Sanya Vacation

We decided to be beach bums this Christmas because we couldn't make it home (with only a week off for me the flight didn't seem reasonable). So we chose sunny Sanya for our retreat. Sanya is a resort city on the south tip of the Hainan province in China.

Hainan is the most southern province in China and Sanya is often called the Haiwaii of the east. Needless to say it is pretty beautiful here. Terr gave me the option of a beach vacation or a tour vacation and I chose beach because after the semester of being a new teacher in a new country I needed some time to chill!!
We arrived in Sanya on December 24th after a very uneventful plane ride (about four hours from Beijing). Our hotel is about a 10 minute drive from the airport and is a very nice 5 star resort with two hotels and many villas – called “The International Asia Pacific Convention Center HNA Resort Sanya (we chose this resort because we didn’t know any and it had the longest name!). We started in the resort hotel, it was booked solid as the China CTV (television station) was having a big Christmas party at the location. We were signed into a hotel room with two twin beds and no internet. We weren’t impressed with this but decided to stick it out for the night. On our first night we ate at the pool side bbq (mediocre and expensive but we were willing to wave this as it was Christmas eve) and were able to watch the fireworks from the CCTV party from our hotel balcony.

In the morning – MERRY CHRISTMAS to us! – we tried to have an internet convo over dial up with little success. So I mustered my courage and dragged Terry down to the front desk and asked to be switched to a hotel room with a King bed and broadband. Luckily this seemed to work and while we munged out at the pool the front desk found us a seaside room at the convention hotel with a king bed and broadband. We moved to the other hotel that afternoon and were very pleased – great décor in the room – very asian – and all the things we wanted. We then explored the beautiful beach, and the pool and ate a late dinner at the hotel (we had also eaten breakfast here and it was getting quite expensive so we vowed that we would make it to Sanya city the next day to a grocery store). Now that we were at the hotel with broadband we were able to communicate with all of our family and throughout Dec 25th talked to everyone on webcam.

On the 26th we beached for hours and pooled for hours more and then hailed a cab to Sanya city where we had yummy bento boxes – read a type of Japanese dish which uses a segmented box to present the food. We found a grocery store and had to really look for a grocery with a refrigerator section. With our supplies we hailed a rickshaw to get us back to the hotel. Being in Sanya city was really cool – lots of people out on the street enjoying themselves and selling things. They were all pretty interested in us – I don’t think many foreign western tourists make it here – lots of Chinese tourists. It felt like Beijing but different – a lot less English and western influence and a lot less people.

On the 27th we had the laziest day yet – woke up late, webcamed with the family in North Carolina and spent the day on the beach and ate supper at the Asian restaurant in the hotel – very very lazy. It was great. This is the first vacation I have had where I haven’t had to do any type of homework or reading. It has been bliss.