Chinese Hawaii - Sanya China

Chinese Hawaii

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Sanya, China for work. I did not know anything about
Sanya before my trip. Just that I had a conference to attend and needed to get there. First it was not an easy place to get to. I could not find a direct flight from the US to Sanya. Instead I had to first land in main land China and then a connecting flight to Sanya. Since I had business in Beijing I spent a day in Beijing with meetings and then flew down to Sanya. From Beijing the flight is about 4 hours.

This time of year, May, is the slow season for Sanya as it is really hot and humid. It most definitely was their slow season. There weren't very many people at the resort and it was very hot and humid. I arrived at about 11:30 pm at night and the airport was crowded for that time at night. It seemed that that was normal for that time of year. It very much reminds me of Hawaii. Small airport. Lots of people and humid.

I was met by "Feng" from the conference staff to make sure I did not get lost. Which was nice since I do not speak any Chinese and had no idea how to tell a taxi driver where I wanted to go. It was also nice to be able to speak English to someone. Because I was there for business meetings I had to bring my suit jacket. I made the mistake of wearing my jacket off the airplane. Which just made things hot and sticky, but I did get lots of looks from the locals. Feng started laughing when we got to the car and said that the local teenagers we passed walking to the car thought I was movie star or something because no one else would wear a suite jacket in the heat and have such "white hair." :)


We drove from the airport about 40 minutes to the Resort in Sanya named the Royal Begonia. It was one of the nicest resorts I have ever stayed at and about $120 a night it was a steal. In the high season the price can double to $240 a night, but that is still a great price. My room as huge 700 sq ft, which is bigger than my first studio apartment when I first got married. And the resort was beautiful, well maintained, lush, and grandiose. It was about a 5 minute walk through the gardens and past the pool to get to the beach.

Beach

The beach was very clean and basically empty (Remember the low season for the resort). I saw several signs at the beach that there was no lifeguard on duty and that it was dangerous to swim. The waves where not much bigger than 3-4 feet, much like the beaching in southern California on a normal day. There was also a long list of rules for the beach which I think was funny. It seems like they are trying to make sure that no one has fun at the beach. They have a green, yellow and red flag system and it looks like the red flag is up all of the time, it was heavily faded from the sun. :) I asked some of my work colleagues from China about all of the rule. They said that is normal in China. Lots of rules because they know most people won't follow them. But they might follow some of them.

I enjoyed walking down to the beach in the mid-morning before it got too hot and found a nice breeze at the beach that made it even more enjoyable. There was no one but a small family (Husband, Wife and their 3 year old son) at the beach. The beaches are kept really clean and there is several cabanas and lunge chairs to get out of the hot sun. Since this was the low season not all of the services were available at the beach, but they have great facilities.

Food

The food at the resort had a good mixture of local cuisine, mainland Chinese food and American food choices. Breakfast included a buffet spread that included local fish dishes, chicken feet, ox tail, Chinese dumplings, spring rolls, pot stickers, omelet bar, hash browns, sausages, baked beans and a huge spread of pastries. Since I love all kinds of foods for breakfast I loved the buffet. It was like dinner food for breakfast.

The dinner and lunch menu included traditional Chinese fish dishes, and the all american club sandwich and a bacon cheese burger. I think it is funny that no matter where I travel I always seem to be able to get a club sandwich and hamburger and fries. The universal food.

Communications

The language barrier was some what of a problem at times and I found the use of sign language very useful. If there was confusion, they typically would go find someone near by that could figure out what I was trying to say. There was only one time when I wish I new Chinese.  The phrase "please don't come in" would have come in handy.  I had just gotten out of the shower and was getting dressed when the house maids knocked at the door to clean the room. I yelled at them them to come back later. but they thought that meant to come right in. I almost fell over trying to get some shorts and a shirt on before they got a show. :)

Another thing that was frustrating at first but learned to enjoy it was the internet connectivity. The best I could get on my phone was 2G (Edge) and even then it was very spotty. It would drop in and out all of the time. And when I did have connectivity, via phone wifi on my laptop,  the Great Chinese Firewall blocked lots of my things. Including gmail, google maps, and anything attached to google. I had to rely on normal SMS messaging instead of google hangouts like I am used to. I quickly learned how dependent I have come to good/great internet connectivity. It was nice to not be notified of everything going on all of the time.

Overall the trip to Sanya as quite enjoyable, I only wish I had my wife with me and some more time to explore more of the island and spend more time on the beach.

DWP