Ledong Trip (& Skyfall), Student Resumes Learning, Fish Bites Man.

June 27^th Day two of my new career, I keep telling people that I am retired in Wuzhishan but that I am working in Ledong. Today it was the kitchen’s turn to receive my undivided attention. Last night the hob extractor had been so pleased to see me that, when I went to switch it on, it sent 240 volts straight through my heart. Another one had been ordered last night and that was due to be delivered and installed this morning. Before delivery I had to clean a lot of the kitchen cupboards and tops. Renting out your property sometimes seems more trouble than it’s worth.

When the new extractor had been fitted, and tested without alarming me, we headed off out again to find an air-conditioner repair man and an electrician At the gate the security staff gave Huan a telephone number for the A/C man, he said he would be there forthwith. I left her to it and went off to buy a new kettle and a new shower head. The kettle was easy enough and cheap enough, not so the shower head. Nobody had one; one guy said that he used to have them in the past. Arriving back at the apartment I realised that I had walked without the fitness app on, calamity!

The A/C repair man was also an electrician so one less person needed. He was able to sort our living room light out for us, the A/C would be done after lunch. We headed out again, for our lunch and also to find a stone to cover the hole left by yet another destroyed twin gas hob. This time we decided not to replace it, the new tenant is in agreement. Also this time, I remembered to turn the fitness app on, before Huan prompted me.

The A/C man returned with his brother after lunch, his brother was pleased to meet a British man because he had studied English at school. Of course he could hardly speak a word but that’s by the by, the important thing is that they fixed the A/C. That meant we could carry on with cleaning the living area and put the clean curtains back up.

While Huan was cleaning I was uninstalling electrical socket in the kitchen and behind the sofa, all of them had problems with accepting plugs, two with three pin and one with two pin. That was our shopping list on the way for dinner this evening. Huan also asked in the shop where we bought the sockets if they had a shower head. Yes they said, but only the small type. Now I had been in this shop once today, with the old shower head in my hand. In that situation you would think that language would not be so much a problem, you’d be wrong!

From there it was a long walk to find something to eat, we ended up in a chain that does burgers and Chinese food. Huan wanted a fish burger so I followed her lead for a change. This is me glugging even more water while waiting for my grub.

They brought our chips and spring rolls first, a long time before our burgers. Mistake number one was mine, ordering spring rolls. They were filled with some sort of sticky type flour, not as I would have expected. Huan ate most of them. Mistake number two was ordering the fish burgers, neither of us was impressed.

After a long walk, just stopping off to buy iced coffee and water for the fridge, we arrived back home where I set to work with the new and improved shower head. Huan did try and take a pictorial record but she failed, mostly due to camera angles. I didn’t fail though, here she is having a rare moment of relaxing.

And I kid you not, that is a very rare moment. In that photo she is waiting for the TV channels to start up over the Wi-Fi. I spent quite a lot of time for the rest of the evening asking her to sit down and relax; we still have another whole day left.

June 28^th Last night we decided to leave the living room A/C on and our bedroom door open, Ledong is presently much warmer than Wuzhishan. I woke up after a terrible night’s sleep wishing we hadn’t. I alternated between feeling too hot on one side, where Huan was, and too cold on the other, where the door was. Huan was awake quite a while before me; I had heard her pottering around. She had been sorting out the balcony.

It was once again time to get back to work, starting with the socket in the living room.

Huan took that photo and of course too many more, before she decided that she didn’t feel so good today and took herself back to bed. I just carried on working, popping in now and then to make sure she was all right. Soon the kitchen sockets were done and the new ‘stone’ cleaned.

After that it was time to scrub the kitchen floor and worktops ready for inspection by the C-in-C when she resurfaced. I think I did a good job.

After finishing off the remaining part of the living room, mostly by putting things away and getting other things ready to put back in the car I thought you might like to see the view from the balcony. It has changed a little, in that the trees across the road are now even higher.

I then had a quick look to see how the boss was doing before diving in to keep her company.

Later on we woke up, both feeling much better, and decided to have a walk before dinner. It turned into a very short walk because Huan insisted that we go past the shop where we bought our mattress to tell them about our kitchen cupboard shelf problem. I know how to fix most things, and the shelf is on that list, but finding things to fix it with is not so easy here. Huan asked the right person, the furniture shop owner provided six small brackets with many screws, FOC, and even lent us a battery operated screwdriver to do the work with. My protestation of “I have my own tools” fell on deaf ears, two pairs of them. Our walk was delayed and the foreman took me back home and set me to work again.

