Week 28 and 29 - The Long Long Trip Begins, or, Missing the Plane

Okay time for something a bit different.

I've shown you the pictures, now let's talk about the stories behind the words!

I have written A LOT about my February journeys. In order to break it down just a little bit so that I don't drop a huge impenetrable wall of text all at once, I'm going to do several somewhat smaller posts.

So here is Week 28 and 29 of my journey:

"And we're back", I softly said to myself as we stepped into our dilapidated apartment.

A month had never gone by so quickly in my life. A month! I had been traveling and, for lack of a better description of it, on vacation for a 28 day period.  In this relatively short span of my life I had visited four countries and ten cities. I had seen a lot and eaten an ungodly amount of weird things. Most importantly, I spent an inordinate amount of time in airplanes, buses, taxis, motorcycles, tuk tuks, trains, boats, and ferries. I had become an expert in "making the time pass". I'd also gotten really used to having no idea what was going on at all. After spending half a year struggling to learn enough Chinese language and culture to "get by", I was suddenly thrown into the deep end into cultures, histories, and tongues I could not begin to wrap my little brain around.

This post will attempt to explain and decompress a lot of the things I saw, tasted, and smelled into some coherent structure. I purposely did not want to update at all while I was gone. I did not want the responsibility or challenge of finding a computer and Internet access to dictate how I spent my time abroad. I also decided to take my friend Rebecca's advice and just experience the joys and strains of traveling, unfettered by the cloying desire to "capture" it all into easily digestible bite-sized pieces.

I'm not entirely sure I succeeded. I still ended up taking a few notes whenever something crazy happened. Plus I took a crap-ton of pictures (this is an official measurement of weight now according to the UK government. Look it up).

At any rate, here is my holiday adventure as best as I can tell it

It Begins

BUT FIRST... The days leading up to the holiday.

We ended school in a manner befitting the way that the rest of the semester had been run. It was a chaotic mess. The two weeks of school was spent preparing for something called "English Camp". The English camp was supposed to be this big intensive thing where we taught 8 classes in 8 hours for two days in a row. Our boss felt that we would need two weeks to prepare enough lesson plans to cover this responsibility. What she failed to take into account is that she had assigned us to have a different class every time. There was absolutely no reason not to just teach the same lesson 8 different times. After all, this is basically what teachers in America do every single day, isn't it?

Everyone had been assigned different categories for their camp lessons. Leon was Geography; Zac was gym class (so he required even less time to prepare), Chris was "Stories", Laura was Music, and I was "American Culture and Food". I decided to theme each lesson on an ethnic or cultural group living inside of the USA. So, I had a class on Asian Americans, a class on Latino and Hispanic Americans, a class on African Americans, and a class on Native Americans.

None of this matters, though, because the kids did not pay a lick of attention. They were already on "break mode" and so were most of us teachers. There was no expectations for these classes, and we were told not to give the kids any homework, tests, or worksheets. It was just supposed to be a "fun" class and if they happened to learn anything then that was a treat.

The children ran around the room and screamed a lot, and may have learned a thing or two about the impact that Ricky Ricardo had on television (I think I got a little carried away with my presentations). Either way, I think it is safe to say that the entire school, students and teachers, was completely checked out by the time that January 31 rolled around.

January 31 was my birthday, and it was probably the least remarkable birthday of my life. I didn't really remember or realize it was my birthday at all. Yes, Laura made sure to wish my a happy day, and so did lots of people on Facebook, but ultimately the day was spent packing everything up for the trip. The one indulgence I took was that we went out to dinner with the boys the night before, on the 30th. It had to be the 30th because Leon had a flight that was leaving for Singapore at 10pm. The dinner was good, and Zac bought me a tiny Hello Kitty cake. It tasted like it was 100% whipped cream, which it probably was.

On Sunday February 1, the day of our flight, we were woken up by the sounds of jack hammering at 7am. After a full three months of complaining about all the mold in our apartment, our boss decided to finally do something about it. Of course, since this is China it could not be simple. She told us that the workers wouldn't come until we left for our trip, which I had made clear to them began on February 1 in the afternoon. So not only had that little promise fallen through, but they weren't even working on our apartment!

