Scott In China '09: Spring Break China '09!

Let me start by apologizing. Its been a long time since my last post, and even before that my entries had been growing less and less frequent. This is not because my stay in China has become any less interesting or incredible, rather i've assimilated (as well as I can atleast). The day to day activities, interactions, conversations, and observations that once struck me as so very foreign, are now much more common place.

This being said, I have reached the home stretch of my stay in Shanghai. In my remaining 4 weeks here, I am going to make a concerted effort to write on my blog as much as I did in the first 4 weeks. I'll start this promise off below with a full length post (and pictures) about my Chinese Spring Break. Enjoy.

For spring break, a group of friends and I (as well as an overwhelming majority of the kids on my program) went to the the province of Hainan, which is actually China's largest island. We stayed in the city of Sanya, which lies at the southern tip of Hainan making it the southermost point in all of China. This geographic location makes Sanya's climate, landscape and even its inhabitants more like what I would expect to see in a South East Asian country like Vietnam or Thailand. It is extremely humid, tropical, and mountainous and the people's skin is dark from the constant sun exposure. Furthermore the air quality in Sanya is leaps and bounds better than that of any of the other cities I have visited thus far (A tourist map we found claimed that the air quality in Sanya is the 2nd best in the world; 1st place was given to Havana. Though incredible comparied to the rest of China, Sanya's air was still a bit polluted. And though I don't claim to be an expert on air quality, I do find it a bit suspicious that 1st and 2nd place were given to two of the only remaining communist countries in the world....coincidence, I think not.)

I arrived in beautiful Sanya on Saturday, April 24th with reservations to stay at the Blue Sky Youth Hostel until the following friday. Though there are many incredible hotels in Sanya, my friends and I were hoping to do this vacation on the cheap as we have been blowing through our money this semester (seriously, my new chinese name is Cha-Ching). I'm no stranger to hostels, I stayed in quite a few of them during my backpacking trip in Europe, and knew full well the possibilities that could await us- either an incredible stay or a complete sh*t hole. Luckily, the Blue Sky was incredible stay. The rooms were nice, the staff was helpful, the beer was cheep and it was located a mere 2 minutes from the beach. Also like the hostels in Europe, it was full of Aussie and British travelers who were full of incredible stories and advice and who all wanted to party. Within minutes of arriving we made some quick friends and headed down to the beach.

Besides it's beautiful beaches, Sanya has many other tourists attractions such as fishing, surfing, snorkeling and even day visits to nearby monkey island. Though we originally had plans to do all of the above, we ended up laying by the beach for the entirety of the week; and when 6 days of being beach bums wasn't enough, we extended our tickets and hostel for another night and spent a 7th day on the beach. I probably sound like a huge slag, having not done all of the touristy activities. But in reality laziness had little to do with it- we were trying to do the vacation on the cheap, and these day trips/tourist activities were very expensive.

Below are a few other notes/observations about spring break and China.

- There are three bays in Sanya: Yalong Bay, Sanya Bay, and Dadonghai Bay. The order that I have listed them here corresponds with the beauty of their beaches (from best to worst) and also corresponds to the cost and extravagence of the hotels located on them (from most to least). Needless to say, our youth hostel was located on Dadonghai bay, and though this was not a bad beach we still prefered to spend the majority of our time on the other beaches. Luckily for us, there were tons of other study abroad kids in Sanya, many of whom did stay in the nicer hotels on these nicer, more private bays and thus we had constant access to their beaches and pools.

-Contrary to what I believed going in to Sanya, it is not an undiscovered tourist spot. Rather it is mostly undiscovered by (or just too damn far away from ) English speakers. Sanya is mobbed Chinese and an overwhelming majority of Russian tourists. Everywhere we went the signs and menus were written in Russian, Chinese, and English. And the beaches were full of big burly speedo wearing Russian men. Furthermore, as it is a tourist spot, it is not cheap. We were constantly getting ripped off by cab drivers, store owners and street food vendors (though it may only mean the difference of a dollar or two to me, the principle of the thing still really pisses me off).

-Eating there was for the most part brutal, and a stark reminder of how easy we have it in the U.S.. The cuisine either catered to the Russian tourists (gross), or consisted of loads of shell fish; though i'm not actually allergic to shellfish, I'm not a huge fan. The only other option was food from street vendors; I often eat street food in Shanghai, and did so in Sanya too until 3 of my friends came down with severe food poisoning midway through the week. They were out of commission for literally 24 hours and were absolutely miserable; the cluprit, street dumplings. After consulting with hostel management about their condition, we heard a story that we have heard time and time again in Shanghai- There are many impoverished people in China, some will do whatever it takes to make a dollar, whether or not it is at another's expense. Some people (possibly this particular dumpling vendor) use sick animals to make their street food, because sick animals are cheaper to by than well ones, this can obviously lead to food poisoning and other health issues. We were also warned too be careful where we bought alcohol as some people make fake alcohol which they try to pass off as western brands. This is an extremely dangerous practice, as the consumption of fake alcohol, which is usually closer in content to rubbing alcohol , can make you go blind, or worse. Having never heard of such practices I was stunned, and moreso when our British friends told me that the same practices happened throughout the middle east and India (which they had recently visited). This made me realize how much I take the U.S. forgranted, at home, I have never once worried that the food/drink someone was giving me was knowling and intentially poisonous or fake.

Thats really all I have to say about spring break. As I said, we spent most of our time being beach bums and therefore had little time for cultural interactions. Below are some pictures.

The Blue Sky Youth Hostel In all of it's glory.

Crazy Chinese man making a sand sculpture of a woman's body in the middle of the night. We thought the sand sculpture was an actual unconcious/possibly injured person when we first caught sight.....