March 3rd Well we “went to the mountains to welcome peace in spring” and the details of the expedition follow below, well most of them anyway! Huan took photos of me dressed up ready to go; they were terrible so I binned them. We repeated the exercise in the town square.
We were far too early of course so wandered around the square for a while. The rescue people were walking too, if I was younger maybe I would volunteer.
People were collecting their free vitamin C drinks, water and chocolate snacks.
Just outside the square the emergency services were waiting silently.
The atmosphere in the square was different to the start of similar activities in the west. Here nearly everyone was in a, very evident, joyful mood. Not me of course, I was asking this chap why he insisted on taking my photo every time he sees me, not the Blue Sky rescue man with the camera, the chap nearest to me. He must have hundreds of photos of me by now!
Just a reminder, this is part of the New Year celebrations, today is Lantern Festival day.
Not long before the start, the organisers directed some warm up exercises from the stage. I was ‘warm enough’ so just watched everybody else.
Here I am, with the boss and then with Yu’s daughter. Zhaode and Yu had not turned up!
Soon we were off and I understood why the emergency vehicles had been there. The occupants were going uphill too, a bit more laden than we were.
This little baby dropped its ball which went down the hill a long way. I managed to evade the traffic, cross the road and retrieve it. Imagine how I felt when I realised that it wasn’t a real ball, just a whole load of plastic rolled up to appear as one. The baby was happy though.
This was taken just before we reached what I consider to be the hardest part of the walk.
We reached this vantage point without too much trouble.
Shortly after we passed the water and wee stop, we needed neither at this stage.
Now we come to our first panorama of the day, looking across the valley to the hotel on the hill. We used to go swimming there a long time ago. It is closed now.
The Blue Sky Rescue cameraman was here, so after he had snapped me I checked his camera. He was using a Canon R50, not bad but not enough for me.
Our second and last panorama is looking down the valley although you may not see that.
The old hotel is looking well spruced up; maybe they will open it again. Mind you, the back gate, which we passed further up the hill, has been fenced off with barbed wire.
This was our last look down towards our place, can you see it?
And then we were there!
They are all holding their certificates of completion. We got one each too. Only the first two hundred people got signed place certificates, we were way out.
We tried, and failed, to get the 5.5km sign in behind us. In fact we had walked 7.6 by this time.
Around this time Huan told me that she was surprised that I made it to the top. “Why did you sign me up then?” I asked. In fact I was absolutely worn out at this stage.
At least they provided buses back down the hill, we both managed to find a seat.
The bus dropped us off at the bottom of the hill so we had another 2.3km walk home. Huan was suffering a bit from motion sickness but she still found a lizard. Just look at that magnificent tail!
No lunch today, just water and then straight to bed for naps. Huan stayed there all day, she was not a well teddy at all. I got up and had sandwiches, twice, coffee, tea and water. Now and then I popped in to check on the boss, she was not moving from there.
I did put all the video snips of our hike together and uploaded them to Youtube. You can find that video here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds4vNPpXA_g
As for the rest of my day? Well Picasa failed me, the database was corrupted. I did rebuild that but still had problems galore with simple things, like moving or deleting photos. See tomorrow.
March 4th Tomorrow is here, Picasa eventually had to be uninstalled and then reinstalled. I think the problems were caused by a power blip that we had the night before last. If desktop computers had an inbuilt UPS, that would save a lot of trouble. Anyway, the photos were done and the post for yesterday was finished just before dinner. Other than that, we had another lazy day.
March 5th Fresh air was the order of the day, no marathon walks, just some exercise. Of course we had time to admire the cows in the riverbed.
Huan managed to find some Leapy Lees. The first one has been rotated so that you can see it better. The second one is more magnificent without being turned.
As we passed the kindergarten we said hello to the students in the
playground. Huan was quite amused to see all their water bottles on the
sidelines. It brings back vague memories of our water bottles in
The weather was nice for walking today; we went down by the riverside.
Huan even found another lizard on the way. After seeing me this one was trying to get as flush as possible with the wood it was on.
A small choir was rehearsing nearby, probably for the upcoming International Womens' Day. They were even making sure they went through the motions of lifting and lowering their ‘microphones’. They sounded good too.
Huan insisted on me taking this photo for you so I hope you like it!
More flora as I yet again walked on the wall to try and snap birds. Huan, being the spotter walked down below. Meanwhile the flora tried to eat me on the way!
I guess it was worth it today.
We’ll finish today’s outdoor photos with two from car rear windows. The first, although I was a bit slow to recognise it, is all Lego characters. The second translates as “Fight The Tiger Tonight” but Huan says it is more like fight the bad people.
Passing through the bap market the sausage man had some cooked heart. That became our lunch time sandwich, tasted fine too. After lunch and a nap it was time, after what seems ages, for me to get back in the kitchen again. Today’s recipe was Nigerian.
Advice? Read the recipe more carefully than I did. I only noticed one ‘35 minutes’ when there are in fact two. That meant we ate a little later than planned. We don’t have a heavy based saucepan so when I got on the combination section the rice started sticking. We rescued it by using the rice cooker. Our end result was not bad at all!
Because the ingredients make enough for four we will be having the rice again tomorrow with fish cooked by Huan. That was our day; I finished with Inspector Lynley again.
March 6th It was time for my annual M.O.T. today, in fact it should have been a couple of weeks ago. Off we went to the hospital, not as early as planned. The first item on the schedule was to pay the doctor’s consultation fee, total cost £2.00. Then we waited.
After seeing the doctor it was back to another cashier to pay for the ECG and blood tests. “Was that expensive?” Not really, about £38.00.