They had decided that the mold was probably a result of a leak in the apartment above ours. Since the coworkers who inhabit that flat had already left for their trip, the workers just decided to go in there and completely demolish the bathroom. I went upstairs to check it out and there was just a 3 foot deep dirt hole in the room where the bathroom used to be.

I was a mixture of enraged and satisfied. On the one hand, it was 7am on a Sunday. The jack hammering was shaking the entire building and had caused us to wake up a lot earlier than intended. It also was making all the babies in the building cry. It was miserable! On the other hand, it appeared that they were finally fixing the problem. Hopefully a month would be enough time to rectify it.

Jason, our accidental roommate was stirring around and I shouted at a him a little bit. "Jason! Why are the workers here! You said they would come after we left?!". To this he responded, "It's okay, they are fixing it now". "But it's 7am! On Sunday! It woke us up and it's making babies cry".

"It's okay! It woke me up too!", Jason cheerfully declared. This is Jason's favorite thing to say. In fact, I hear it commonly all throughout China. I am not sure if it stems from the fact that Asian societies tend to be more communal instead of individualistic, or what. But basically, if something affects more than just one person, it's okay. When we first started complaining about the mold, a worker from the school came out to look at the problem. He looked at the mold that absolutely covered our bedroom walls, and looked at the pictures we took showing how it was getting worse every week, and he cheerfully told us "It's okay, there's mold in my apartment too!".

One of the reasons Angel, our boss, has been so difficult to work with regarding this mold thing is that every time we brought it up she would say, "It's okay, there's mold in the children's dorm rooms at the school too!". To this I would usually reply "That's not okay! Mold is bad and unhealthy and if it's in children's' rooms then it's a severe problem!", but she would just walk away.

Frustrated and sleep deprived, we made our way to a local noodle joint for breakfast. We ate, returned home, packed up the rest of our things, and departed.

We took the subway to the airport in Guangzhou and then boarded the plane for...

SANYA - The Hawaii of China So I'm Told

The flight down to Sanya was pretty short, only about 90 minutes. Sanya is the southernmost city in China, and is on the southern tip of Hainan island. Hainan island is also China's smallest province! It is known for its beaches, its resorts, and its Russians. We encountered all three on our trip.

We got off the plane and were immediately hit with a burst of warm weather. China is a big place. It's hard to really comprehend how big it is, especially living in a westen-centric or Americano-centric world. It's about as big as America. A lot bigger if we don't include Alaska and Hawaii, or a little bit smaller if we do. The climates in China, then, vary quite a bit. Sanya, being in the southernmost tip of China, gets saved from having even the slightest hint of winter. This was so refreshing!

After waiting for a bit in the taxi queue, and dodging giddy Chinese people taking selfies in front of the big sign that says "Sanya Pheonix International Airport", Laura and I boarded our taxi and departed for our resort.

China has been promoting Sanya as "China's Hawaii" for quite a few years now, and they are attempting to make it one of their biggest tourist resort destinations. With resorts popping up left and right, there is a lot to choose from when you book a trip there. I ended up getting a reservation at that Yalong Bay Huayu resort, which is right in the center of the most resort-y part of the city. The bay is cut off from the rest of the island by several mountains and big hills. There is no "local flavor" here, nor are there any eateries that are not owned and operated by the various resort businesses. I picked this location because, even though I was curious about how the typical life of a Chinese person in Sanya differed from that of someone in Foshan, I was pretty darn sick of Chinese life at this point. Exploring cultures and learning hard life lessons would come later in the trip, I decided. Right now I want a total escape. Also they had a western-breakfast buffet included with the reservation.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your current mood), you can build up a nice and fancy Hawaii-style resort all you want; you are still going to be in China.

We arrived at the hotel at about 12:30am and checked in. The entire resort has an out-doorsy feel to it. You can never really truly go inside. This is typical of Chinese architecture in general, I have learned, but it was very fitting in this tropical location. I was immediately enamored by the enormous lobby area that looked like it was taken right from the forbidden city in Beijing. Lanterns lit all the walkways around the resort and, for the first time in over 6 months, I found my locale to be somewhat romantic. It was a good idea to come here, I thought! A getaway for my girlfriend and I! While we did have a nice time over the next few days, I would be remiss if I didn't admit that things were far from as perfect as my first impressions belied.

