November 11th Well where do I start with this week’s post? There is no way I can put more than one hundred photos in here for the first day. Lots of selective editing and collages will be needed. We took our visitors to Binglanggu, a Li and Miao cultural theme park. That name doesn’t really do it justice. For those of you who have previously visited, as Huan and I have, it is well worth going again, and again. The whole park is growing and the attractions with it. This year there were also a lot more frogs visible, all over the place!
Tickets were bought. Luckily the staff allowed Chris and Sammy in despite them not having brought their passports. That was my bad; I should have reminded them before we left home. The full price is ¥138.00 per person, valid for seven days. You will need more than one day to really see everything and to have fun. Huan’s ticket was ¥118.00, OAP discounted and mine was free, over 70s. The disadvantage for Huan and I is that we were barred from many activities.
Our timing was good although at the ticket gate I was very worried that we would be late. The first cultural show of the day started at 11:30 and we were safely ensconced in our seats a few minutes before that. Our guests were a little in front of us.
The show was just as good as Huan and I remembered. It’s a shame that they don’t sell videos of it in a gift shop; it would make a lovely memento. While the show is narrated in Chinese there are screens either side of the stage, which if you can tear your eyes away from the performance, do a very good job of explaining what it is all about.
Since Huan and I last visited, 2017, the whole area has been expanded and there are far more things to see and also to do.
There seems to be more about frogs now, good for me!
I have to say that I felt like a proud and happy Dad all day long. Here are my ‘wee ones’ rooting around the costume box and displaying some of them.
I often, half jokingly, call myself 本地人, Běndì rén meaning a native of this place. Today I got a tattoo confirming that. Of course it was a ‘stick on’ tattoo and I was not alone. The ‘thumb’ by the way is not a British one, it is the Binglanggu one.
If the fancy takes you then you can always take a photograph with a member of the Li minority group. This is completely free and the people are exceptionally friendly.
You can also have touch and smell of various Chinese medicinal plants.
There are a lot more activities than during our last visit, here our visitors are trying out their javelin skills and then, with Huan, testing their longbow and crossbow skills. Being an oldie I was unfortunately forbidden to participate. The message is get yourself to Binglanggu while you’re still young enough.
From the archery area it was a hop, skip and a jump to the rainbow slide entrance. Our honoured guests were taken up backwards, sat on their backsides. I was waiting at the bottom to snap their arrival which I distinctly remember doing. However, I can’t find those photos anywhere, not even in the recycle bin, Perhaps I never took them and I need I new brain, or perhaps I did, but they didn’t store and I need a new camera!
After a little snack which Huan paid for with her wooden tokens that she received with the tickets, Chris and Sam were off on another activity that wasn’t there before, the luge. We couldn’t reach the bottom before they did but they had their pictures taken by the staff. There is no pressure to buy what they show you but at a mere ¥25.00 which includes the frame, I think it would be very foolish not to buy them. Here are the scanned photos.
Bear in mind that today’s weather was far from good, we were rained on rather a lot. I’m sure on a nice sunny day the photos would be even better. Many more activities were available, a zip line, roller skating, soak your feet in salt water, a monorail, rainforest rafting, far too many to list here. Because of the weather some were not in use and I suspect others were being refurbished ready for the next big holiday, or even for the New Year. One that was still there, but that we didn’t have time for, was something called the ‘high altitude bicycle. I think we would all have enjoyed that. There really wasn’t time for everything though, besides I wasn’t allowed.
Making our way down the various walkways we were experiencing the rainforest so let’s have a few wet views instead of people.
We even found some birds, only managed to snap one though!
Down at the bottom Chris and Sammy were hoping to go karting but because of the weather that was not possible. The operators directed us down the hill to another activity that may have been even better, amphibious driving. That’s a bit of a misnomer but they did actually drive through a big puddle on the way round. Just like the luge, photos were taken and offered, but not pushed. I did ask why Sammy was more central than Chris and they blamed his driving!
They came out looking as if they had enjoyed themselves, as for me, I was green with envy.
I think that that is enough from Binglanggu. Was it a good day? Yes! Did everyone enjoy it? Yes! Even I had a great day despite not being able to participate completely. If you are visiting Hainan, or if you live here, I would highly recommend a visit. Try and choose your weather though!
Back in Wuzhishan it was time to visit the hotpot restaurant where I forgot to take any photos at all. This one has been nicked from Sammy! This is a pretty good restaurant which has an added perk, free ice cream. Today I only had one.