The finished job, while not perfect, was accepted by quality control.

We returned the electric screwdriver to the shop, with grateful thanks. I had never used one before and I have to say this one actually made the job much easier. Photographs of the tool were taken for future purchase reference.

From there we walked down a different road looking for somewhere that we could maybe buy Huan some rice soup, (rice porridge), which is what brings her quickly back to normal when she has been down. The road we took was scenic but unsuccessful. This is the view back into Ledong and also into the countryside.

Walking all the way back to the town centre we went into Do&Me, Huan thought that they would possible serve something suitable. It’s a nice chain, quite a cross section of Chinese and Western fast food. It has a bit of an American vibe to it, with “Chinese characteristics”.

Huan was right, again, they had some rice soup for her with some greens and a few strips of chicken. Maybe this is the chicken soup for the soul!

As for me, I ordered a couple of starters that looked as if they would normally be shared between two or three people. They sufficed me as a main course.

Ice cream was on the menu, and in our minds, before we started eating. By the time we finished neither of us wanted anything else at all. On the way out we both thought how Ledong seems to be thriving, many more people around now, most of them young too.

On the way back to our apartment we spotted something that definitely shows ‘young people growth’, a microbrewery bar. Being a Chinese one it also serves BBQ food. We were too early to try it, and we had already eaten, but I’m fairly sure it would have been packed later.

In the evening we could relax, knowing that tomorrow we’ll be on our way home again!

June 29^th The boss was up early again but not so busy today. She went out for breakfast while I had a lie in, at least until she came back with no key. Her plan was to go and have a little swim in the pool today while I went out for a walk. This was to pass time until our new tenant came at lunchtime. Poor Huan, the first time ever she decided to use the complex pool it was closed for cleaning. With her not being so good yesterday it was better that she didn’t go walkies with me so I left her at home to relax and set off alone. Here’s your first ‘car’ of the week.

My plan was to walk along the riverside today, down one way and then back the other way. As you can see I had beautiful weather for it.

I was heading for the other big park in Ledong to see if they had done any work since we last saw it. At that time all the ponds were empty. I climbed up the fake rocks for a better look.

Everything looked much better inside.

I didn’t go in, that pleasure is best left for another day when Huan is able to join me.

When I reached the road to the highway I crossed the tributary river, turned back and then crossed back over at the next bridge. Here you can see the view to the first bridge and also to the main river further down.

This was the lovely view where the tributary joined with the main river. Just look at that gorgeous countryside!

There was some shade at times walking at the side of the road, but also a lot of sun. Luckily, I had borrowed Huan’s hat! For her, one of my other plans today was to try and find a lurking Ledong lizard; we’ve never seen one outside here. I was lucky and found one, only one though, and even this one kept trying to hide behind the tree. He seems to have a very long tail.

It seems the path I was walking on is a ‘smart’ one. It looks like there’s a QR code to scan, maybe help with your fitness goals.

Shortly after I came across an information panel and then multiple other panels all the way to the other side of town. We decided that there were far too many for Huan and I to try translating for you, you can always use Google if you are interested. I’m sharing all the photos here because I do have readers from Hainan who may also be interested.

Eventually I had walked all the way back to the bridge at the other end of town. This is the view back across town and also out to the countryside the other way.

It had been many years since Huan and I walked this side of town and things have changed. We ended up getting lost here but now there is a big new road leading back to the cross country road that comes from Wuzhishan.

It looks much hotter than it is, there are paths beside the paths on both sides. In there, I managed to find a butterfly that I could not take a photo of, its wings were going far too fast. At home I tried to take a screen capture from a video, that was impossible too. However, I did find a couple of other creatures with wings; I think they are called birds…

Once I turned onto the road into town, I was met with “The People of Ledong Welcome You”, and not long after the arches of the town gate.

Soon I had walked 8.8km and had reached our apartment. Walking up to the front door felt a lot better than it did last week!

A nap was on the cards but no sooner had I laid down than our new tenant called, he was ready to come round. He had said twelve noon but as it happened, earlier suited us better too. It seems he lives sixty kilometres away from Ledong and doesn’t want to drive back and forth every day.