We were tired, sick of traveling, and eager to get to sleep so we could get an early start the next day. Almost as if to prove a point that we were still in goofy ol' China, our room keys did not work. This would be annoying in and of itself if our rooms weren't a full 8 minute walk away from the lobby area. Luckily, there was a late night security guard dude driving around in a golf-cart tram. We flagged him down and he took us back to the lobby. "Wo yaoshi bu hao" I told him in my crappy but functional Chinese ("My key no good").

Another attempt and it still didn't work.

Finally around 1am we got into our building. The room was in a "guest house" style area of the resort. It was like an apartment building or a condo, complete with a public shared living room and kitchen area. I imagine that they rent these buildings out to large family or even business groups.

Our room was on the ground floor. We went in and were immediately very pleased.

Robes! Gorgeous hardwood floors! Soft beds! This felt like luxury. There was even a little hot tub thing on the back porch!

After a few minutes of happily tutting to ourselves about how great everything seemed, we went to bed.

Breakfast the next morning was everything we had dreamed of and more. They had western food (bread and jam! corn flakes! waffles! fresh fruit! hash browns!), Chinese food (noodles! dumplings!) and also Dim Sum style buns. For the two mornings that we enjoyed our breakfast, we were truly in heaven. We probably stayed in the eating area for at least two hours each day.

We didn't even let the people around us sour our fun. We had heard that Sanya was a Mecca for Russian tourists on holiday. While it is true we ran into a few over the weekend, and we saw evidence of their existence by all of the Russian on road signs and on restaurant menus, the majority of the tourists at our hotel were Chinese.

These people were interesting, to say the least. Looking back on it I can laugh, and enjoy the diversity that my unique experiences allowed me. At the time though I just tried my best to ignore these folks. My nerves were still pretty shot and I had come to Sanya specifically to be back in a familiar, Westernized element. They were disrupting my mellow! Most of them had clearly never been in a buffet situation before. They didn't know how to navigate the buffet line or how to use the tongs provided. There were chopsticks at every seat, but knives and forks as well. I watched as families eyeballed the knives and forks as if they were some strange and intimidating aliens that had recently landed and taken up residence on the mahogany tables. One kid appeared to think of the silverware as a personal drum kit. One kid just ran around trying to stab people with the knives until his grandmother sorted him out. Many adults tried to eat their waffles and their hash browns with the strange utensils only to fail miserably.

Nevertheless, we finished our breakfast and then took a walk to explore the grounds. The resort really was beautiful. At the price we were paying per night, I'm pretty sure that we got a pretty quintessential Pacific ocean resort experience at considerable savings compared to people going to Hawaii. Even factoring in the price of a plane ticket from the contiguous States, I think that someone would save money by coming to Sanya instead of going to Hawaii.

The grounds were designed to look classically Chinese, but also clearly took a lot of cues from other Polynesian cultures. Bamboo was everywhere, and the course-pebbled pathways always led to somewhere interesting. The hotel area had several swimming pools, which I was disappointed to learn were unheated, and several hot tubs, which in a complete surprise to no one, were only heated to a tepid bathwater temperature.

Connected to the hotel in a very organic way was an outdoor shopping area. It gave the impression of a bustling little town with shops that included restaurants, clothing stores, and even a little grocery store. It was all very artificial though, as only a quick glance at a price tag at any of these establishments would quickly remind you that you were in a resort area. We spent a lot of time during the weekend walking through the town, though, because you had to cross the entire thing in order to get to the beach.

The beach was absolutely gorgeous. It was a private beach, and only guests of the hotel who had some form of identification were allowed on it. The sand was white and soft to the touch, and while the water was still a little too cold to go swimming, we spent many an hour dipping our legs and our feet. A good chunk of the entire Sanya holiday was spent on this beach. They had comfortable reclining chairs with big large cabana-style umbrellas giving ample shade. Laura and I whiled away the hours reading several books in a short time.

