Charlady Retires To Welcome Visitors!

October 28^th Today wasn’t Monday but the plan was a shopping day anyway preceded by a visit to the bank to change some money. Huan had started her morning by baking so Donald was called upon to ensure we got both jobs done before lunch. Here we are on our merry way.

And here is the man himself sitting outside “smelling the roses”.

Our stay in the bank turned out rather different than we had hoped. Initially the teller had no idea what to do and his supervisor told him that foreigners could only change £500.00 in one day. On our way out I asked for a manager and one of the ladies came and told the teller that the limit he had been given was wrong and to go ahead. Nearly an hour later and with the bank’s other customers beginning to lose their patience, I told him that if he could not do what was required, we would go to Sanya. With profuse apologies he agreed. We went out, woke Donald up and put him to work again. Huan was in charge of my phone.

In the tunnel she took way too many photos so a collage had to be made.

A photo of the instrument display was also taken. When we left home the onboard computer told us we could drive over a hundred kilometres before refuelling. Unfortunately, it has a terrible habit of not showing any figures at all once it is less than one hundred. All we have is two little dashes and I wonder if you can spot the orange warning light.

Luckily, we both understand Donald fairly well and not long after leaving the tunnel we stopped to feed him and to feed us. We forgot to take any photos of our dinner but we did manage a couple of the rest stop itself.

At the bank we headed straight for the intelligent terminal, where I could insert my passbook and do it all by myself. Hahahaha, pull the other one, the machine said. It told me that my ID was about to expire and that I should see a member of staff. That meant taking a ticket and joining the queue. PS My visa, which they use as my ID, expires in 2027!

Our ticket told us that we had eleven people in front of us and as it was lunch time only one teller was working. I looked at the chairs and took pictures to while away the time. The first one seems rather strange to me, surely carers would see their family to the relevant teller window. 爱心专座Àixīn zhuān zuò - Special seats for carers.

The second one appears to be aimed at the resident snowbird population. 候鸟驿站Hòuniǎo yìzhàn Migrant Bird Station. I wonder which group we belong in.

Eventually we reached the head of the queue and everything proceeded with no difficulty, it just took time. We are used to that, computers don’t save paperwork, they make more of it!

And that was our day, no time for charlady Bob to get involved at all. In fact, Chef Bob and Chef Huan both had a day off too, we just had sandwiches. That was after we got home via Baijiahui where we did our ‘less than a week’ shop this time. Rest was needed all round.

October 29^th Back to charlady duties for me, hopefully this will be the last big day for a while. Huan helped but still somehow managed to take one hundred and twenty-three photos while she was doing so. Let’s start with the light.

Then we’ll move on to the wardrobe and the chest of drawers.

The art director failed when it came to the bed, there weren’t many photos at all.

The same was true of the cleaning of the bits and bobs.

And then I got to take one, the nice clean bedroom. There is a mattress missing off the top bunk, these beds never get used enough, I blame the family, siblings as well as children, so things can deteriorate over the years. What was there was on Chinese style, very thin mattress, so we have ordered something a little thicker which hopefully will arrive before Saturday.

The photography stayed with me as we went out in the rain, Huan to get money from her bank and to check our Taobao budget, me to buy a battery for the remote control of the little audio box in the guest bedroom. I took a photo of my repaired shoes first. My toes kept trying to escape so Huan repaired them for me. These are my ‘wear them in the rain’ shoes.

We thought it was about time you saw some scenery again, even if it was raining.

Almost home and I took another photo of my shoes; it would appear that the glue on the material Huan used does not like the rain either. We will let them dry out and try UHU as well.

We tried our hardest for bird but it was just too far away I’m afraid. We wondered if you would accept a spider, which despite being incredibly small was at least much nearer!

October 30^th Yet again the weather has become miserable, we have no idea what is going on down on our little tropical island in the sun! Still, we had no walks planned today; the first job was admin and bringing all my bank files up to date. The second job was admin too, trying to find a hotel for our visitors in Haikou. Eventually I gave up,

I gave up because I had run out of time; we had been invited out for lunch by Yú and Zhào dé. This was the location, just a few minutes walk away.

Here’s a photo of the table, there is a story involved but Huan has forbidden me to talk about it. Shame really, I do love a bit of gossip.

And here are our dining companions.

“Where is Bob?” you ask. Well, I was operating my phone so I wasn’t going to take a selfie of my ugly mug. Instead Huan took one that I didn’t know she was taking, of my ugly mug!

After lunch we had a late nap, no dinner and a relaxing evening. I did search for hotels again but eventually gave up. Oh, how I miss the times when hotels did their own bookings and you could just phone up for clarifications about just what is on offer.

October 31^st Happy Halloween to those who celebrate it and for those who don’t be happy anyway. Tomorrow is All Saint’s Day and the day after is All Soul’s Day. For me here on my little island they are all “Just Another Day” but without the melancholy.

Today we spent all day at home, partly due to the weather and partly due to hotel booking sites. I made the mistake of looking at reviews, what a rabbit hole that is. In the end I gave up, we will leave home early on Sunday and do our searching in person.

