Blogs from Hainan, China, Asia - page 9

In November, at the surfing festival, I was asked by Beijing-based company to act as the local organiser of a World Snowboard Day event in Hainan the next month. World Snowboard Day is an event held in hundreds of resorts all around the world and is sponsored by Burton as well as many other companies. The idea of holding one such snowboard event on a tropical island got everyone understandably confused! For about 6 weeks, the organisation of this event became a bit like a part time job, taking up most of my time communicating with the party venue, the Beijing company, a ski resort sponsor and others to sort out advertising, flyers, online descriptions, prizes, decorations, and everything that was to go on at the party. The concept was that surfers and tourists in this ... read more

On the morning of the 11.01.2011 we left for BoAo on the newly opened fast train service in Hainan. It wasn’t the super bullet train that China has been making headlines with it sure was nice and not to mention fast. It did around 250km/hr. We decided to upgrade to first class which was 48 Yuan (about NZ$10). It was double the price of the standard fare but well worth it. We got a two seater cabin to ourselves it was fantastic! The highlight of the day. Hmm What can I say about BoAo hmmm about that. There was pretty much nothing there. BoAo held some Asian international business forum a few years back and they use the site where it happened as an attraction FUN . Oh and they also had a boat ride to ... read more

An International Surfing Festival came to town. This was actually back in November but I've only just put up this blog. I was somehow enrolled in the competition and these are the clips of my waves. The competition has been run successfully by Surfing Hainan for a few years but this year the government threw tens of thousands of pounds at it to turn it into a big grand event with billboard adverts all the way down the motorway and in newspapers, pro surfers flown over from every corner of the globe to compete and put on a show, a 'surfing fashion' catwalk show, skating displays, seminars and conferences. It was strange to see such a big event come to what is usually an empty beach with about five people in the water. The most memorable ... read more

Last weekend we actually got three days off for New Years so Nancy and I and a dozen others headed for Sanya, our favorite get-away spot, for a New Years weekend of partying. It's only an easy two hour flight from Wuhan and a 30 degree increase in temperature. I had already looked after booking a few rooms for everyone at the same place that Nancy and I have stayed on previous visits. Once again, we were not disappointed. The spacious three-bedroom place was incredible with two floors of breathtaking views of the ocean and tons of room for the five people that shared it. We shared our two-bedroom "apartment" with Janice and were also very impressed with everything. The three single rooms were also very nice. Everyone always has a view and it is pretty ... read more

After walking 25 minutes with my broken collar bone to reach the hospital, we were greeted by the problem of not having any idea where the emergency department was. It doesn't seem obvious to this hospital to put a sign up, so we were walking around asking random patients, who also didn't have much idea and seemed to send us walking around a maze of corridors for a long time before we found it. At the emergency department there was no clear front desk or waiting system, just a small table with a nurse and a gaggle of people standing around trying to get seen. Eventually we managed to 'push' through (not easy with one working arm) and showed the nurse the problem. The way it works is that before they will do anything for you ... read more