Maps and Info

I am having real trouble posting to the blog, and honestly it is taking way too long to do, but I know if I don't do it now, I will never do it.

So in an effort to save some time, I am adding some quick links rather than linking them into the blog blurbs.

This map shows China and if you look to the south between China and Vietnam, you will see the Island of Hainan.



We are staying the the south of Hainan in Sanya.


We are staying at the Aegean Conifer Resort, which is not shown correctly on this map. We are actually way to the right of the map, just to the left of the Holiday Inn.



This is our hotel the Aegean Conifer Resort in Yalong Bay




Here is some info on Sanya itself and Hainan Island


This is some great info on what you can do in the local area

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.

Monday Morning Comes To Soon

After our late night, we decided to take it real easy on Monday. Again, a delicious breakfast in the hotel was followed by a lazy couple of hours hanging out in the room – reading, playing games and relaxing. I have found that at between 11.30 and around 1.30pm no one is comfortable being outside and we all just get too hot and cranky for the afternoon. So we have made a plan to have a siesta at this time and recharge ready for the rest of the day.

After a snack lunch on the balcony of our room, we donned our swimsuits and headed for the pool. This time I was determined that Hansen would overcome his fear of the water. He is very hesitant in the pool, but fails to remember that he can actually swim (this after all three kids taking swimming lessons is Florida). As a parent it is frustrating to hear him say he is afraid and can’t do it, when I know that the only thing holding him back is him self. After about 20mins of continual building his confidence and having him repeat after me, ‘I am not afraid! I can swim!’ He finally found his fins. Right now he is swimming from the side to the middle of the pool, then rolling over and taking a breath before swimming to the other side. As long as I am in the pool nearby he is starting to push himself to try it alone. It is awesome to see the change in his demeanor, he is so proud of his achievement. I know he can swim, and he would be much better than Aimee, if he would just stop underestimating himself.

After splashing around in the pool, we finally headed down to the beach. For me this is a nightmare, since I HATE sand, but as mom to 3 little ones that love it, I have to push that to the back of my mind. I have to say I am amazed at the beach here. I cannot believe we are still in China. The beach is beautiful and as pretty as any I have seen around the world. The strange thing is that I guess with the financial markets as they are right now (or is it off-season?), there is just nobody around. The beach is so empty, it is weird. But I am not complaining. There are a choice of sun beds, and umbrellas and plenty of room to enjoy. Of course, there are the always present ‘Bride & Groom’ having their fake wedding photos taken wherever we go – by the pool, on the beach, etc. This is a China-only phenomenon, where the young couples hire their bridal attire and have photos of themselves taken in local beauty spots (we see it all the time in Shanghai at parks and such). The couples, the photographer and his assistant are the only ones in attendance, but they pose for pictures, just as if they were actually getting married. These pictures are then often sent out to family and friends prior to the actual wedding ceremony taking place. I know Richard’s cousin sent hers to us as part of the wedding invitation.



So I spent the rest of the afternoon, people watching and drinking iced frappuccino, as Rich and the kids played in the surf and the sand. Our hotel has a small section of the beach roped of to keep out non-hotel guests and an area of the ocean is also roped off to keep the jet skiers and such out of the way of the swimmers. Cadence was as happy as a clam, running back and forth to the water with her new beach bucket. Anyone that knows her knows she has a passion for playing with water and just generally making a mess, so you can imagine how happy she was given permission to make as much mess as she could. Aimee spent most of the time valiantly searching for precious shells – they are precious basically because there are so few to be found, while Hansen watched Richard build a super sandcastle with his new beach toys. I did offer to go buy Rich his own set, but he insisted that he and Hansen were sharing quite nicely.



We stayed on the beach until around 6pm as the sun started to set and then headed off to get a shower. At this point Cadence started to cry at the top her voice. Apparently, almost 5 hours in the water was by nowhere near long enough for her and she was not ready to go in. We managed to get her to agree to come in with the understanding; we could do it all again tomorrow. After a quick shower in the room, we got dressed and headed out in search of the Marriott Hotel. This hotel is at the complete other end of Yalong Bay and cost a whole 10rmb in the taxi to get there. We had heard lots about the hotel and it truly is a beautiful place. It makes our place look very cheap and tiny by comparison. The Marriott is huge and well worth its reputation. We decided to head to the Café for dinner. The café turned out to be a pretty fancy and large restaurant, but with only 3 of the other tables occupied, we were more than spoilt with attention from the hotel staff.