Back home I worked on the computer until well after midnight sorting out photos and compiling videos. The rest of the tribe were – busy!
November 12th No tourist stuff today, Boss Lù had invited us all for another neighbourly lunch. The ‘transport’ would arrive to pick us up at eleven o’clock. Lù is on the left in the first photo; the second photo comes courtesy of Erdi’s Mum. I will remember her name one day!
#1 son did his daddy proud; he sat next to Zhaode and more than matched him. I try not to any more, although I will have a shot or three. He had a little lie down outside waiting for us to join him but none of us thought to grab that incriminating evidence shot.
The four of us walked home with my side of the family doing what I always do.
Chris found a lizard for us.
On the way along the river we were ambushed, by a total stranger! Lovely photo though.
Outside the lift there were some heavy weights, not sure what for. I had a lift, no-one caught me, Sam had a lift, those photos failed, and Chris had a lift, success at last. Don’t you think I make a good supervisor? It must be that military background!
It was nap time for us when we got home. Later on, the ‘children’ went out shopping where Chris was mistaken for me. It seems someone in Baijiahui thought I had cut my hair. I don’t know if Chris should be worried about being mistaken for an oldie or whether I should be pleased that they thought I looked so young! I spent the evening bringing this post up to date, for yesterday and today. My dinner was coffee and then more coffee.
November 13th Well we were housebound this morning, Huan had been called by the police yesterday, they were going to visit us this morning. It appears that we have a new exit/entry boss and a new area boss. They were very polite and also seemed very happy.
After lunch we took Chris and Sammy on a local walk, just for a change. Also, just for a change we had absolutely gorgeous weather!
In the village it was time for Chris to be the pied piper of chicks.
And then it was time for both he and I to feed the cows, who were not really very hungry.
Chris then did his duty and found us a lizard, I got a snap and in the second photo you can see, if you look carefully, that Sammy got one too.
Huan found a turkey, I took the photos.
Soon many people, and geese, were having a good old gander.
Birds were spotted, Huan bet me that I would fail, I won the bet. She refused to pay out!
I think Huan spotted this one but it is late and I can’t be sure. The odds are in her favour.
Now here’s a strange one for you. Is it a spider? We think it might be.
Our last photo of the walk features #1 son testing the waters.
In the evening our honoured guests invited us out for dinner and the first photo of that is #1 daughter testing her sprite!
Since we already have lots of photos this week our lovely dinner has been made into a very tasty collage. Can’t you just feel your mouth watering?
A cold walk home due to the weather change, Huan was tired and went straight to bed. I had to finish this and also do my Chinese lessons. Old age does not become me!
November 14th I was rather hoping this day would be delayed, by a week or two, or even a month or two. It was time to drive our visitors up to Haikou for their flight back to the UK early tomorrow morning. While I was preparing my laptop for our visit to Haikou they had one last wander around the town.
Sammy even had a go on the stones that the oldies walk on which is supposedly very good for your health. I suppose it’s a bit like reflexology. Like me, Sammy didn’t like it, “it hurts!”
All too soon we were on our way, stopping on the highway for lunch, and forgetting to take any photos! We did take a few at the hotel though, the Haikou Meilan International Airport Hotel Here is the view out of our window. Despite being so close, the planes did not disturb us.
And now we move into collages, it is only a hotel after all. Feel free to question us if you are debating choosing it, we were more than satisfied. Let’s start with the room which at the time of the shot already had one very sleepy occupant.
Our needs were very well catered for and, although we didn’t use it, room service is cheap. Perhaps a little help with English could be used, check the pillow options!
There are three floors of shops and a floor of restaurants in the attached airport building. We even saw a model of Tiangong 2, the Chinese space station. There is also a museum of tech stuff but unfortunately it was closed when we were there.
Row, row your boat, gently to the sea, someone was enjoying a second childhood.
An old friend was also found, hanging around on street corners! We said hello of course.
In keeping with the space theme, we also found this poster. I stayed low.
Then we had a friendly (?) game of pool where Huan and I were severely trounced by my lovely adorable children. They promised us that they played fair! Unfortunately, I have no evidence of Huan making the ball bounce.
PS I just got back on Instagram and Sammy sent me this. There is a video too. Huan pocketed the ball she was aiming for!
Don’t worry about the trouncing, we soon became friends again.
Let’s finish our day with a random dog, a beautiful random dog.
