilometres so I popped down the road a little to see if my big friend was there. It was, with its noisy smaller one.
And then as I went back towards Huan two smaller friends from the car repair shop appeared.
Just to finish off our day full of animals, (no lizards unfortunately), I found two cats at the back of our entrance. Whether they live nearby or whether someone has dumped them for the New Year I don’t know. I’ll have to check when we go down tomorrow.
January 19th Just where do dreams come from? Usually I can narrow down the source to within the last two to three days, something I’ve read, seen or heard. I couldn’t source the one I talked about yesterday and I have no idea where last night’s came from either. That was a weird one, biological computing, neural networks and biological nanotechnology. It was interesting though and I didn’t really want to wake up from it!
Today was supposed to be an admin day, for the boss. She was to colour her hair this morning and I was to cut it for her this afternoon. Well I got the first part right. I kept waiting for instructions after lunch only to find out that the boss had changed her mind and wasn’t going to have a haircut after all!
I did manage to drag her out after dinner though; I said we needed to visit the supermarket to stock up on bread just in case the baker was going to have a traditional Chinese long holiday for the New Year. The official holiday is a week, the cultural one is fifteen days but some people close their businesses for a month or more. We don’t know which camp the baker falls in.
Baps in hand we had a little walk by the riverside. Remember those beautiful lanterns from Tuesday? Well they have all disappeared.
On our way home we found another new sign, this one was outside a cultural centre. For the life of me I have no idea what the English is supposed to mean. 扣好人生 (Kòu hǎo rénshēng) Buckle up life - 第一粒扣子 (dì yī lì kòuzi) first button. Chinese friends any ideas?
At least we had lights and lanterns on the road home.
January 20th “What was last night’s dream?” I hear you ask. Well, thank you for asking, it was something to do with some kind of afterlife. It was neither heaven nor hell, more like some kind of halfway house hotel. I didn’t mind waking up.
We were early again today so we had a little walk, about nine kilometres in fact. We started off on a squirrel hunt up past the old TV studios.
Not a sign, maybe the weather was a bit too cold for them today. I think they were hiding in the grounds of the old studios somewhere.
We did find some other hibernating beasts; they will be sleeping for perhaps another month or so.
In the same place as the hibernating beasts we found a few goats. This mother and kid were out in the open, top photo is mine, bottom is Huan’s.
The rest were in a cage so I tried feeding them. Whatever foliage Huan gave me was not to their liking. They did seem to want to sniff my hands a lot for some reason.
We thought you might enjoy this panorama taken from one side of the village looking over the fields towards the other side. The weather forecast for today was cold and cloudy. You can see from the photo that they were wrong; there was a slight chill but not many clouds. It was very good walking weather.
The ‘road to somewhere’ has progressed considerably; it looks very much as if the street lights are now operational. The pavements and walls are all done too. Maybe they’ll open it soon.
Here’s a snap of SWMBO taken from the other side of the road and then cropped.
And here’s another collage for you. While we were out Huan got a call from the Post Office so we headed back through town to pass there on the way home. Town was unusually busy, both with people and with traffic.
Not all shops were busy though, many had closed already.
Outside the Post Office we found another of those new signs. This one, when translated, was far easier to understand. I explained to Huan that we say something similar. 撸起袖子加油干 (Lū qǐ xiù zǐ jiāyóu gān) Roll up your sleeves and work hard.
How about a snap of yours truly? I found a welder’s mask hanging on a fence and since I had never tried one before I thought I might as well try today. It wouldn’t have done me much good for actually working though; there was no glass in the visor.
Nearer home, away from the town centre, even more places were closed up.
Once home we could check the post
and see what we had been sent. We had an anniversary card, (our anniversary is
in July), the card was sent on 23rd June and was opened sometime by
customs. Huan had a birthday card, (her birthday is in September), that was
sent on 22nd August. Finally we had a Christmas card; that was sent
on 17th November. As you can see all were sent in plenty of time,
all had enough postage, all were supposed to come by air mail. We do wonder at
times… When we got married, in 2008, my acting group in
January 21st Another of those strange dreams last night, perhaps writing things down in the morning brings on the dreams, who knows. Last night I was teaching children, I would guess of young middle school age, the differences between lots of different tools in my(?) tool boxes. Many tools were being disposed of as well for some reason.
Our morning was a quiet one at home. Today of course was Chinese New Year’s Eve and we had been invited to a long table dinner at Mauna Cun. If you remember, that is the place where Huan did her last show, out in the fields. We were picked up from our gate at around half past two, me showered and shaved, Huan already dressed for the evening.
We had no real idea what the plan was and we expected to be taken straight to the hotel. We were wrong; we went straight to Mauna where our first job was writing Chinese characters. It’s quite obvious that they didn’t know how hopeless I was.
A part of this trip was meeting with other foreign guests, one from
During a break from the plan, I thought I would take a panorama for you and show you what the ‘stage’ for Huan’s last show looks like now. It’s very big! As the audience we sat under the canopies you can see centre left. Just right of centre, towering over the landscape, is the mountain that gives our town its name, Wuzhishan. The ‘fingers’ are not visible from this angle, they are on the other side.
I had to leave the group for a while, the others got to try bamboo dancing. Because it was New Year’s Eve and we were invited I had brought a change of clothes so we headed off to the hotel. Should you wish to stay there, you can always ask me for details, or just use this.
Guess who was in the lobby waiting for us?
And if that is not enough to tempt you, the view from our balcony should sway you.