This sandy paradise was not completely closed off from the realities of where we were, however. Homeless ladies selling seashells still wandered in between the umbrella-covered lanes trying to hawk their wares at sympathetic looking young couples. Children ran naked all over the place, encouraged by their parents to relieve themselves whenever and wherever they wanted. There was still a lot of noise from the other guests. But here on the beach none of that seemed to matter. The scenes were just too picaresque and the sand was just too warm between my toes. I dozed in between chapters of some rather forgettable Michael Crichton novel that I had not yet read in my earlier years and I finally got some of the rejuvenating relaxation I had been looking for.

By the second day, both Laura and I had come down with something. Yalong Bay is almost completely smog free, so I don't think that China's less-than-stellar atmosphere was the cause of it. We will probably never know if it was something we ate, if it was from sitting too long in the 'warm tub', or if it was some exotic species of flower on the grounds of the hotel, but in the end the result was the same. Our enjoyment of the tropical trip was tempered by our inability to breathe properly. We are however, contrary to what this blog may imply, eternal optimists and so we still had a good time.

Something that Sanya is famous for is its food. Yes, just like the other provinces in China, Hainan Island has its own cuisine and its own famous specialties. Here in the haze of the palm trees the specialties include East Mountain Lamb, Hainan Chicken, Soft-boiled Crab, and some special noodles. Of course, each of the resort restaurants sold all four of the Hainan Specialties at premium price. Being a foodie I insisted on trying as much of these as I could, while still trying not to go completely broke.

I am here to report that none of the specialty food was very good at all! I think it might just be because we bought it from what was essentially a hotel restaurant. The lamb meat was very tough and overcooked, and not really prepared in a special way at all. The sauce was good though, and we enjoyed pouring it over our rice. The chicken was totally disgusting. It was simply an entire chicken that had been plucked and then lightly boiled before being served to us. Eating this cold, flavorless, still somewhat feathery chicken has to rank up there with some of the worst things I've ever eaten. The noodles were good though! Plus, while trying the noodles at one of the restaurants we discovered a cold lotus root dish that was out of this world. Crispy and tangy, it was covered in this refreshing honey sauce, and almost completely made up for the bad chicken.

The crabs were all sold at "market price". I'm not sure what market they are shopping at, but these puppies were way out of our price range. We settled instead on a half kilo of fresh shrimp one night. This shrimp was definitely the best meal we ate in Sanya. They tasted like they were plucked right out of the sea. They were unseasoned and nothing special or extravagant had been done to them, but unlike the disgusting chicken the shrimp stood proudly on its own. I almost want to go back to Sanya just for some of these stellar shrimpy delights.

Another popular snack with the tourists was fresh coconut water, served inside the coconut. We didn't sample any of these (don't worry, we got some in Thailand), but they were absolutely everywhere. I think at least 8/10 of the people I saw the entire weekend were sipping on fresh coconuts. Every store in the mall area sold coconuts, including the clothing stores. It was hilarious in the mornings to see these huge crates of coconuts arrive all over the resort area, preparing for another crazy day of chopping, dripping, and serving.

On the second day we spent more time inside our room than on the beach. The weather was a little bit overcast, and we decided to just relax and read in our rooms. I gave the hot tub on the porch a try only to discover that it was broken. Not content to let this small setback ruin my entire trip, I decided to take a page out of MacGyver's book and fix it myself. I took apart some of the pieces of the faucet in our bathroom, and screwed them into the corresponding faucet on the hot tub area. I then used a wadded-up washcloth on the drain and voila! We had a working hot tub.

I think reading my kindle in the steaming out back porch hot tub may very well be the highlight of the Sanya portion of our trip for me.

One last highlight in Sanya was the live music. One of the restaurants that the hotel featured was a Brazilian steakhouse. They had live singers there one night singing in Spanish. Yes, they were singing in Spanish and not Portuguese. Laura and I laid in hammocks for quite a bit and enjoyed their sultry tunes. After they finished, Laura said a few words to them in Spanish. Apparently they were from Paraguay. How strange that some singers from Paraguay were singing at a Brazilian steakhouse in a section of China that was trying to be Hawaii. The world is a weird place.