November 15th Today was the day, no photos were taken of the ‘early’ farewell at the airport, their flight was at 07:45 so check in was two hours before that. Early calls were needed all round which the hotel provided, on time, one computer call and one ‘real people’ call. Being early Chris and Sammy had no queues to worry about. The only hiccough was Chris had to transfer a battery from his suitcase to his hand baggage. I had promised myself that I would remain dry eyed which, at the tender age of seventy-five you would think would be easy. I failed!
The
last two weeks have been wonderful for me, albeit a bit of hard work for Huan
coping with me. Luckily, she forgives me easily. Words cannot describe my
feelings at seeing my children again, together as well. I have asked Huan to
renew her passport when mine comes up next time, perhaps we’ll be able to visit
the UK together.
When our honourable guests had disappeared from sight we walked back to the hotel and headed to the café for breakfast. It wasn’t bad and I had to finish with toast and jam instead of toast and marmalade but one mustn’t complain. This was mine, Huan cleared her plate.
Checked out we headed for Haidian Dao and our usual hospital visit hotel. Booking online there had only been one room available, it had been previously occupied by a smoker! We were too tired to try and change so we stayed put. I think I preferred the airport view though.
When the little ones arrived in Hong Kong #1 son got onto the Wi-Fi to tell me that #1 daughter ha already found the Disney shop. I did try to tell Huan but she was out, like a light! PS I am not allowed to use the photo I took of her sleeping, on pain of death, or a severe beating anyway.
While the boss enjoyed her slumber, I was busy transferring files from my external HDD and photos from both our phones. When she woke up, we managed to ger my QQ email up and running again although anything outside is still unobtainable. Astrill still will not work, I’m not sure why. I would like to buy my own copy but now I am worried it won’t work if I do. When it failed (again) today, I tried my new, cheaper alternative and ran into immediate problems. When I had copied all the files onto the HDD at home, I had omitted one rather important one. Now I don’t remember the password required! I have sent vpn.ac an email, let’s see if they respond. Speaking of response, I am still waiting for my pension company to get back to me.
When Huan was awake enough we headed to the ‘hospital area cheapo’ restaurants. Neither of us were very hungry. Here are our dishes, I was sharing Huan’s rice.
Huan was off to dreamland fairly quickly and part way through the words above my eyes fell down and I had to join her. We didn’t go far in the evening, just across the traffic lights to the night time food market.
Huan had a huge dinner, seaweed and some bread.
Me, I was greedy and had a starter followed by chicken and sweet potato. And then it was time for the two sleepyheads to return to the hotel, soon to hopefully have a good night’s sleep.
November 16th Sunday, this time definitely a day of rest. Well, I did have a plan, to drag Huan off to a ‘new for old’ show consisting of household appliances, home improvements, cars, media, computers, telephones etc. It was next to Evergreen Park and as we couldn’t find the right bus we walked there. I did my first good deed on the way.
Looking at the river I was wondering why Haikou doesn’t follow the examples of many other cities and have some water buses or water taxis between the small connected islands. It could make life easier for people going to walk and bring in some tourist dollars.
Soon it was time for my second good deed of the day. This gent was very happy but it was almost impossible to get him to smile. This was his best facial expression.
We tried a selfie in the same spot and for once we are not too unhappy with it. I can even see what I will look like when my hair eventually does a runner!
Of course, us oldies need a rest now and then.
And how lucky were we to get close to a beautiful bird, an egret chick we think but feel free to correct us in the comments if you disagree.
Century Park, which we had to go through to reach our destination, was quite busy today resulting in us creating even more collages. I’m sure you don’t really mind.
Our destination was Fuxingcheng Industrial Park and the show as “Replace Old with New”. Not a lot of fanfare was evident when we arrived.
Apart from cars and household appliances we didn’t see much else.
I did like some of the cars but overall, it was a wasted visit. Also, none of the facilities in the buildings seemed to be open except for the tea shop. Time to move on.
We also spotted more birds, parent and child!
What a day for freelance photographers. I am not one of course and I do not get paid for anything that I photograph, or in fact for anything that I say or do. It was time for my third good deed of the day, these two knew how to be happy! Usually, I am taking peoples photographs with their phones, in this case it was a Nikon APSC Z30. That is why I have my glasses on, no viewfinder!
Another little bird graced us with its presence and didn’t fly away too soon.
And Huan graced me by sitting next to a stone that tells a story that neither of us can tell you about. Wechat would not translate it correctly and Huan didn’t know how to read all the characters. Once again feel free to let us know down below.
What a good day, we found more flying creatures. First a squirrel with no legs touching the ground and then a bird having a rest.
