New Year, Birthday(s), Visitors, Qipao, Achilles

February 15^th New Year’s Eve, and the last view of my ‘Movember’ moustache. Chinese tradition says that if you have your haircut, (I assume that includes moustaches) after the New Year, your mother’s brother will kick the bucket! Well, I have no Mums left and no Uncles, but better to be safe than sorry! PS I also had to shave it off because it ‘wouldn’t go’ with the shirt Huan had bought me for my birthday.

Huan was busy in the morning too, putting up the New Year decorations, with a little help from me of course.

She was busy all afternoon cooking our New Year’s Eve Dinner, this time, I’m afraid, with no help from me. Better that I stay out of the kitchen! Well, Chinese kitchens are a bit on the small side. This was a small dinner, because a big one would be coming later in the month.

February 16^th My ‘first’ birthday. Chinese people add one year, each year on New Year’s day. For those of you who don’t know, they are also one year old when they are born. This means if you are born just before the New Year you will be two years old when in actual fact you are only a few days old.

February 17^th Nothing special, another short walk. We even found some inspiration on the way.

And a friend who is now famous through ‘World Street Photography’.

And my inspiration, I’d be lost without her.

February 18^th My ‘second’ birthday. Chinese people don’t always celebrate their birthdays by the solar calendar, but instead go by the Chinese Lunar calendar. Using good old Google, I found out that I was born on the third day of the first month, which this year falls on 18^th February. (Now include your ‘actual’ date of birth and you start to understand why some young Chinese students have no idea when their birthdays are!)

February 19^th My ‘interim’ birthday. We had invited our friends from Haikou, Patrick, Flora, Podraig, Jake, Winnie and of course Dodo to come and help me celebrate my birthday. Here’s the boys, just relaxing on the balcony, while the girls catch up indoors.

As always, Huan did a brilliant job. Here’s the spread, all cooked by Huan, with the exception of the small apple cake at the bottom right. That was yours truly. Dinner was superb. And just like foreigners of course, all the leftovers went into the freezer. As I write this, on the 1^st March, we are still eating them. Much better than foreign leftovers though, each day is a surprise!

And here’s Huan celebrating that it all went well. Can’t think where she got the sign language from?

February 20^th My ‘third’ and actual birthday. Here’s the gang posing before going out to dinner.

Now, we were going out to dinner, or should I say lunch, not only for my birthday, but also as reciprocation for the ‘committee’ dinner we had been invited to. My ‘loss of face’ came when my left shoe fell to pieces before we got there. The chef actually repaired it for me. He needn’t have bothered, because on the way home, the right one fell to pieces even worse! Anyway, here we are at the door of the restaurant, with a poor little girl who was being forced to pose with the Wàiguó rén. Look closely, think about movies, and you will understand why the moustache had to come off!

As always, it was a good spread. We never managed to finish it all off. This picture shows some of it.

There are hardly any photos of Huan for this day, and what there are don’t show off her smile at all. So, none will be uploaded here. Unfortunately, almost as soon as we arrived upstairs, Huan began to feel queasy. This happens now and then but is usually over by the evening. The girls certainly missed her, the boys probably just enjoyed the beer and the ‘craic’. Anyway, here are the girls.

And here are the boys, nearly all of them anyway

And here are the boys again, being led astray by the girls. We really didn’t want to have our glasses filled and drink more toasts, but what is a gentleman to do if a lady insists?

It looks like our visitors enjoyed themselves.

I certainly did! I had to have a sleep in the afternoon when I got home, too much food, too much beer, and of course too much cake!

In the evening, after our little naps, we visited 'Time' Bar, the one that is pictured above. The problem with bars in Wuzhishan is usually that you can't just buy one beer. This time, as there were three of us, and it was 120RMB for 12 bottles, it wasn't a bad deal. What a noisy place it was though. The locals were playing some kind of dice game which seemed to require an enormous amount of banging and shouting. It was so bad we only had 30 bottles of beer!

Not sure what we did on 21^st February, probably just relaxed after our visitors, and ourselves of course, had enjoyed a full English. Well, as full as we can make it here!