Back in Mauna I found three nice looking birds.
And then someone found me. The sign says “I love you
Before too long it was time for our long table dinner. Here is the table along with a close up of one of the platters. We are certainly lucky at times.
Lots of drinking of 米酒Mǐjiǔ, rice wine was required of me so it would have been very rude to say no wouldn’t it. It sounds worse than it is; the wine is only about 5%.
There were also games and songs, more drinking was involved if you lost in the game. I managed to lose only once, shame on me. Finally there was a gift exchange. However, this was not like any I have experienced before, we were given the gifts we had to exchange.
When dinner was over we went to the village boss’s house to have tea and watch some of the New Year show. In the end we watched very little of the show. Huan managed to snap some of the fireworks when they started.
Some of us then pretended to ‘cook’ tea leaves.
Just after we stepped outside and found that the ‘plan’ had changed and we would be going back to the hotel earlier than planned. I think most of us were probably ready for bed by then anyway. I did wave a little sparkler around first just to show willing. And so we came to the end of a long and wonderful day, the people of Mauna are so generous.
January 22nd If I did dream last night I forgot whatever it was. We had twin beds, neither of us slept so well. Huan had a sore tummy and when she got up it woke me up. Not to worry though, we didn’t have an early start in the morning; we had time for breakfast before meeting the transport. First another view from the balcony, it doesn’t look so good does it. Luckily it is early morning and the mist / fog / clouds clear quite quickly.
Breakfast was not bad, I found
fried eggs, toast and sausages, no beans though. Coffee was real, fresh and
made with beans. We forgot to take photos of our breakfast but we did take the
dining room as we were leaving. You wouldn’t believe that it’s New Year’s Day
in
We had a very busy morning with none of us really sure what was going on, when it was going on, and where we were supposed to be during all of this. There was a show in the town square, very nice but very warm, too warm to sit for a long time.
There were a lot of games and activities, some where the Chinese to English translation just does not work. Most activities required queuing up before you could take part which I didn’t really fancy. Some of our party did, two from Sanya did the tug-of-war, some of them blew ping pong balls across beakers of water. Mostly I just went where I was told to go. However, we did meet another foreigner, one who lives in Wuzhishan, at least for two months every year. She works on the mainland and comes down here with her (Chinese) husband for two months every year. How we have never met them before we have no idea. They live in ‘Camelot’, (cast your minds back to the lady of the lake). Anyway, here we are with the ‘tea’ lady from also way back when.
I’m sorry to say we were far less efficient with our photography today, blame it on how busy we were. I did take a mural when we moved back to the village for lunch.
Lunch was very enjoyable; I had plenty to eat, again. We had the ‘leaders’ with us today as well so there were lots of little speeches all followed by toasts. What can a fellow do? I had to force myself to drink much more of that rice wine! After lunch and a short rest at the hotel it was time for us to return to Wuzhishan. Our new friends from Sanya shared our car as far as the new Nansheng highway access where they transferred to a Buick. We continued home, two little worn out teddy bears. Oh, Huan also came home with another gibbon, this time a yellow one; she now has one of each. We were so tired that we had no cooking, no dining out, just a sandwich and some cups of tea.
January 23rd Did I dream last night? Yes, I have two to report. The first one concerned two little children, they could have been mine (many years ago), with me in charge. We were trying to sort out Lego pieces into floors, roofs and bricks. This was more than likely triggered by a YouTube video of Mrwhosetheboss showing five USB sticks, one of which was Lego. The second one was much more complicated, it was me trying to control a very large class of youngsters, infants really, with varying degrees of success. With just me and them it was fairly easy. However, it seemed that their mothers were present a lot of the time and then it became exceedingly difficult. For some reason, the children and the mothers were all Irish! Work that out if you can.
Anyway, back to our normal routine, this morning was a shopping expedition. Baijiahui was a little less crowded than it was before the New Year. Unfortunately, the shelves were a little less crowded too and I couldn’t find what I needed. Maybe we’ll try again tomorrow.
I had planned a walk after lunch
while the C-in-C relaxed on the sofa. She carried out her plan successfully
whereas I failed in mine. I spent most of the afternoon finding and renaming
files that include walkies in the title. Finding photos of particular places is
sometimes not easy. So far I have only done the
Both of us decided that an after dinner walk would probably be very beneficial, not having done any exercise at all for the last two days. We passed by the small Baijiahui where we found four red peppers. I only need one but all four of these were damaged in some way. Once again back to the drawing board. We carried on down the riverside, Huan needed to visit what will now forever be known as the “Ostrich Market” so that she could stock up on peanuts. On the way we passed this wee beastie, tied to a lamppost. We have no idea if its owner was nearby, or had gone shopping somewhere, or even if the poor mutt had just been abandoned. I would guess the first option but we couldn’t see any obvious candidates.
So, we come to the end of a very busy week. We do hope you enjoy the photos and please tell me whether the addition of my dreams is a good thing or not. It would appear that I remember more if I am going to write something about them. Huan tells me that she read somewhere, on her phone, that fish are always dreaming. She meant to say Pisces, that’s me! She does dream herself; she even talks in her sleep, in Chinese so that I can’t understand the mumblings. However, she never remembers anything in the morning. That’s Libra for you!
Until we meet again, which won’t be too far from now, take care of yourselves, your families and your friends. We’ll try and look after each other. Bye for now…
PS Don't forget that you can click on individual pictures to enlarge them.
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