Parks are good places to have your official wedding snaps done and we came across these two couples. Whether it is two brides and two grooms or one of each plus obligatory extras we really don’t know. I didn’t try and get too close as I did not want to upset the official photographers who were probably being paid a small fortune.
For lunch Huan wanted a Jiānbing and I fancied a burger. They were both available but in two different places. We ordered mine and then Huan went off to the other place.
Soon Huan was back, hers was as she expected, she had ordered it with only vegetables.
And did mine look as good as the picture? The bun left a lot to be desired, it was falling to pieces, but the chicken was great, lovely and crispy.
We followed up with a couple of tasty cocktails.
Our last picture in the park was another wee birdie.
Out of the park, looking for a us, we had to cross the road. There is a pedestrian bridge with three ways up and down. Can you guess which one we took?
Yes, we took the lift, and this is why you need the bridge.
Just after taking those last two photographs, I tried another good deed for the day. In this case I hadn’t volunteered my services as I usually do, but the ‘subject’ had approached us. I took six photos of him, three full length, 9:16 and three upper body, 16:9. As usual I said have a look, if they are not good, I’ll do some more. He said that none of them were any good but couldn’t tell us why. Huan then tried some of he and I together. The result was the same. According to Huan all the photos looked fine. Perhaps he was a little tiddly?
All that was left was the bus home, with a couple of ‘through the window’ snaps.
After our afternoon nap and a lot of photo editing we headed out foe dinner to the same street as last night. I remembered a place that Huan liked and thought I would try something from there too. Mine, with the egg in it, was a little bit too spicy for me and Huan’s was a bit on the ‘warm’ side for her too. These dishes are cold dishes and I thought I had chosen well. However, somehow, and don’t ask me how, I ended up with some ‘pig’s blood tofu’ in my dish. Now I love black pudding and I am also quite partial to a dish of dinuguan in the Philippines but I am absolutely not a fan of Xuè dòufu!
Having visited the ‘Replace Old With New’ exhibition I was intrigued by this poster. Were they suggesting exchanging your old spouse for a newer version?
Not exactly, they were in fact talking about teeth!
To finish the day, SWMBO, also known as the Evil Temptress, visited the snack shop and came away with all of these, plus two that she had swiftly eaten, for only ¥5.00. I have had to refuse so many times this evening that I will be saying ‘NO’ in my sleep!
November 17th Monday Monday, so good to me, time for doctors, to prod and poke me and stick needles in me. On the way Huan tried to befriend a new kitten in the old cafeteria. She did eventually get it to eat a piece of her breakfast although she had no joy with the other one.
On our way to see the doctor I found a lizard thus pleasing Huan.
The consultation didn’t take too long and before too long we were at the cashiers before quickly moving on to the ‘empty your vein’ department. Here I am, #55, waiting patiently in line asking Huan to please not take so many photos.
It didn’t take long to get to the front of the queue where they emptied my arm.
From there we went to the pharmacy to get all the stuff for today and my supple of daily female hormones before going somewhere else to fill me up with bone filler and female hormones. Huan skipped the needle in the belly but got the rest.
Our appointment had been for quarter to eight and two hours later, by quarter to ten we were all finished. Back to the hotel we went for a well deserved coffee. My results will be ready today at 4pm, 24 hours earlier than they usually would be.
More naps all round, slowly I am looking less exhausted when I look in the mirror. After coffee and some of Huan’s snacks we went ‘down the corridor’ and up the stairs to the printers.
Obviously, I am not going to share the results here, they did worry me enough to take a trip to the radiation therapy section to ask questions. On the way we passed this!
Our doctor was not there when we visited but the duty nurses gave him a call and he said there was nothing to worry about and that he would see me again in three months. Since we both trust him, we went off happier and walked for a while.
I thought I caught a duck taking a photo of me, I was almost right!
Dinner was taken in a Taiwanese restaurant and was a bit pricey for what we had, ¥77.00. Having said that we both enjoyed it and had more than enough to eat.
On the way home Huan almost bought more snacks. The bright lights had hypnotised her or had her experience of taking Sammy into the snack shop in Wuzhishan rubbed off on her. After much toing and froing, she eventually decided to go back to the hotel.
And I got this post finished just in time for a nice sleep before we drive back home tomorrow. A few days rest are on the cards before the Prime Minister gets me working again. It’s slave labour I tell you; I do believe a strike is called for! No chance of that I’m afraid, the only striking will be by the boss on my arm! So, after another wonderful week which we both really enjoyed our visitors have departed. Let’s finish with a selfie of us all!
See you soon!
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