February 22^nd Well, I had been putting it off long enough, because of the New Year and Birthday celebrations but today I decided another visit to the doctor was in order. Not only was my Achilles tendon not improving but I now had a swollen left foot. I must say that this doctor was a marked improvement on the last one. He prodded, he felt, he asked questions. I suspect he has a little English because he laughed when I asked Huan if she would give me her kidney! No answers today, but a lot tests organised. The first was a urine analysis, which luckily for me, could be done straight away. They tested for 22 different things! Some I could work out from the three letters (e.g. KET=ketones) but others were in Chinese only. The good thing, the thing I could understand, was that everything was ‘normal’! Tomorrow of course, brought another day.

On our way home, passing through the main street, we came upon the Wuzhishan Cheongsam (Qipao) Association. Elegant ladies one and all, although to my mind it could have been better organised with some decent Chinese music.

February 23^rd Today was the day to have the balance of the tests, three blood tests and a circulatory test. Arrived at the hospital early to give the blood samples. There were four phials instead of three. It seems one test requires two samples. Results would be ready in the afternoon; we decided to wait until morning. The second stop was the Ultrasound Department. It seems they were checking for thrombosis, to see if my circulation was OK and of course to check the cause of my visit, the Achilles tendon. Again, we waited for the morning to get the results.

February 24^th Results day. Blood test results 1 – 31 ‘points of interest’, all normal. Blood test results 2 – 3 ‘points of interest’, all normal. Blood test results 3 – 26 ‘points of interest’, not all normal! Ultrasound, seems I have very good circulation for a ‘man of my age’. Since I nearly always suffer from cold hands and cold feet with the slightest drop in temperature, I found this hard to believe. No signs of thrombosis, good. Unfortunately though, there was a problem with my Achilles tendon. I had ruptured it.

So back home we went. Now, to make sure we got to see the same doctor again, we had asked him when he would be ‘on duty’. This month it was Tuesdays, so we had to wait before presenting him with the results. That meant that –

February 25^th Spent half the day, or more, using Doctor Google. Did I have liver problems, just how high was my cholesterol and sugar, would I need my ankle cutting open? If I did, would I be able to recuperate at home? If I would have to be an in-patient would I be able to use a computer? Would I be allowed ‘conjugal’ visits?

February 26^th Remember the broken table? Well we had tried to call the shop where we bought all the dining and living room furniture but with no success. As we only had their mobile phone numbers we thought we would try and visit the shop which is in Sanya. Well, the shop is no longer there. That is, the building is still there, it is still a furniture shop, just not the same one. So, for the moment we are stuck, unless good old Taobao can help.

February 27^th Time to see the doctor again. I must admit it was with some trepidation that I sat in the waiting hall.

The verdict? Well, my liver is suffering a little, not enough to warrant drugs. My cholesterol is a little high, not enough to warrant drugs. (In fact it was much, much higher in Abu Dhabi.) My glucose is a little high, again not enough to warrant drugs! In fact all of these are probably a little high with the amount of food, especially meat and chocolates that we’ve had since Christmas and the amount of beer drunk over the Spring Festival. Finally, the Achilles Tendon? No surgery required! Yeeeeaay! I will be on Light Duties for quite some time though. No fast walking, no ‘long’ walks, no ‘lifting heavy things’, (partly stress on the ankle but also stress on my ribs, remember last month?)

Well, there you are, the end of a busy month. I would like to thank Patrick Quinn for some of the photos, (he gave me many more but they are on my PC). I would guess that with me being on 'Light Duties' March will be a much quieter month. See you then!

Achilles, Ribs, Lurgy, Failed Tourists

Well, here we are, New Year and all that. I hope it finds you all in the best of health and raring to go!

January 2^nd Another walk, not so fast, my Achilles tendon still playing me up. Still, we live in quite a scenic town really, so always worth a wander.

I also decided to take some photos of all our trees, just for posterity. Who knows how long they will stay?

January 4^th & 5^th Still in pain, conflicting advice from various internet sites. Even the doctor in the local hospital seems unsure and his advice contradicted nearly all the web advice! More trees. I never cease to be amazed at the trees here. How on earth did this one, for example, decide to grow sideways, and how did it not fall over?

Most of my photos are chosen, for better or worse, by me. Just occasionally Huan will pipe up and say “Why don’t you take a picture of that?” Her choices are not so bad though.

