3 days in Shantou/Swatow (汕頭）

Birds peck through my worm farm netting

I suspect the black-collared starling helped themselves with the black soldier flies from the bucket, they broke the insect net to get to the worms. I thought they are my friends!

The maggots are getting bigger and fatter, the birds love them. I fed them with the rubbish local restaurants or fruit stale throw away. This is the bread skin collected from the sandwich shop. These need to be soaked in water or any liquid to turn into the mushy mud.

Dogs on the island

Fei Fei insists to come to our flat, she considers our place is her territory and needs to visit once in a while. She always waits in front of our door, patiently waiting for us to unlock the door, then running up stairs making sure she is the first one getting in. Dogs with owners are sometimes no on leash, just like Fei Fei, they are free to roam around the island. Fei Fei is the princess and is pretty famous on the island. There are lots of stray dogs on the island. Many Cheung Chau residents are dog lovers, hence, the strays normally got some volunteers to feed them regularly. Some grand moms would even chase the dogs asking "why you did not finish the food today? I will cook you some fish tomorrow for a change". Some people routinely having doggie treats in their pocket when walking around, just in case seeing some dog friends. Slowly I am joining this army of pack-some-doggie-treats. There is no cars or motorcycles on the island, the strays are pretty safe. Government run program "trap-neuter-release" was a big success in the south end of the island. These dogs were tracked monthly and have pretty long life span comparing to other TNR program dogs in other areas.

Color me beautiful

I am very against hair dye for a long time because of the smell, and the sensation of weird chemical burning the skin. I had to backdown these days since white hairs are coming out like mad. I dreamt about living with it and getting old gracefully, but it is easier said then done. The problem with white hair is that 1. they came out unevenly only at certain spots and 2. they are very unhealthy, weaker and dryer. Hence they make me look untidy and, worse of all, very old. So I had to have a conversation with my beauty advisor, deepseek suggested to use Hanna powder which is all natural and only colors the white hair, it has no impact on the black hair. I am pretty happy with the results despite I smell like old tea bag for a few hours.

Manipulative Fei Fei

Fei Fei is the windsurfing center dog, she was the youngest and the prettiest, knows how to behave such as standing quietly next to you, looking at you while you are eating. No one is going to resist sharing a bit of the food with a quietly begging pretty dog. She likes to wonder around the island and cleverly knows that she, as a female and the youngest, need protection along the way. She thus started to follow windsurfing members home. We were quite an easy pick, we love dogs, always bring treats to the windsurfing center dogs, and volunteer to take them for a walk. Fei Fei loves to walk with us, her goal is to follow us to our home where she thinks she is running the house - we figured it out because she always wants to get into the door before us. She sits at her favorite spot, drinking the water that was freshly poured for her, and gets a bit of treats from me. We enjoy Fei Fei's company, and we walked around the hiking trails, through the town center. Fei Fei likes to hang out in Town, she will wait patiently outside of the supermarket while I shop, she will hang out with us in the pub, waiting for us to take her for next walk. Sometimes she gets bored, she will walk home by herself, she is pretty famous on the island. Some islanders' dogs or cats are left along, they wonder around freely. These dogs are very socialized and never cause issues. Fei Fei is one of them, and has many friends. She hangs out with the stray dogs or visits her human friends to get treats. Fei Fei is very manipulative, she knows how to get out of the windsurfing center while it is locked up (there is a short fence that Fei Fei can always climb out), but we have never seem her climbing out of the fence. The only evident is that we see her strolling down the main beach after the center is closed. She sort of understands that if human knows how she gets out of the center, her only route of escaping might be blocked. She is the princess in the center until the new puppy arrived. The new puppy, Tiger, is energetic, playful and naive, caught everyone's attention right away. Fei Fei started to feel threatened and almost look depressed. She refused to go for a walk with us if Tiger is tagging along; even if she came for a walk with us, she always ran away half way through and ended up in our door step. We stopped taking the dogs for a walk, Fei Fei is getting lower in mood and lighter in weight after confirming that she is no longer the favorite dog in the center. She refused our doggy treats, and didn't want to eat any treats given by others in front of us. She knows how to emotional blackmail human!

Where is the windsurfing board (2)

Dragon boat festival - need to make some rice dumplings.