Unfortunately, we did not take any photos, but I highly recommend at least one meal here. The food was delicious, we all ate like kings and I even managed to have an individual pavlova that was sooooo delicious. I did share a taste with the rest of the family, but that was all. After paying the bill (of around 700rmb!!!) we took a leisurely stroll around the grounds to check out their pool and beach. It was hard to see much at night, but you could tell it was well manicured and beautiful. The interesting thing to me was that I saw more Westerners here than I have seen in the entire rest of the trip. Everyone at our hotel is Asian, with the exception of a couple of Russian couples. At the Marriott, the balance was the other way.

After touring the grounds we headed out to the road to get a taxi and literally stumbled across the other supermarket in Yalong Bay. I say literally, since Aimee mistook a polystyrene cooler near the refrigerator for a step and managed to scare herself silly when it smashed underfoot. Thankfully, it was only acting as a overflow for the water pipe coming from the refrigerator and did not contain any live fish or sea life. Also, we were very thankful that the owner of the store saw the funny side and laughed at Aimee’s mistake. I guess that story will be told for some time to come. We stocked up on water and snacks and headed back to our hotel. This time we managed to get a ride from the most talkative taxi driver yet. He spoke no English, but he and Richard chatted the whole journey home. The kids and I sat in the back laughing, since apparently the taxi guy could not talk and drive at the same time, due to his need to look Richard in the eye as he spoke to him. As he talked, he turned his head and the car drifted over to the other lane. He also turned around to look at the kids when he spoke to them too. Thankfully, he seemed to ignore my presence completely. I was just the vessel for the 3 beautiful children. So a journey of less than 5mins, probably took 10 or more. At one point, he pulled over to explain that should we need a ride to the airport he would take us, no problem. We just needed to call him on his cell phone. He gave Richard his taxi card and stressed multiple times that we should call. For me the highlight had to be the comment from him that Richard looked like Mao Zedong – lol. Apparently it has less to do with his natural good looks and more to do with the lucky Mao mole under his bottom lip. I know moles are considered lucky or a curse depending on their placement, but this was a first for Richard. You know I am not going to let the Mao comparison for years to come.

(Richard: the highlight for me on this taxi trip was when the driver took both his hands off the steering wheel to make his fingers like pistols and make “bang-bang-bang” noises. Actually more like those “ppsh-ppsh-ppsh-ppsh-ppsh” sounds boys make when they mimic the sound of a machine gun. He kept on and on. “Ppsh-ppsh-ppsh-ppsh-ppsh” and pointed at himself. And then…he pointed at me: “ppsh-ppsh-ppsh-ppsh-ppsh. I took this to mean he was in the military in his youth and was proud of his national service. Or I hoped. He was so jovial, so friendly (he even shook my hand when I mentioned my father was a Guangdongren – a Cantonese) I didn’t want to entertain any kind of sinister thought about this cab driver in the middle of the night on a quiet beachside road, taking his hands off the steering wheel, closing one eye and making shooting noises at me. What could he mean? I made a mental note not to argue too much over the fare. “Ppsh-ppsh-ppsh-ppsh-ppsh.” I smiled, laughed and said the magic words that never fail to elicit equal measures of awe and sympathy since we’ve lived in China: women you sange haizi, ayia! — we have three children, arrgh! It worked, his hands went back on the steering wheel. He chuckled again, gave us thumbs up and eventually bumbled his way up the drive to our hotel’s drive. Nervous laughter as we fled escaped left the taxi for the safety of our hotel’s open air lobby. The next day, we discovered that there was a local shooting range – and he must have been recommending it to me as an attraction. Or was he? Insert sinister laugh here…)

It was another late night trying to unsuccessfully upload photos to the blog, but also another perfect day. I love this vacation.

Another Day In Paradise

Sunday morning started with a casual trip down to breakfast and was followed with a couple of hours spent relaxing in our room. After being out in the sun during the hottest part of the day yesterday and then going to bed late, we learned our lesson and decided to stay indoors today playing games, reading and relaxing. After a small lunch of leftovers, we decided to take a walk to check out the place across the street from the hotel. We discovered it was a booking office for all the local water sports, most of which our kids are too young to do. One we will definitely try later in the week is the sightseeing submarine. Next door to the booking office were a few stalls selling local handicrafts made from shells and coconuts, and various Hawaiian style outfits, that almost every Chinese tourist we see seem to have bought. Being one of the very few white people to be seen in the past couple of days, I managed to create quite a stir with my beautiful Chinese family. It is funny to hear the ladies trying to figure out our family. We can understand them saying Aimee looks like me, while Cady and Hansen look like Richard. Aimee helped confuse the issue by then telling them that she and Richard are American, I am British and Cady & Hansen are Chinese. That really threw them off – lol.

