Hainan Vacation, part 2

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Okay, sorry for the delay, I have been working literally non-stop (except for sleeping, eating, and Chinese lessons, which seem like work) since I woke up Monday morning.
In any case, on my second day in Hainan, I arrived in Bo'ao, where I was to stay in the Bo'ao inn, a very small bed and breakfast owned by an American expat. I spent a while chatting with the very friendly owner, and then set out to explore the beach. On the way was a temple (I don't remember who/ what it was for anymore), and a bunch of Hainan goats grazing. The beach itself was not very exciting and covered with a lot of trash (probably because the typhoon had just hit it), plus it was rather gray out, so I just walked along a nice path, past a fancy resort, got my picture taken with some Chinese teenagers, explored the sites, etc.

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The city itself was about as big as Blois population wise, but much more rural-seeming--really there was just one main street, and then lots of houses.
I guess this was my first really exposure to anything other than a huge city, so I wasn't expecting the chickens running around freely, or the shack/houses, or the woman who had a bicycle cart to go pick up slop (food scraps? some other kind of waste? from houses that left buckets outside). On the other hand, the streets were all paved, there were lots of restaurants, etc. So sort of a very small, still undeveloped tourist town.
The inn itself was very nice, and in celebration of mid-autumn festival, we all hung out, drank Hainan beer, lit sparklers (and other people lit some larger fireworks), and tried to force ourselves to eat more moon cake (there are various kinds, but the most common one in Guangdong is something sort of pasty with an egg-yolk in the middle). My tolerance for moon cake decreased drastically in the weeks leading up to mid-autumn festival--the first few ones, I ate the whole thing, and then I could eat it but slowly, and then only half, and then it took serious effort to eat even a quarter of one, and I tried to eat one after vacation and had to spit it out (of course, that was a weird savory one). Magically the moon appeared, despite the heavily overcast sky. We spent some time watching the beach from the roof, where all of the locals/ Chinese tourists went with their friends/ family. They would sit in small groups and burn incense, light fireworks, and set off these really cool Chinese lantern/ hot air balloons (we tried unsuccessfully to do one, and ended up almost setting a lot of things on fire).
I went to bed relatively early that night so that I could get up early and go for a bike ride; I am going to bed now, not early at all, so that I can get up and get back to the grind.

(By the way, I am aware of the horrible picture/text association/ layout. The only thing I can do to fix it takes way more time than I have right now, so you'll have to bear with me. Hey, at least there are pictures.)

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Photos

The temple
I wish I remembered what was interesting about it. Maybe nothing besides being pretty.

Hainan goats
With the temple in the background.

The ocean
Unfortunately, this beach was not very pretty.

The beach-side walk
Much prettier than the beach itself.

A little pond
When you turned off the path from the beach, you started meeting the livestock. Here are some ducks.

Picturesque?
Maybe? This was a barn/ shed, and some nondescript large-gauge wire.

Comments

[SB]

Mooncake
Love the mooncake story. I'll have to see if I can find the Inquirer article about how AAU decided to have a mooncake eating contest to celebrate the mid-Autumn festival. I guess mooncakes have even more stories about them than matzoh-balls.

[ps]

Hainan beer
So how's the Hainan beer?

[Anja]

Did you get a digital camera at last?! Gone are the days of Polaroids and 90's cameras?

[leogoesrawr]

Hainan beer
Not very good, unfortunately. Pretty watery (I guess very light and refreshing for their very hot summers).

[leogoesrawr]

Nah, I still have both of those (brought the '90s camera on my trip), but my cell phone has a pretty good camera, and I figured I couldn't go another entire year without sharing my pictures with anyone.