We went to bed rather early on that day, because we had a very early flight the next morning. We spent the afternoon walking around the town. We walked a few miles in every direction to see if we could find anything outside the resort area, but alas the resort area was just too big. Before calling it a night, we talked to the front desk people and had them reserve a taxi for us at 5am the next morning for our trip to the airport.

The next morning we got up super early, went and checked out, and then waited for our cab. After about 15 minutes of waiting, I went to the front desk and asked how long the cab would take. Immediately, the receptionist had a look of horror on her face. "Taxi? No taxi!", and she ran away.

It became immediately clear to me that they had never called one. I asked the other guy at the desk to please call a taxi immediately. The airport was nearly an hour away from the resort and we did not have a ton of time to waste. This other fellow at the front desk spoke even less English than the lady who had just hightailed it away, and so he just pretended he didn't hear me.

Trying not to panic, Laura and I demanded to talk to a manager. Eventually a manager showed up, and he had a much stronger command of the English language. He told us that he had called a cab, but that it would take almost an hour before it arrived. This was just no good! At this rate we would definitely miss the plane.

I started trying to figure out alternatives. The hotel offered free shuttles to the airport every day, but only after 10am. We asked the manager if he could wake someone up who could drive us to the hotel in the shuttle. He said no. We asked if HE could drive us to the hotel. He said no.

As we were arguing and bargaining with this guy, a Chinese family walked up to the lobby and checked out. Immediately a cab pulled up and they started piling in. I asked if we could take THAT taxi, and the manager said no. "How come they get a taxi?", I asked. "Well, they reserved one", the manager snidely replied. "SO DID WE!", I shouted.

I offered the Chinese family some money to let us have their taxi, but they refused. I then offered them some more money just to let us share the cab with them. They looked a little bit afraid of me and quickly drove off.

With our flight departing at 7, the manager said that we should be able to get to the airport by about 6:30. This was really no good, but I had run out of things to say.

It was at this moment that Laura stepped up. Mustering a terrifyingly maternal voice  that I can only assume all ladies have deep within them somewhere, she said to the manager, "So... what if we miss our flight? What are YOU going to do for US?". In less than five minutes, Laura had this manager offering us so many free perks and upgrades that I began to secretly hope that we would miss the flight!

After what seemed like a lifetime, the cab finally arrived. We urged him to drive as fast as he possibly could, and we told him that our plane was leaving in less than an hour.

Despite his best efforts, the cab did not pull up to the airport until after 6:30am. I was hoping that since it was a Wednesday morning and that Sanya airport was so small, that it wouldn't be busy inside the airport.

This may be the single most wrong I have ever been in my life.

The airport was absolutely sodden with people. It was more clogged than the cartoon arteries of Ronald McDonald. We had to push and squeeze and plead and scream just to get in the door.

After several mad dashes in all kinds of directions, we got our boarding passes printed. It was like Home Alone, I swear. I was so glad we just had our backpacks with us. If we had had to check luggage then it would have been all over.

We were in line for security at 6:35, and we stood in front of a sign that said "time through security from this point is 10 minutes". Assuming that was right, it would mean that we would be free to go to our gate at 6:45am, fifteen minutes before the time of departure. Now, as any frequent flyer knows, fifteen minutes before departure is when they usually close the door and don't let anyone else board the plane.

Standstill. The line crept forward so slowly that it didn't seem to move at all. I watched my clock on my phone tick ominously toward 6:45. I was shaking, sweating, and in full panic mode. I may have peed a little bit.

Somehow, someway, we got through security in 9 minutes and 30 seconds. We ran to the gate and got there just as they were closing the door! We did it! We actually made the plane. There were so many variables that, if they had been just slightly different, it would have been all over. Our final saving grace was a pair of Malaysian women who had apparently gone to the wrong gate and almost got on the wrong plane. They held the flight for the ladies, who were being directed to our gate just as we ran up. I wanted to hug these strange women! But I didn't because it would have been inappropriate.

With that, we sat our buts in some uncomfortable seats and headed toward Vietnam!