After checking out the guy grilling whole fresh fish with a skewer through the eye, we headed off to find our more about the double-decker open top bus that we have seen driving up and down the main road. The driver told us it runs every 30 mins, but we could not understand where it was due to go. With this in mind and throwing caution to the wind, we clambered aboard and headed for the top deck. Now, as a child I rode many a public bus, but I have to say this was one of the most clapped out buses I have ever experienced. Many of the seats had holes in them and the headrests were held together with pieces of string and wires. Aside from needing a potential tetanus shot due to all the rusting metal everywhere, the ride was a lot of fun. We had no idea where we were going, but the kids were happy to finally get a chance to ride a bus somewhere. For anyone that ever comes here, I highly recommend trying the bus; you get a great view of the countryside, ocean and the city from up there.

The lady taking the money was a little confused by our insistence that we did not know where we wanted to go, but agreed to take our 10rmb each until we decided. Another great thing was that all three kids traveled for free, so all this entertainment cost us 20rmb for all 5 of us. After about 20mins, Cady started to fall asleep, so I changed seats and had her sleep on my lap for the rest of the journey. Rich kept yelling at me over the noise of the bus about ‘where did I want to go, what did I want to do?’ and my answer was always the same, ‘I am riding the bus!’ Apparently, even after almost 10 years of marriage he did not understand me and…

(Note: Richard is taking over here as guest blogger…) Apparently, even after almost 10 years of marriage SHE did not understand ME and my relatively simple question: “Where did you want to go?” and somehow interpreted this as “What are we doing now?”

So, I kept looking at the Chinese map of Sanya trying to assess our options and asked the bus attendant, “women zai nali? – where are we? I got the Chinese blank stare that could mean (1) I don’t’ understand you, (2) I understand you, but don’t know the answer, (3) I understand you and know the answer, but I know that you don’t want to hear it, (4) I understand you and the answer is “yes”, and this is my way of affirming your question or (5) I’m pretending not to understand you. Since answers 2 through 5 pretty much inspire frustration on my part during any bouncy death trap double-decker bus ride in the hot sun, a local young couple just boarded the bus and heard my pained tone and saw my now strained smile as I repeated, “women zai nali?” for the hundredth time and held out our map in desperation.

The young couple spoke English and asked us what we wanted to do. I said shopping, and they spoke to the bus attendant and suggested we switch to a taxi to go to the Central Business District in downtown Sanya – just a few minutes away. I mentioned this to Kim, who insisted “she was riding the bus” and didn’t want to go shopping. The light bulb clicked on in my brain, and I told the attendant and new interpreters we would just ride the bus. We settled on another 5 kuai per adult and we kicked back and enjoyed the view.

A few minutes later, I leaned over to the couple and asked them where they were going. They said to The End of the Earth. Another light went on! This was a local natural attraction/park area we wanted to see on another day. I asked, “Does this bus go there directly?” “Yes, it’s the end of the line,” she said with a hint of English accent. OK. We had our destination.

As we chatted, we learned that the couple was from Chongqing, and they lived in Hertfordshire, England for 18 months while the woman taught Chinese. What luck to find friendly English speaker and what a small world to find someone who actually lived in England and not far from Kim’s home town!

The bus continued down the coast past Sanya and into Sanya Bay, the other beachside resort area. We passed huge hotels on one side and a beautiful beach stretched out on the other side. A half an hour later, we arrived at The End of the Earth. Let me tell you, after the last mile through the construction of what we hoped was a sorely needed new road, it couldn’t be anything other than The End of the Earth.

The End of the Earth is a beautiful park full of sculptures and historic monuments and is known for natural rock formations on the beach. We arrived, had some ice cream to cool off, and headed by motorized tram to the beach side. By this time it was nearing 6pm and we had about an hour before the park closed.

