Choi Family - Yasuko Day

Tuesday started with the regular late breakfast followed by relaxing in our room, reading, snoozing and trying to upload photos to blog. The internet connection here is extremely slow, then coupled with the VPN that I need to use to access our blog in China; it takes about 10-15 minutes to upload each photo. Richard and the kids played on the Wii as they waited for me to be done. Since today was Yasuko Day (aka Choi Family Day), we decided to do something fun this afternoon. Yasuko Day started with Richard and I back in 2000, as a way to celebrate our family. We use this day (June 9th) to think about the people we love both near and far and to remember those we have lost. As our family has grown over the years, this day has become more important. Many families formed through adoption celebrate each of their children’s Gotcha Days each year. Since we have a biological child and two children adopted from China, we did not want them to have separate days, so we use Yasuko Day (named after Richard’s mother) to celebrate each member of the family. We always spend this day together, no matter what. This is actually the reason we are here in Sanya this week. In past years we have always spent the day together doing something fun as a family, but last year just Richard, Cady and I were together on our look-see trip to Shanghai, with Aimee and Hansen back in Florida. To make up for last year, we decided this year we would do something extra special and instead of having Yasuko Day, we would have Yasuko Week.

After a lazy morning, we jumped in a taxi, paid our 10rmb and headed off to Butterfly World. About 5 minutes later we were entering one of Sanya’s Top 10 Attractions. With an entrance price of $3.00, we were not expecting too much, but I have to say it was pleasant way to spend and hour or so. Even though we were in the shade of the rain forest, it was so hot and I think we dripped our way around the park. The kids loved it especially checking out all the bugs, stick insects and spiders in the mini museum. One cool bonus was the family photo we had taken as we were leaving. In true China-style, it was laminated and dated, which created a great souvenir for Yasuko Day 2009.

















We decided to have a quick ice cream to cool down before we headed back into town for dinner. The girls and I took the traditional route of vanilla and chocolate flavor, but Richard and Hansen went local and tried a corn (sweetcorn) ice cream and a pea flavor one – weird.

After the ice creams, we started to wander back to town, but ended up making our way through the grounds of the Cactus Resort and the Universal Resort before getting another taxi back to our favorite dinner place; the shopping area near the Crowne Plaza. Both resorts were practically empty, apparently only mad dogs and Englishmen are in Sanya this time of year. After 2 beers (for me - see photo of them mistakenly serving Richard the beers...) and some yummy baked potatoes and a bit of a dance around on the plaza stage, we headed back to our hotel. As per the best vacations, this is just sleeping, eating and swimming all day and night.