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Happy New Year! The Year of the Tiger


As I write this, I'm sipping a hot cup of hot chocolate. Was I really sweating yesterday morning?!

Vacation was fabulous. Hainan was nice. It wasn't Malaysia beautiful or Philippines beautiful, but it was definitely the right price. It was also nice not dealing with currency exchange.

January 31st:
Andrew and I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. All the flights at our gate were delayed except for ours! The luck didn't last long. Our flight was then delayed for 2 hours. We got to Hainan with no problems. When we got out of the airport, the cabbies were charging a ridiculous sum. So, we walked out onto the main street and got it for 30 rmb cheaper. We stayed at the Sanya Lost Backpackers Club Beach Hostel. On the reviews, it said that it was hard to find. I got the address in Chinese characters, but we still couldn't find it. So, a lady charged us 5 rmb to take us there. It's unfortunate that the lady couldn't just be helpful and charged us. They messed up at the hostel, so Andrew had to stay in the girls' room.
View from Sanya Lost Backpackers Club Beach Hostel

February 1st:
I woke up and looked outside. The hostel faces the "ocean" but looks more like a swamp. So, we had to take a bus to go to the beach.
On the road again

It took us quite some time to get there. We ended up at the Shell Museum. We could have cared less about it because we had one thing on our mind: BEACH. We ended up at Yalong Bay. It's beautiful. It's so funny because we were the only people laying in the sun. Most people stayed under those straw type areas.
Dinner was FABULOUS. We had eggplant, egg and tomatoes, and shrimp. The shrimp was cooked with lots of veggies.
We started playing cards. I'm not going to lie. I totally dominated.
A few pictures of the beach before we left the first hostel



February 2nd:
Beach

February 3rd: Beach. That evening, we were informed that the hostel didn't have the proper certificates to host foreigners, so we had to switch hostels. Oh China.

February 4th: The hostel arranged for a bus to take all the foreigners to take us to the new hostel, Sanya Lost Seascape Youth Hostel. I liked this hostel better. It was cleaner and was a better value. That afternoon, we went to the beach.

February 5th: Andrew and I decided to go to Sanya Nanshan Dongtian Park. The water was gorgeous. Chinese people love posing in pictures, so right after the beautiful water, my favorite part was seeing the poses. And the outfits! It's quite common for people in the same group (i.e. friends, family) wear the same Hawaiian print outfit. Chinese people completely embrace it.


Andrew and meI think this meant no swimming?

As you can see, my pose isn't nearly as clever as this girls.

When Andrew and I were walking on the beach, a cute Chinese couple approached us and wanted to get their picture taken with Andrew. Andrew couldn't stop grinning for the rest of the day.
February 6th: Beach

February 7th: Beach

February 8th: Hot Springs
A German, Japanese, Russian, Belarusian, and I went to the Hot Springs. It was so much fun!! The first thing we did was stick our feet into a pool. That's cool you might say. But what's even cooler is that there were fish in the pool that would eat the dead skin off your feet. It was such a unique sensation. I'm pretty ticklish, so I laughed for a while before I got used to it. Then the others laughed with me.
We then went to a pool where you could get completely in and let the fish eat the dead skin.

Afterwards, we had "lunch". It consisted of cake and fruit. Later in the afternoon, Nadine (the girl from Germany) and I bought noodles.
After lunch, we went into the clay pool. You lather yourself up with mud and then you dry on the rocks.

After we rinsed off from the mud, we went to the salt hut. It was full of salt to exfoliate your skin. Some people took their afternoon naps in there.I had a blast at the hot springs and will be taking my fam there when they come to visit!
February 9th:
One of my roommates, Julia, and I went to Yanoda. Yanoda is a rain forest. It was fun, but I was expecting more wildlife. We walked around for several hours and then took a golf cart back to the gate.
Eating noodles on a bus; Oh China!

Bananas
Yellow BambooBridge


People tend to use their shoulders to carry things
Edward (acquaintance of Julia), Julia, and me
View from the golf cartThat evening, I ate at the hostel. I haven't been sick in so long...unfortunately, the club sandwich took me down. UGH.

February 10th: I stayed in the bed most of the day recovering from the previous evening. I had white rice on the beach. It pained me to just eat white rice on the LAST night, but I didn't want to take any chances.

February 11th: Back to Chengdu. I had to take my sunglasses out of my purse. :(
View from airplane...gray, cloudy Chengdu



I had a birthday box waiting on me! YEAHA.