The beach was beautiful and the nearing sunset made the lighting just perfect for photographs. Every shot was National Geographic cover quality. We all took our shoes off and walked along the water, running from the surf and pausing to take pictures at the gigantic rocks on the shore. Several of them had calligraphy engraved on them, dating back hundreds of years. The back of the rare Chinese 2 Yuan bank note has a picture of one of the rocks we saw there. The beach and rock formations reminded me and Kim of our honeymoon in The Seychelles.

As we walked, we saw women extracting whelks from their shells into discarded water bottles they strung around their necks. “Hao che”, they said “Delicious.” The tide must have receded enough to expose the shellfish clinging to the rocks along the shore.

We must have shot two hundred photos on the beach in that perfect light and thoroughly enjoyed to cool breeze and sunset. Shanghai seemed a world away.

We arrived at the gate just at the 7pm closing time and waited around for our double-decker bus to take us on that rickety ride back to our resort. We had motorcycle taxis accost us, bus drivers stop, even a taxi. It wasn’t until the local police guy (wearing his beachfront black t-shirt and black cargo pants) tossed his cigarette aside, walked up to us and pointed at the bus stop, gestured what was the universal hand gesture for a double-decker bus (a flat hand extended above his head) and said Kim’s favorite Chinese words, “mei you” – not have.

Hmmm. Just as we gestured for the taxi to come back to take us back to Sanya Bay for dinner, we spotted our Chongqing-by-way-of-Hertfordshire couple, getting ready to board a 20-seat local bus. An adventure alternative! We were in luck, because the taxi was poached right from under our noses. As we boarded, our new friends promised to help us find the right bus transfer that would take us to our hotel Yalong Bay.

Having settled our transportation arrangement, we claimed the back row, ensured our windows were wide open and enjoyed the Number 16 Sanya bus back into town. We made several stops (including the oddly-named zoo: Sanya The Gretest Love Of All) as the evening wore on. We even had to stop for petrol at a local SINOPEC station. At the peak, there must have been about 30 people on the bus: sitting on the “seats” (Kim wrote about the double-decker bus before she experienced this one: on this one her seat had a 4 inch hole in the butt area – the haemorrhoid seat?), standing, sitting on the carpeted engine hump adjacent the driver, hanging out the door.

Once we arrived in the downtown Sanya area, we found the bus transfer spot, but opted for the speedy option: a taxi back to Yalong Bay. The GPS on my Blackberry gave us some confidence we wouldn’t get “taken for a ride”. We stopped for a quick pizza in the central shopping area and headed back after a long, but fun-filled day of exploring.

Taking A Break

As always the days leading up to our latest adventure were also filled with drama, excitement, danger and intrigue and are themselves worthy of a blog entry. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the inclination to write them down, since I want to get to the most recent days recorded before anything else happens.

So I will come back to write about our epic journey to get here at a later date and will instead begin this entry at the morning of Saturday.

We woke around 10am Saturday morning prepared for the dreadful weather that had been forecast – 80% chance of thunderstorms and rain to find that it was a little cloudy. We got dragged our sorry tired bodies to breakfast to refuel and get the lay of the hotel. I for one was excited to find a really delicious selection available – fruit, cereals, Chinese food – noodles, congee, dim sum, etc, a full English of bacon, eggs, baked beans, sausages, fried tomatoes, toast, as well as Danish pastries, croissants etc. The whole family could eat and no one was going to moan that there was nothing they liked.

Before breakfast, I had contacted our agent to ask about the missing Jacuzzi and balcony from our room. While we ate, she had called the hotel and requested a room change for us. I was worried that if it did rain and storm for the week, at least I could have the kids playing in the Jacuzzi instead of holed up in the hotel room bored stiff. After eating we checked with reception and the delightfully named assistant, Summer assured us she would call us at noon when our new, improved and Jacuzzi boasting room became available. We headed upstairs to pack our stuff back up and await her call. Sure enough, at 12.15pm the front desk called to say someone would take us to our new room to view it before we moved in. We all trooped off to what appeared to be a nicer, newer section of the hotel. Our new room #8501 (block 8 on the 5th floor) was amazing. Exactly, what I had hoped for when making the reservation. It has two bedrooms – with king sized beds, two bathrooms - one en suite, a small kitchen complete with large fridge, microwave, washer/dryer, a lounge room with large LCD tv and best of all; a two person Jacuzzi and wraparound balcony with ocean view. Yeay! This is more like it. Bring on the rain, we are ready and can survive anything with this kind of luxury.