Soon we were on our way, only stopping for lunch at a new highway rest stop, appropriately called Ledong Services. Only snacks were available, probably better all round, a full meal may have sent us both to sleep, not such a good idea whilst driving.

Arriving home we thought we would show you how the working man with his ladder, his tools, his cleaning materials and his boss travel, carefully of course.

Once upstairs it was most definitely nap time, we left the unpacking until we woke up. Having had beautiful weather this morning in Ledong, this afternoon the heavens decided to open up here in Wuzhishan. Plans for eating out were hastily scrapped, a dive into the freezer gave us a curry and a chilli. I let Huan choose and she opted for the curry.

My day finished with posting last week’s Blog post, (with no thanks to my VPN supplier) and then sorting out all of today’s photos and writing up today’s entry.

June 30^th I never explained why we stayed such a short time in Ledong. The first reason was my out and out refusal to do any painting. Huan thought we could do some touching up here and there whereas I could see that as soon as you went down that road, the whole apartment would need to be painted. The second reason, and one much closer to Huan’s heart, was that she got a phone call saying that driving lessons are back on, should have been from yesterday, but due to our non-availability will now be from today. She’s a happy bunny!

Emergency shopping was our first duty this morning, making sure we have everything we need for the weekend. Coincidentally, I was just talking to Huan yesterday, as we passed a ‘barbershop’, about “something for the weekend Sir?” She found it quite amusing. Shopping over and delivered home, and having not gone out for dinner last night we treated ourselves to lunch out today instead. On the way home we spotted a few other hungry mouths!

Next up is a quiz question for you, what are all these people doing?

Did you guess right? Out of shot in that photo there is a traffic light, on red. It was a very hot day so the riders in the photo are all waiting in the shade of the tree until the light turns green again.

For us, it was time for a nap before Huan’s next driving lesson. Awakened, I was called for duty again, take the ladies to the driving lesson grounds. Parking the car there I set off for a walk. Here I am with my emergency hat on, I forgot the usual one at home!

I had chosen to explore a new route, the road leading upwards from the driving ground. Well, I was wrong, it didn’t lead very far.

Retracing my steps I found another path that became a country road and led me past two almost identical ‘village’ settlements.

This road actually led me to straight across the road from the access road to Caoban village. I headed down there and thought I would turn right, see what’s changes since we last visited.

It seems that a new road marked a new rear entrance to the village, complete with information board. Many of these boards also have an English translation, hopefully you will be able to read it. If not, let me know and we’ll see what we can do.

I carried past the garbage sorting area on in a straight line through the fields, where Huan and I had walked before and reached a dead end, wondering if it would have changed. It was hot!

Nothing had changed; it was still a dead end with no way to cross the river.

I messed around in the fields for a while, wondering if I could find another way back to the village through the forest. Maybe you can picture me daintily tripping along the raised paths between the fields of differing crops! Eventually I realised that I was not going to find a way through the forest so I headed back and looked for a way to cross the river again, back to the main road. This was also unsuccessful!

Back through the village I went and then turned down the other way towards Changhao. However, time was running against me today so I wouldn’t be able to go that far.

Instead I decided that as I was wearing my boots, I would see if a weir crossing was possible.

It was, here are my boots and then a view from the other side.

This weir leads to another settlement, that of “Fanna No 2 Village”. It is directly across the road from No1 Village which is where the driver training ground is, a good place to aim for. Just like Caoban there is an information board here, a little bit more worn though.

A few minutes later and my afternoon walk was over. Only five kilometres had been covered and I was nearly half an hour early for the ladies but I was feeling just a little too tired to go any further. Urgently needed was cool water and iced coffee!

Today the ladies were practicing driving out of a parking space, to the right, and then reversing back in again. (Tomorrow they will go the other way.) When they do this, only the driver is in the car, the instructor is outside guiding and the other learner sits it out. Huan was therefore alone in the car and loving every minute of it!

My shirt had been drying on the car while I waited for them to finish, a ‘friend’ had taken up residence. Maybe there is such a thing as the jungle telegraph after all!

Our final photo of the day is the view from the car as I was waiting for the ladies. I thought it was worth rolling the window down to share it with you. What it doesn’t show is how hot it still was outside; the car was (probably erroneously) showing 38⁰C still.

The evening’s plan was binned, after our sandwiches it was relaxing time.

