Relaxing

Over the course of the past 10 days or so, I have done little more than relax. I arrived in Zhuhai on the 14th after a bumpy, but uneventful train ride to Guangzhou and then a short one hour bus trip. Karrin and I were warmly greeted by Carrie and Travis, two fellow graduates of Skidmore College who are also teaching in China this year. Zhuhai is a modern Chinese in every sense. Built in really just the past 15 to 20 years, this southern coastal city is a series of high rise buildings that boarders Macau. Zhuhai itself is also a special economic zone. Thus, the China experience that Carrie and Travis are having is entirely different from my own. Looking at the city and campus in which they live, it's easy to complain about Qufu - I mean they have butter in their campus store and don't need to go two and a half hours for cheese. In many ways though I am happier with the experience I am having. Though both are real "China experiences," living in Qufu, becoming part of provincial China is much harder to do. Any time I want the "modern" experience I can travel to bigger city and have a similar experience. 

 Spending time in Zhuhai was a fantastic change of pace and temperature. Besides visiting Macau one day, we mostly just lazed about Carries apartment and sunned ourselves on her balcony. The weather each day was clear and in the low to mid seventies. 

On our second day we went to the former Portuguese city of Macau. Perhaps the strangest part of the day was that we walked there and filled up an entire passport page with stamps in less than 12 hours. Macau is a beautiful city and a pleasant escape from "China." We were lucky to have Florence, one of Carrie's students and a resident of Macau, show us about. We saw a number of beautiful churches, ate egg tarts, visited the Macau museum and fortress, stood beside St. Paul's facade, and even attempted to gamble in the Grand Lisboa - though we discovered that it is very difficult when you can read the buttons. 

Macau is very much a European city. The streets are narrow and twisting, the architecture is beautiful, and people don't stare at me. We visited three churches, though all were very similar in style and color. It was the first time in 5 months that I had entered a church and felt a bit strange but also very familiar. Each of the churches had interesting details and the colors used were beautiful. 

Another interesting sight was the facade of St. Paul's Cathedral. All that remains of the structure build in the late 16th and early 17th centuries is the front wall. Despite being destroy by fire during a typhoon in the 1835 and years of wear, the remaining wall includes and incredible amount of decoration and detailed ornaments. Along the street leading up the St. Paul's were a number of shops selling (an allowing you to sample) some specialties of Macau, among these dry almond cookies-very tasty-and beef jerky type flattened meat-also very tasty but strange. Really the best part of the day was walking about, enjoying the escape from mainland China.

Here are some more pictures of Macau:The above picture is of the Street of Happiness - a street seen in the second Indiana Jones movie. 



After Macau we returned to Zhuhai for another few days of relaxation. We slept in, ate well, and enjoyed getting to know Carrie and Travis's lives in China. We walked along the coast, got massages, went to a bar with outdoor seating, and simply relaxed in the warmer weather. We also went to a fish market one night for an incredible dinner. On the left of the street are a few dozen fish vendors selling all variety of seafood, much of it still splashing about. After buying the seafood on the left you take it to one of a dozen or so restaurants on the right for them to cook. It was a great meal and I ate more seafood that night than in all my time in China so far.


On the 20th of January we woke up at 4:30 in the morning to pack and walk to a 6:15 bus to the airport in Guangzhou from where we would fly to Hainan. Considered to be the Hawaii of China, Hainan is a newly developing resort destination for Chinese Nationals and Russians. We stayed on the southern most part of the island in Sanya at a comfortable hostel. The weather couldn't have been better - mid-seventies and sunny each day. We lay on the beach, walked about looking at vendors selling fruit and pearls, ate cheaply and, again, relaxed.

We arrived on the 20th early enough to enjoy almost a full day and lay on the beach for a few hours. It felt strange to be in a vacation setting in which westerners were the minority. Leisure and money to be spent on leisure activities are relatively new the the Chinese, and it is interesting to watch the way in which they show they vacation. Whole families-dad, mom, children, grandma and grandpa- will stroll about dressed head to toe in identical hawaiian print outfits. I was tempted more than once to get an outfit of my own.

Our hostel was located in Dadong Hai, known for its beautiful but very crowded beaches. On our second full day we took our guide book's advice, therefore, and headed east on a small bus to Yalong Bay. This area is home to quiet pristine beaches and the most expensive resorts on all of Hainan, including the Ritz Carlton and Hilton. Normally you need to pay a 50 yuan fee to enter the Yalong Bay beaches, but we, again following the guidebook, walked in through the Marriott Hotel and to their beach. We then spent the afternoon wishing that someone would pay for us to stay. We returned here again the next day and headed instead for the pool




On our last full day in Sanya, we decided to do some actual sight seeing and headed to Monkey Island. A fairly remote place, Monkey Island is located near Lingshui County about 1 /2 hours away from Sanya. Going through our hostel, we hired a taxi to take us there and back, making the trip easy and worth it. To get to the island, a reserve for endangered macaque, we took a cable car over an interesting bay and fishing village. Once on the island we were immediately surrounded by dozens of monkeys. I must have seen hundreds of monkeys that day. They were incredibly interactive and comfortable around the many visitors and tour groups. Thought the monkeys seemed to have their freedom, in someways, like with the siberian tigers, it was sad to see them lose some of themselves and rely so heavily on humans.





Our trip to Sanya was fantastic. Though we did rather little, it was great to get to the warmer weather and really lounge for a few days. Three weeks into my travels, I'm still enjoying China and am looking forward to seeing even more.