So after unpacking and settling our stuff into our new place, we made haste and donned our swimsuits to head to the pool. So what if it was a little overcast, we were going enjoy the pool before the storms could stop us. This hotel and grounds are simply beautiful; I will not try and describe them, since words will not do them justice. I will let the photos below fill in the details.



To say the kids are in heaven is an understatement. They are excited beyond anything I have ever seen. Both Aimee and Cadence should have been born with fins and gills since they both have a passion for swimming and water. Hansen is a little more hesitant, but with the large shallow kiddie pool pretty much their own, all three spent the next few hours constantly in the water. Rich and I took it easy on the sidelines, snapping a few photos and blessing our lucky stars that the clouds had completely disappeared to be replaced with bright sunshine; a perfect day. In fact at one point, we were concerned that we would burn it was so hot. After a large breakfast, we thought we would try a light snack from the swim up bar (did I tell you we are in heaven?). An order of two hot dogs, a Caprese salad, a side order of curly fries and a tuna sandwich should have been enough to share among the five of us. However when it arrived, all of the items came with a small side salad and fries, so there was enough food to feed a small army.



We decided that since we had dried off and had full bellies, perhaps we should take a walk to check out what was around us. Our hotel sits pretty much at the end of the Yalong Bay beach; it is far away from most of the other well known 5 star hotels, which is fine with us. We set off down the street in search of some basic food supplies for our room. No sooner had we stepped outside, when the taxis started tooting at us. Hainan taxis are pretty notorious around China and there was a huge story a few months ago about the ‘dubious’ practices of price gouging, non-use of meters, etc. No one had bothered to mention how they kerb-crawl, constantly tooting at any living human who happened to be within 500 yards of the road. After about 10 mins though, we seemed to become oblivious to it, just like the staring, spitting and toileting seen elsewhere in China. The funniest experience came pretty much as soon as we left the hotel. A guy on a motorcycle, seemed to be asking if we needed a ride – huh? There are 5 of us and a stroller – unless we are going to mimic the famous motorcycle balancing pyramid act, how the heck was he going to pull that one off? Through broken conversation, it appeared that he was actually trying to offer to take us to get food… Again, completely ridiculous since we were a long way from anywhere and he only had a motorcycle. We laughed and said no thanks, but that did not stop him pursuing us for a few more minutes, valiantly trying to get s to say yes. Gotta give him credit, he was not going to be deterred by a small thing like logistics.



Anyway, we headed off down the street not quite believing we were still in China. Hansen was completely confused by the new lush surroundings. He seemed to think we were back in Florida, with the perfect blue sky, white sandy beaches, and the thousands of palm trees lining our root. He kept saying that he liked this new place Sanya, but he missed China too. No amount of talking could convince him that we were still in China and apart from the constant assault from the taxis and crazy motorcycle restaurant guys, it was pretty hard to believe. There is so much space and so few people around; it is unlike anywhere else we have been in China.



After maybe 10-15mins of walking we discovered the center of Yalong Bay. The mini town center is built around the Crowne Plaza hotel and is reminiscent of Weston Town center. It is little boutique type stores and a collection of restaurants, along with a KTV karaoke bar, a pub, small pharmacy and a very basic supermarket. We wandered around and again were accosted by all the wait staff from the various restaurants. Since we were one of the very few families around, they were all vying for our business. We decided on the dumplings and noodles place and again were astounded by the amount of food we had ordered. I partook in a celebratory Tsing Tao beer (well, I am on vacation) as we basically sweated through dinner. The highlight of which was the noodle making demonstration at the entrance to the restaurant. While this was cool to watch, the real pinnacle was the mosquito killing frenzy that the otherwise demure waitresses embarked on with their electrifying tennis rackets. All you could hear (and smell) was the constant frying of the nasty little bugs - quite the accompaniment to the delicious noodles and dumplings. I personally liked when they went into the glass windowed kitchen area and continued to massacre those bugs, who had dared to enter the food prep area. Since they were electrocuting them, I guess we could rest assured that any that happened to be in the food, were well and truly cooked.




After a quick run around the supermarket for water, snacks, chocolate, chips etc, we headed to the fruit store to buy some apples. Groceries in hand, as well as two bags of leftover dumplings, noodles and fried rice, we headed back to our hotel. By this time we were hotel, tired and exhausted, so we didn’t argue when the taxi driver did not ‘understand’ to put on his meter and assured us the fare would be 10rmb. We knew we were being ripped off, but honestly for the sake of less than a dollar – at that point who really cares?