January 6^th And we’re off yet again. What do we find, a family in their garden. And a ‘bird’ in a tree. What do they say “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?” Well, I suppose, as this one is ‘my bird’, one is enough!

January 8^th No pictures, they would have been unbecoming anyway. There I was, crawling, or should I say lying, on the floor, looking for a chocolate that had disappeared under the sofa. Suddenly, there was a strange ‘popping’ noise, and a lot of pain in my chest. Once again we were off to the internet! It seems like I may have cracked a rib, or bruised one, or strained the cartilage, who knows? Again lots of conflicting advice, but the end result appeared to be that nothing can be done, you just have to wait for it to heal normally. This usually takes about 12 weeks!!

Nothing for a few days, the weather was miserable!

January 12^th Weekly drive. Let’s go to Diaoluoshan Park, just after Baoting, we thought. Let’s get something in the blog besides just walking. Here’s me at our first coffee stop.

This is ‘Daben Tourist Information Centre’ where there is information and no coffee shop, but they do have a little shop selling cold drinks, so cold coffee it was.

It’s a pleasant enough place to stop; it’s at the Baoting junction on the Wuzhishan to Sanya road. Some lovely views from the top, we think this might is ‘The Seven Fairy-Lady Mountain’, but we’re not 100% sure

Here’s the old man having just hobbled back down the stairs!

Inside the building, there were a few local crafts on view, but no information about them.

And then we were back on our way, here’s a screen shot from the dashcam.

When we arrived at our destination, we discovered that the road is under maintenance, and has been for nearly a year. Now we would have like to have walked up and showed you some more views, really we would. However, quite a part from my dodgy ankle, the map showed us it was 18 kilometres to the top, and then of course another 18 down. Not enough time left in the day for us old fogeys. Here’s a screen shot of the road.

January 13^th Back to walkies again. Look what we found? Is Wuzhishan going green? A whole row of electric buses, waiting for something. They were still there at the beginning of February!

Living in Hainan we see a lot of the Chinese equivalent of American “snowbirds”. They call them候鸟 – (Hòuniǎo), which means ‘migratory birds’ so near enough. Come October every year the town starts filling up with ‘oldies’. They like to hang around on street corners!

To be fair, some of them sound quite good, although there are a few who ‘screech’ just like migratory birds. For some reason I can never get Huan to join in.

January 14^th and 15^th Boring again, no walking, partly my ankle and partly my chest getting worse.

January 16^th Early morning rush hour. I wonder if they were taking themselves to market? I also wonder how they know where they are going because often, there is no farmer with them; especially going the other way, towards what I would imagine is home.

‘We’ also decided that ‘I’ should go to the hospital. Having had a few nights of very bad sleep with pain in my ribs I agreed. For the first time in my life, I think, I had a CT Scan.

As you can see I struggled to get on the bed. Huan and I surmised that as the Chinese people seem to have learned from the Americans and now sue hospitals for the least little thing, the staff are reluctant to assist, especially if someone is in pain!

I guess in the UK I would have had to wait for a scan. Here all I had to do was cough up £25 and join the queue. We had to wait until after lunch for the results so here’s a  picture of the hospital, at lunch time.

And a couple outside, spot the Chinglish in the second one. This is surprising because the word ‘supply’ is spelt correctly more than once.

Once we were back inside and we had collected the results it was back to the doctor. No fluid in my lungs, no sign of anything broken, all he could do was suggest I take pain killers.

This was also the day that Huan came down with a bug, sneezing, coughing etc.

Not to worry, it was my turn to cook. French for a change, my version of ‘Duck Confit On A Bed Of Vegetables’. Tasted good!

There followed a couple of lazy days, Huan was still not so good and my chest was still playing me up. We didn’t go out again until

January 18^th Nice day for a walk.

Too warm for this little fellow to move at all. He does look sorry for himself doesn’t he?

Today’s lunch was green vegetable filled Chinese bread. The stall owner told us that the other bread, on the right, was ‘Chinese pizza’.

We still keep up with the lottery here in Hainan. We can’t win as much as you can in Europe, but we live in hope of winning enough to move out of our apartment and into a villa!

We eat all kinds of food here in China, but I have to say we haven’t tried these yet! Huan says she doesn’t know how to cook them.