Jon left 30 mins before me, carrying a brand new 7.2 meter sail and walking to the no-man beach with bare feet. I arrived at the windsurfing center around 10:40, the rainstorm hit around 10 mins later. The storm was so strong that there is no visibility within 10 meters. The sky cleared up after quarter of an hour, I saw a little black dot showing up from the tip of the pennisula. Checking it out with the binocular, that's the orange Gaastra sail. Jon had sailed out the bay, thanks for the strong guts came with the rainstorm otherwise the litle bay was really sheltered from the southly wind. After a short break, I can feel another storm is coming up. I see Jon's sail was stuck by the cliff, pushing up by the offshore wind. I pulled out a kayak, setting out for a rescue. But I don't think there is a problem I just want to do a bit of exercise and join in the great windy day. As I have guessed, the rainstorm hit again, I was paddling so hard in the rain and wind, heading to the cliff to meet up with Jon. The rain and wind subsided as we both heading back to the shore, and it turned out sunny at the end.

Where is the windsurfing board? (1)

Jon came back to the center, and had the silly idea that we can go to that no-man beach and fetched his windsurfing gears back. We walked for about an hour to get to the beach with the trolley, hiking up the hill and down, I wisely advised that we are not able to get the 20kg steel trolley up to the hill, through the jungle and down the 500 steps stairs to the little beach to get the windsurfing gear. We should go down to the beach, make sure the gears are in the safe place so that the high tie doesn't wash it away, and we can come back here with a proper sail tomorrow. We can rig up and sail from the little beach back to our windsurfing center. He agreed with me finally, but we already spent 2 hours hiking after a half day of trauma. We were both sweaty and exhausted, walking back home for another 40 mins. showered, ate dinner, and rested up. The next day, we went out again at 10 am despite the weather is still very unstable. It is always like this when moonsoon is happening the low pressure brings in patches of rains and thunder storms. Strong gust and heavy rain fall comes within 1 minute in a sunndy day.

South West Offshore Wind

Spent a week in Taipei to sort out Mom's to sort out the newly arrived helper, Wulan. Wulan is very young, and a great cook. She is patient and quiet, always standing by Mom when she needs help. I just think sometimes she gets bored because there is not much too do. But she seems fne with it. We are so luckly to have her around. We tried to go to the north shoreline to do some surfing practice but the weather was not working for us. The first day it has no waves and the second day the waves are huge, 1.8-2m waves, but wind is too strong - perfect for windsurfing but we have no gear. Finally came back to Cheung Chau, Jon thinks I am more relaxed at home comparing to at my mom's. We wait for a few days for the good wind day, the moonsoon brings strong south westly wind, which is offshore from the beach we normally launch from. It is always tricky to get back to the beach with offshore wind, but we have been windsurfing for years, nothing too bad to worry about. We rigged up and dived into the strong wind, I got into the footstraps, whizzing across the bay planing. Later I checked my heart rate went up to 185 per minute in those andreline filled moments. While I was enjoying the strong wind I saw Jon on his board for a while, it sometimes means equipment failure or injuries. But I can see that he is packing up and started to paddle back to the beach, he is in the middle of the bay, it might take him a while to get to the shore, nothing to worry about. But after 15 mins, I see that he is still around where he was, no progress was made. I realized he was in trouble so I sailed back to the center, changed into a Kayak after confirming his whereabout with binoculars, I went out to find him -he is already drifted to the end of the pennisula, the tie-out current and offshore wind have both pushed him out of the bay in that 20 minutes. I paddled as fast as I can to the tip of the pennisula, but I cannot see him. A windsurfer came by told me that Jon has drifted out beyond the pennisula, i.e., he is out of the bay, he might be in the container shipping channel. I need to report to the marine police ASAP otherwise he might be in danger. I paddled back to the center, ran to the life guard hut by the beach and we agreed we should call the emergency right away. Marine police, Firefighter brigade and life saver units were all out looking for Jon. My guess was Jon must be swimming/paddling to the little beach behind the pennisula where there is no road access. Because it is a sheltered location, there should be no strong current and offshore wind to push him out into the channel. I explained this to the marine police but they cannot see his windsurfing gears on the beach. it is not 1 hours passed after Jon disappeared from the bay, no sight of him on the water, but I belive he is safe because worse comes to worse, he will hold on to the board, it is just a matter of time to fine out where he is. 1 hour 15 mins after he walked back to the center, as I have guessed, he landed in the beach and walked back. I had to make a number of phone calls to cancel the search and thank all the people involved.

Air BnB

Family gathering for Aiden's wedding. It is hard to believe the speed of food disappearing from the fridge, also the number of washing up. Countless number of tea cups and plates, we are eating supermarket bread and self made sandwiches!

Bush Pee

Went out for a Cooroora walk, it was very challenging because near the submit, a little bit of climbing was required on the rocks. It is almost 1/3 of the walk, though it is not very high, the walk is scary. We turned back when the safety chains run out. Later we found that it is only 30 meters away from the top. On the way back to pick up the car, I really need to use the bathroom hence the little detour/spike from the walk.