Are there no photos then? Well, I did cook so there are three. The first one is the ingredients ready for me to pile into them, the second is Huan’s plate and the third is mine.

November 1^st The skies were mostly clear today so, despite not wanting to buy anything from the market, we went for it anyway. We took a #2 bus to get to the far end. This one has been used for tourist duties in the evening, you can see where the fairy lights were stuck on.

It was nice to get out for a change.

Of course, the market was even more crowded than it usually is. I wonder how the winkles will cope with it next week. Yes, they arrive tomorrow evening.

Having initially said that we weren’t going to buy anything we changed our minds and decided to have chicken strips for our lunchtime sandwiches today.

Further down, as no more shopping was needed, we took a side detour. There may not have been many photo opportunities but there were far fewer people!

Would you have this on your car’s window pillars? I have mixed feelings; they are very artistic but I haven’t seen one to my taste yet. I guess it’s old age!

Much to Huan’s delight she finally found a lizard and I got close to it, maybe a little too close! There were no high fives though, unfortunately.

The weather stayed just right for walking.

We paused for some artistic and (maybe) creative fun.

That wasn’t enough for Huan, she needed more!

It was my turn then to find a butterfly before Huan found her last lizard of the day.

No more creatures were found on our way home. We took the river route to see how much had been changed by the recent high waters.

Some trees had fallen down, blocking the path, and it was touch and go with my sandals, but we could still reach the dam without any real problems.

And then I had a final find too, a very science fiction looking dragonfly on a painted blue wall.

At home, after lunch, we were back to naps again. Because we are going ‘oop norf tomorrer’ we are not cooking today, going out for a quick dinner instead. We met some of our talkative friends on the way, playing with some king of gloop, I didn’t like the feel of it.

As for dinner, that was easy, six dumplings and a tea egg each with an ice cream on the way home. There are only five dumplings here, we had already started before we remembered to take any photos and then we forgot to take any of the ice creams either. In our defence we do have rather a lot on our minds today!

November 2^nd Today was what all the work has been about for the last week or more. My children, (can you still call them that when they are nearly half a century old), were due to arrive from the UK. Normally I would ask them to leave the miserable weather there but it seems we are the ones who already have it here. Anyway, here are some photos of the incredibly crowded international airport, terminal T2 of Haikou Meilan Airport.

The plane was a little early and our little treasures were soon safely ensconced in the car and en route to our hotel on Haidian Dao. No photos were taken so here is our room instead.

In the evening, after flying halfway around the world, instead of a slap-up Chinese meal we had what I always warned my students against, KFC!

November 3^rd For some reason my wonderful offspring were awake and in the dining room while we were still making zzzs. I think we slept so late because Huan found an English movie, “Unknown” with Liam Nesson which didn’t finish until after midnight. Not opening a window may also have led to our poor sleep. Anyway, after taking a photograph of sleeping beauty, which I am expressly forbidden from using, we went down and joined them. These gents were not the real cooks but they looked good.

This was the dining room, more of that tomorrow.

The weather was miserable so we planned a mall visit with a trip to the fuel station first. Sat waiting for a set of lights to change we realised that the car next to us had no people inside! The front door says “Radish run, run is safer”, the rear door says “Cool-Summer Hainan Vacation, Tourist Sightseeing Bus”. It was using its indicators too!

We eventually reached the shopping mall and of course I found the electric car shops. Here I am respectfully declining the free water, explaining that Huan and I live in Wuzhishan, telling the young lady that I am a Zeekr fan but that the Mix, which they did not have on show was not suitable for airport pick-ups due to the space behind the back seats being too small.

And here #1 son is sizing up the big Zeekr for his golf clubs while I am explaining to the salesman that it is not sold in the UK yet. It may be soon because Geely, the parent company of Volvo, Polestar, Zeekr, Lotus etc is definitely looking to open shop there.

Lunch was varied, Huan had wontons, Dear daughter and I had milk shakes and #1 had a not so spicy noodle soup which he promptly added some fiery peppers to! PS Sammy J is now on her second day and has not had Chinese food yet. Vicky is not very impressed!

Finding our way back was another SatNav nightmare, I do wish there was some way to update our maps. We got there though and had an old fashioned nap time. Three people napped, I didn’t, I got on with photos and Blog posts.

Eventually they all surfaced and between us we decided to eat in the hotel. Christopher had seen a restaurant downstairs that Huan and I both swore was an alcohol store. The door had been closed when we walked past. Youth wins over age as far as observance goes and Christopher was right.

The restaurant is called Shen Hai Yu Jia Restaurant and it features Shandong cuisine.

Beers were ordered at the same time as the food and soon the waitress appeared.

As for the food, I will display it, it is up to you to identify it!

We were full enough and for the most part enjoyed our dinner. Nobody took a doggy bag up to their rooms though! Huan did her best to drag us out of the restaurant so that we could have a reasonably early night. Back in the room I also asked her not to find another western film for me just in case I tried watching it till late!

We’ve had a lovely two days and are really looking forward to the next ‘almost’ two weeks. I wonder if we could hide their passports somewhere? Only joking kids, honestly!! Stay tuned and check next week whether or not their holiday has just been one rainy day after another. As for us, well, we’ll be back!