Of course, a walk wouldn’t be a walk without saying hello to my friends!

Something else I haven’t tried yet, sugar cane. Huan tells me you chew it and then spit it out. Well, what’s the point then? I’ll just live with my memories of uprooting and eating sugar beets when we were children at R.A.F. Waddington!

Still my turn to cook when we got home, today’s ‘dish of the day’ was “Five Spice Roast Chicken Drumsticks With Fried Potatoes”, and a mixed tossed salad, but you don’t need to see that!

January 19^th Weekly drive time, let’s try again for a touristy thing, we thought. Let’s try the ‘Stone Forest’. We did pass some wonderful scenery on the way there; I’ve decided to show you the panorama.

Sad to say, we failed again, the road to this spot is also under maintenance! We even ran into trucks behind us when we tried to go home!

January 21^st Bob’s cooking again – ‘Sticky Pork With Gingered Noodles and Chinese Green Cabbage’ (The recipe called for Kale)

January 23^rd I thought I had managed to get away with it but Huan’s ‘bug’ managed to get me too. Not so good for my chest pains when I started sneezing and coughing too! Still, on the basis that fresh air is good for you, out we went.

Have you ever seen Chinese people practicing to go to the UK? Here they are practicing how to ‘pull the chain’!!

We’re not sure who this is; he resides in front of the Fodelai Hotel. I had to crop the picture because of something we don’t see too much of here, sexual graffiti!

January 24^th Aaaaarrrgghh!! It’s back, the dreaded lurgy has returned. Every now and then I develop fierce itchy red lumps on my palms and fierce itchy blisters on my knuckles or tops of my hands. Doctors have tried to fix it in the past, so now, for the most part, I just live with it. I stays a while, sometimes days or weeks, then disappears for days, weeks, months, sometimes even years.

Bad hands, sore ribs, Achilles problems! Perhaps I need a service! Ah well, I can still hobble. It’s worth it so see views like this.

And who wouldn’t want to see the local tradesmen at work. Here is one preparing ‘Betel Nuts’ for selling. You can always try it, if of course you like mild narcotics and the red teeth that go with them!

I wonder what this gentleman would make of it?

Would you believe it, my turn for cooking again! ‘Zucchini Rings With Mince Filling and a 'dip' of Greek Yoghurt with Parsley’. (It’s supposed to be sour cream)

January 26^th Walking again, a beautiful day down by the riverside.

Now if you saw this sign, you would probably think it has something to do with keeping people off the grass. I’m afraid that, just like me, you’d be wrong. It is telling people to use less salt in their food!

We sometimes see some wildlife, today we found this little chap, who seems to have lost his tail at sometime.

And in this hole we saw an enormous rat! Unfortunately he was much faster than my camera, probably just as well!

Climbing up from the river was not so easy. I gave Huan a ‘bunk-up’ so she was fine. I’m a little too heavy for her to pull me so my climbing out didn’t help all my various injuries at all!

Some of the various modes of transport that we see. Here we have four on a bike; I think the most we have ever seen here is six. The other vehicle is like an OAP’s electric car, takes you shopping and keeps you dry in the tropical rain. And no, I don’t need one yet!

Some of you may wonder what shopping is like here. Well this is the meat, beef first and pork second.

This is the vegetables

This is the poultry

And this is the fruit, although we stay away from this one!

A few days off again, Huan’s bug giving me too many problems.

January 30^th A cloudy day, here’s the view from our bedroom balcony, still nice though, don’t you agree?

We managed a walk today. This little chap often speaks, he will respond to your 你好 - Nǐ hǎo, with one of his own. I think he was grumpy today, must have been the weather.

And what do you think this is? Well, it protection against friends of our little chap above. Where we park there is no problem, but if you park just a little bit lower, then your wing mirrors end up covered with bird poo!

Arrived home, no electricity! Watching the maintenance people and trying to keep my mouth shut! Eventually, they decided that there must be a problem with the earthing between the building main breaker and the compound breaker that feeds it. How surprising! They also decided it could not be fixed until sometime tomorrow. At times like these I wish we lived in a villa where at least I could use a standby generator. Not so easy in an apartment.

Stay tuned to this frequency for the rest of this month.