The queue was long for the needle place so we sped off to the other building to see if we could get the ECG done first. There was no chance, they were very busy too. We did find a photo on the way. I convinced Huan it was probably British, I was wrong – http://www.alearsenal.com/
Back in the main building, there was no avoiding it, no matter how I tried, I was forced to sit down and present my arm to empty it for the purpose of testing my red stuff!
With an empty arm we changed buildings again. This sign had nothing to do with me, or with my ECG, but it was outside the office.
And this was me inside the office.
We finished just in time to go home for lunch where I ate more than usual. “Why?” A stool sample had been requested and I had problems with that! I did eventually succeed.
In the afternoon we headed back to hand in the sample before having a little walk. Huan managed to find a lizard outside the nurses’ college. Shame we had no camera.
Sample delivered and with time to waste until all our results would be ready we headed off to the snack shop for some more of that cheap Australian milk. We avoided the big hill.
When we returned neither of us could sort out the machine so one of the ladies came to assist us.
And then it was back to the heart building again. Our doctor was busy in the theatre so we saw another one. There may or may not be a problem with my insides but testing for that is not urgent. He prescribed the usual pile of drugs and back to the other building we scuttled. On the way we passed some unusual lovebirds!
Once more unto the cashier we went and thence to the pharmacy.
Finally everything was completed, I had the medication in my hand and we could go home!
With the medication the total cost was just over fifty pounds, cheap at half the price I’d say. What’s more the whole procedure was over and done with in one day. The UK is heading into uncharted territory as far as the NHS goes, I pray that it will survive the politicians and the IT rich companies who want to see it privatised. Remember, I only pay here because I am a foreigner. The Chinese system works incredibly efficiently and cheaply.
Huan went and did it again, and outside the nurses’ college again!
March 7th Let’s go to the market darling, but first let’s waste fifteen minutes or more waiting for a bus that turns up too full to take you and me! Ah well, the view was nice.
This week we thought you might like to see something other than crowds. These are seeds from what look like enormous beans. The writing reads - 过江龙, Guò jiāng lóng, ‘Crossing the River Dragon’ and we are not sure what they are for except that it is some kind of medication.
As for this one, we assume he may have been selling tobacco and smoking paraphernalia as well as the various alcohols on the table. Huan took the first two and I took the second two.
There was something different down the far end of the market today in that there were quite a lot of local food stalls set up.
We even found some huge mangoes. However, Huan had already bought a large honeydew melon so we had enough fruit for a while.
Going out of the market we found the reason for the market additions.
Once again we are back to cars and decals. I’m afraid I can’t explain this one; Google was of no help whatsoever. Have you heard of this coffee brand?
Somebody was having a lot of fun chasing invisible objects everywhere but he, or she, would not get close to me at all.
That was our morning, fun all round. Chef Bob was on duty again in the evening making “Beef Egg Roll Bowl”, something based on American Chinese takeaways I think.
All I changed today was the meat and the quantities. We had minced pork in the freezer so I used that instead of beef. For the quantities, I divided everything by two. This would normally be cooked on a griddle; I just used a normal wok. Had I been cooking for four I would have found it much more difficult. We had it with store bought pre-cooked yellow flour pancakes but having enjoyed it so much I can vouch for it going with anything you like. It would go well with rice, with noodles, with potatoes, with mashed potatoes, with chips and of course as a spring roll. This is one that we will definitely be eating again in some of those guises.
March 8th Did I get bitten by a snake?
Well, it wasn’t a snake, I was attacked by somebody’s ‘personal shopping cart’, it was blocking the aisle on the #2 bus we were taking to our walking route today. I’m still alive! Our walk today was planned by me, just for Huan’s pleasure, it was to be upriver along lizard alley.
It looked as if we were not alone in our choice of routes this morning!
It was nice day for it though and with nice views too.
As we moved further upriver the crowds thinned out a lot. At this stage, I was on the road looking for our little friends and Huan was on the path below me.
Eventually we found two lizards. All the photos have been rotated from vertical to horizontal to enhance your viewing pleasure.
It was a nice sunny walk today and I had remembered my hat so I sat on a bench and Huan recorded it for posterity, and for you.
Soon we were walking back up the main road.
Now here’s a question for you. Do skinks and lizards fight over territory? I ask because where we always used to find skinks on top of the wall now we are only finding lizards. Here is today’s specimen, laying down and standing proud.
And I think we’ll finish it there for today, hope your weekend was as relaxed as ours was!
March 9th Well would you believe it, it’s Monday yet again, time to put Daffy to work and go shopping. Well we had a small problem, Daffy was unable to move.
“Why are waiting?” Maybe you remember singing that song while sitting on a school bus waiting to go somewhere. I know I do! We were waiting because the owner of the white car had gone to the market for his breakfast. The owner of the dark car was not even in Wuzhishan, he had gone off to Maoyang for some reason.
I took a photo through the villas to keep myself occupied and then a photo of the boss.
And then while Huan was chatting to Yu they decided they needed a photo of me carrying a rather large red briefcase. Thankfully, it was empty!
Eventually we managed to escape and did our weekly shop. On leaving the car and going into the supermarket I spotted something I have never seen before. I knew it was from Harry Potter but I had to Google for the name. It is of course, a golden snitch. How on earth did J. K. Rowling choose a name for a ‘tittle tattle tell tale’ as a name for a ball?
For us that is the end of yet another week, another week with no new windows to boot. It seems the workmen have not all returned from their New Year holidays yet. We need the window man to have a full workforce so that we don’t end up open to the elements for too long! This is very important as we think the rainy season may well start a little earlier this year.
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