July 1st A new month and a wake-up call from the alarm on the phone. Yes, the student had to present herself early this morning, Yú was first and had to be there be seven, Huan being second had to be there before eight. With only an hour two walk I did the first pat of yesterday’s stroll in reverse, walking down the main road and then into the countryside.

A new des res in the trees was found, I didn’t see it yesterday. It also had a water feature very close by, that must have been off yesterday.

Is this an example of the pecking order?

Wasting time I soon found another des res, ripe for conversion.

If that one is not to your satisfaction, how about the one behind?

Walking backwards to try and get the shot between the two buildings, I almost knocked this character off the old gate he was sitting on. He deserves two photos, one to show you him in all his majesty, and the other one where he is giving me the evil eye!

Maybe I could get this one to shake hands with me as I had done with a previous one. That was not to be the case; in fact I frightened him so much he fell off the gate! While I had been playing with the lizard I had heard the snorts of a pig or two and then I had spotted two (very) old people making their way to a little hut. When I greeted them the woman was fine but the man went a little ballistic. My understanding would be that he didn’t want me taking photos of his pigs, who knows, they could have been illegal. I explained that I liked walking in the countryside; I liked to see pigs, but that I would not take any pictures of his. That seemed to do the trick.

Still with a little time to waste I popped down the steps to yesterday’s weir, had a nice walk around, in the dry today. Back up onto the main road with minutes to spare giving me plenty of time to sit and have a nice iced coffee watching the world go by.

Once the ladies were done, and we had dropped Yú off at the clinic, (she was having another intravenous drip today), we went to the market and bought our cooked chicken for the weekend. In the market we wondered what this was.

According to Google it is 千金藤属, Qiānjīn téng shǔ – Stephania. If you want to know more, Wikipedia says it is used in Chinese medicine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephania

Finally, for the day, the fish that had tried to bite me before was in residence, with the gate to the little garden open. I asked Huan to take a video again, with her phone this time. She succeeded, it is here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXyPTFLycD4&ab_channel=HainanBob

The fish also succeeded, it drew blood on my finger!

July 2^nd Sunday morning, comes round just once a week, today with an overcast sky, perfect for a nice relaxing Sunday stroll. The first thing I noticed was something on a car again, all about new drivers. 新手上路, Xīnshǒu shànglù - Novice on the road / 禁止恐吓, Jìnzhǐ kǒnghè - no intimidation. Basically, I am a new driver, have patience.

Huan found another lizard which I managed to crop and enlarge for you.

Strangely enough, when we got home I found an article about Eel Pie Island on my FB feed. The name instantly reminded me of this photo. We had found a little pot of bait without a fisherman to be seen anywhere. The worms were already trying to escape so gave them a little help.

Closer to town we found a little kitten trying to learn how to stalk and pounce on birds. It had no real idea yet, in fact the bird was nearly as big as the kitten. Our photos there didn’t turn out so well at all. Our chicken photo turned out well enough though. Maybe you can tell us just what is going on here. One is obviously ‘king of the hill’ and ‘top of the heap’. What we didn’t understand is why others seem to be trying to burrow under the heap. Any ideas?

For our last snap of the day we tried another winger creature, a beautiful butterfly. All of the pictures of it with its wings extended failed miserably so you only have this one. Sorry!

Our plan was to then head home for a much needed nap before taking the ladies for today’s driving lesson. The first part was successful, the second part failed but through no fault of ours. Today’s lesson was cancelled, as were the ones for the next four days, something to do with all cars having to be removed from the training ground.

A relaxing day followed, I had a nice chat with #1 son, all was well with the world. Then it happened, Huan had a WeChat message from our new tenant in Ledong. He was eating his dinner when the sky fell down! Huan offered him the chance to move out and a return of all his money; or he could find someone to do the repairs and we would foot the bill. He chose the latter. I’m glad he did, I didn’t fancy another trip to Ledong so soon.

July 3^rd Monday comes but once a week, and it nearly always brings shopping. It did just that today, at least in the morning. In the afternoon it brought rain which continued until some time after dinner. I guess we could have gone out for an evening walk but then Monday hit back with a bout of sheer laziness on both our parts!

In other words, that’s it for this week. Tune in next week to see if the learner has restarted her lessons and if the ceiling has been replaced in Ledong. We’ll see you then, bye for now!