May Day Vaca-Hainan Revisted

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A few pretty significant events have happened in the last couple of weeks here in China that (fortunately) I was not apart of, but could have very well been. The first occurred a few weeks ago when a fairly severe typhoon struck the island of Hainan. This was just one week before we went there for our vacation. Luckily the storm did not disrupt any of our plans and we had a great time. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Secondly, the Olympic torch landed in Sanya, Hainan last week. We were not aware of it at the time, but we were in a hotel overlooking the airport where initial ceremony was held. Unfortunately, we left the island the day before the torch arrived so we did not see anything exciting. The final event was a major train derailment outside of Zebo, Shandong. It was a pretty bad scene, many people were killed and injured and it received international media coverage. Although the crash site is just about an hour away from Dongying, thankfully I nor anyone I know was on or near the train. So if you saw that in the news and was wondering, I'm ok.

Overall this second trip to Hainan was pretty nice. The entire trip was paid for by the university which was great, but we (the other foreign teachers and I) were forced to travel tour group style which at times felt like being pushed around like cattle. The good definitely outweighed the bad and I took a ton of pictures. Half of the ones I want to share are here and I will be posting another entry in a few days with the remaining pictures. In the words of comedian Daniel Tosh: "Have you ever seen anyone frowning on a jet-ski?"

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Photos

三亚 SANYA
Beautiful sunny sanya

海南岛 Hainan Island
Fruit!!!! One of the best things about the trip by far.

海南岛 Hainan Island
A massive laughing buddha at 东山 (dongshan) "East Mountain" outside the city of 万宁 (Wanning) on the East side of the island.

海南岛 Hainan Island
Rubbing the belly for good luck

海南岛 Hainan Island
Hopping on a chairlift at Dongshan

海南岛 Hainan Island
Rising over a cemetary of mound graves

海南岛 Hainan Island
Preferred transportation around Sanya

海南岛 Hainan Island
On board the beast

海南岛 Hainan Island
A couple of fellow foreign teachers

海南岛 Hainan Island
A very strange statue

海南岛 Hainan Island
Random guy with a gator

海南岛 Hainan Island
We visited a botanical garden. The garden was pretty disappointing, but this little pond was sort of interesting.

海南岛 Hainan Island
A pretty interesting find. Inside the pool are little fish that eat away at your dead skin. I put my foot in for a moment, but I'm way too ticklish for that kind of stuff!