The Adventures of Pan Laoshi: October 2011

During our first full day in Sanya, Cathy and I took the bus to one of the the 3 major beaches in Sanya. We went to Dadonghai Bay, the beach that was closest to the downtown area.

For reasons that elude me, there are a lot of Russian tourists in Sanya.Cathy and I stopped at a Russian restaurant that looked out over Dadonghai Bay. I had borscht and dark beer.

Our first hotel, Sanya Jia Cuo. It overlooked the water in an isolated area of town.

The next day, we went to another beach called Yalong Bay. It was lined by posh hotels with clean washrooms. Unfortunately, it rained a bit. We got our jeans soaking wet and ate at an outdoor barbecue joint instead of a hoity-toity hotel lobby restaurant.

After Yalong, Cathy and I ate and drank at the Dolphin Bar, as suggested from my friend Stephanie. It was like a sports bar from back home! We even met up with a bunch of my colleagues from Wuhan!

Dolphin Bar's American food was EXCELLENT.

Yeeeeaaaah!!! My first vacation with Cathy! Where was I off to this time?

We opted to go to the "Hawaii of China" - the beautiful beach town of Sanya in the Southern island province of Hainan. Having gone to Hawaii many times in my youth (thank you Mom and Dad), I knew to be suspicious of Sanya's slogan. It wasn't really like Hawaii at all, and the in general the weather was terrible, but it was fun...especially since I got to spend some quality time with Cathy!

We wanted to cut costs for our vaycay, so we headed to Haikou first. The plane ride was cheaper and Cathy got to see her old friend "Zepf."

Cathy and her high school friend. I had to give him an English name. It sounded to me like he wanted a "Z" in his name, so I named him "Zepf."

Zepf is an aspiring lawyer. He just graduated from school, so he showed us around his university on a golf cart. We also went to a beach because it was a clear day. Rumor had it that Hainan was hit by a massive typhoon, but there almost no signs of it (except for some trees that were knocked down and sandy beach water that is usually really blue and clear).

The fruit in Haikou was cheap and delicious. We bought 2 mangoes and 2 papayas that were the size of footballs!

The food in Haikou was great. Fruit was cheap and very juicy. Zepf brought Cathy and I to eat xiao chi, which was pretty different from the xiao chi in Wuhan. The dessert that Zepf got us reminded me a lot of Filipino halo halo.

We took the bus because of inconstant security and this thing.

We wanted to go on the bullet train to Sanya, but they didn't allow me to take my Swiss Army Knife. Cathy and I were disappointed with this rule because the security were inconsistent. They didn't allow knives (to cut fruit), but allowed smokers to take their lighters (to stink up the air in the train) even though the rules clearly state no smoking, lighters and flammables? We called bull but they didn't listen, so we took the 4 hour bus instead. We made the most of it. And besides, some of the scenery from the road going towards Sanya from Haikou was gorgeous.

Getting into town late, the first thing we did was to get to our hotel. It was right next to the water on a small secluded beach in a small fishing village away from the major tourist beaches. It was a perfect location. It also had a nice soft bed, which was a huge plus! It was the best bed I've slept on in all of China!

The rain didn't stop us from getting something to eat. For dinner, we went to the First Market - a local seafood market. Only the most adventurous foreigners were seen there. The place was dirty. It was filled with fish guts, squid water and rotten vegetables stained across the ground. But the choices of seafood were endless: all kinds of fish, squid, clams, lobsters, eel, oysters, sponges, sea horses...you name it, they got it for cheap. With a bag of different kinds of seafood, Cathy and I looked for a restaurant nearby.

The deal of the First Market is this: get your ingredients from the vendors and then go to a restaurant that you like. The cook would then cook you up a meal and charge you a labor fee. We found one that uses a liberal amount of ginger and fish sauce. Holy cow, the food was so good, it was the best Chinese food I've had in China so far. I'm so glad I had it with Cathy. It definitely beat Wuhan's Wuhang Yu. It put the Beijing Kaoya I had to shame. It was even better than the wonton noodle soup and Cantonese BBQ pork I had in HK and xiaolongbao from Shanghai . And...dare I say...Hainan seafood was even better than Sichuan hot pot in Chengdu!

Great first day in sunny Sanya. Okay, okay...it was sunny for only 3 of the 6 days we were there, but whatever. We had fun. More stories from Sanya are to follow!