Chawaii Round 1 - Sanya at 6:30 AM

What is Chawaii you may ask? It's Hainan! The beautiful Southern Island province of China! I've so often told people it's like a Chinese version of Hawaii that we just started calling it Chawaii after a while. This is were I went after Guangzhou.

We hopped on an overnight sleeper train that took us straight there. What I didn't realize is that the train didn't take us all the way there. I had looked on google maps and saw that the train route went over the water so I assumed that they had built a bridge for the train. Wrong. During the night, I wake up to these huge "KACHUNK KACHUNK" noises.
It's like someone is unhooking the train cars. It's 2 or 3 in the morning, so all I can think is 'Keep it down man! I'm trying to sleep! Insensitive punks...'
The next morning I didn't really think about it, but when we got off the train, my friend Matt said,
"Did you hear them unhooking the train cars last night?"
"What? No way. Why would they do that?"
"I'm pretty sure they put the train cars on a ferry and hooked them back together on the other side."
"But that's crazy!"
"I'm pretty sure. I looked out the window and there were train cars NEXT to us. Like inches away."
"Whoa!..."

So I went on to google maps later and switched it to satellite images. Ya, there's no bridge. And I never got off the train until I was in Sanya. Talk about awesome. I was in a train ON A FERRY! (this was confirmed on the train ride back)
Now that I've exercised my bragging rights....

Sanya is a city in Hainan on the south east coast. It's a big tourist spot for Russians. Talk about weird. Everything was written in Chinese and Russian instead of Chinese and English. All I could think was, 'Where's Mark Caldwell when you need him...'

So, the pictures. Here's the Lowdown.
1st pic
Sanya is beautiful. Nice beaches. Good weather. It was awesome to walk around in Shorts after freezing my buns off at home in Lingling. The Fauna was AWESOME and beaches even more so. This picture is a building right outside the Hostel that was run down and hasn't been used for a while (That happens a lot in China) and had some really amazing plants and vines growing up it.

2nd pic
These ladies were EVERYWHERE. Just hoping you'll buy some fruit from them. Obviously they make enough money to subsist or they wouldn't be there. The wierd thing is that sometimes they would assume we were Russian tourists and try to use the small Russian they knew to get us to buy stuff. Ya, that's gonna work. Most of them were pretty well humored and really nice, but ya, lots of people selling things on the side of the street. It's pretty common everywhere in China except for the big cities.

3rd pic
So I have these jeans I love that tore on the knee a while ago, but It's hard to find good jeans here so I keep wearing them. Plus I hate shopping, and I don't have loads of money and these still work, even if they're a little run down. It's funny because I think most Chinese people think I am or am trying to be fashionable for wearing them. Almost like I bought them with the tears in them or added them there myself, but they're legitimately old. My favorite line from one of my students in Lingling goes like this.
"Oh! Mr. Sam! Your pants are very cool! They are so fashion!"
I don't know what I'll do when I go back to America and being white isn't enough to make me 'cool'. (I'm not being racist, that's actually how China works. Weird I know...)
Also, I've shaved my Goatee since then, but i like the look.

Pics 4 and 5.
Love the beach.

Guangzhou Bhuddist Temple at 5:18 AM

Guangzhou Ancestry Hall at 5:11 AM

Guangzhou at 5:03 AM

As some of you know, I was recently released into the wild. My first semester of teaching ended around the 22nd of January and I've been on rampaging around Southern China ever since. Although this is definitely one of the more rugged vacations I've ever taken. I took a shower for the first time in about 3 days tonight and it was legitimately just because I haven't been able to. (Scoff if you want, but let it be known I love showers. At a scout camp I obtained the nick name "Mr. Clean." Not because of my ridiculously muscular body, but because I often took two or three showers a day. It just feels nice. Anyways...)

So, I got to Guangzhou on the 23rd of January with my friends, Matt and Kristal Carter, and spent about three days there. The pictures above will let you know that this place is awesome. Sorry mom, couldn't find a zoo, but don't worry, I'm pretty most Chinese zoo's are similar to what you remember. We did have church in our hostile, (online) and we basically wandered the city for a few days. Guangzhou kind of reminds me of Seattle. It was overcast, green, slightly humid, and beautiful. It was the kind of city you're happy to just wander around in for a few days. Which we did.

The first few pictures are of a huge city park we played in. It had a lake, with boats. We rented one and much joy followed. It had a lot of gardens, which were splendid. It had a tower with cannnons (cannons are cooler than towers, hence the picture of the cannon and not the tower), and it had places to exercise. In one of these we found this man, probably in his 60's, doing gymnastics, I wonder if he realizes he's not a teenager. At this point I want to talk about old people in China for a minute. They are amazing. They're happy, strong, spry and alert. I could be wrong, but from what I can guess, the grandparents stay in good shape because they usually have a strong hand in the raising of grandchildren. In America our kids see their grand parents occasionally, in China, I think some kids see their parents occasionally. I think this sense of purpose helps Chinese people stay stronger longer. That and some other things, which maybe I'll write a blog about later...

(The pictures described after this will be in one or two more posts)
Anyways, we also went to some awesome ancestral Hall that was just cool to walk around in. You'll notice two things. One there is a guy in a black leather vest in one or two pictures. His name is Simon, he just kind of tagged along with us for a day or two. He's from Switzerland and he's a really nice guy, and that's not just cause he gave us some Swiss chocolate. Two in one of the pictures we're in a nice garden and there is a really run down apartment in the background. This is kind of normal in China.

Lastly we randomly found a huge bhuddist temple and spent a minute talking to the Monks. That's Matt and Simon in the picture talking to them.

The verdict is Guangzhou rocks. I'll make another post just of a few more pictures of stuff we found.