Hainan

I am on a tropical island in southern China. The last couple weeks of shivering in six layers of clothing are behind me. Here in Sanya, along Hainan's southern coast, it is in the 80s, hot and humid.

Hainan advertises itself as “The Hawaii of the Orient.” In truth, it has a long way to go before it is a fair comparison to Hawaii. The climate and foliage is similar, but the crowded rush of people and mismatched development is still very China. Our hotel is on Dadonghai beach, across a parking lot from wooden boardwalks that line the waterfront, shaded by thick palm trees. The ocean here is cool, but not cold – perfect for escaping the heat. The beach itself can be crowded, but there are non-congested areas where the sand is soft with room to relax and swim.

It's like the vacation from my vacation.

After Beijing I spent a few days at Ness's place in Shanghai, not doing anything touristy, just spending time with Ness and Ramsey and writing all those blog entries on Beijing. Ramsey hasn't been able to travel with us at all this trip. Ness has time off from teaching, but in addition to his English classes, Ramsey is an instructor at a Mixed Martial Arts gym he co-founded. His fitness classes keep him glued to Shanghai, with no time to venture elsewhere for the moment. A shame. It would be nice to have him along.

We took the metro and then maglev train to the airport, instead of our usual bus/taxi combo. It's the only operating maglev in the world and at 267 miles an hour, floating above a track of giant magnets, it's pretty damn fast.We got to the airport with time to spare.

Then, as things are wont to do, everything went to hell. We had booked our flight via Lu who used a Chinese website. Our e-tickets were printed out entirely in Mandarin characters, so neither of noticed we were supposed to fly out of the small, regional Shanghai airport and not Shanghai Pudong International. When the guy at the check-in desk informed us of our mistake, the look of utter shock and terror on our faces must have been priceless. We had an hour before the flight and the other airport, far across the opposite end of the city, took at least an hour to get to.

So we ran, our luggage hefted onto our shoulders, back onto the Maglev, hearts pounding. You know you're in dire straights when you're internally screaming for a train that travels 267 mph to go faster. From the maglev stop, we hopped on a taxi and told the driver to step on it. He complied, darting through cars on the expressway like a maniac, his hand constantly on the horn. Through some miracle we made it before the flight took off. It helped that the check-in and security lines were practically empty. It wasn't until I was on the plane that I at last let myself breathe.

Nothing like a warm beach to de-stress from a panic attack. And it's pretty dang nice here. I ended up shaving the beard I'd been maintaining the last four months to stave off the heat. We spent forever trying to find sunblock. I would have thought it'd be readily available since this island is thick with pale Russians – half the signs in the Cyrillic alphabet. The first tiny bottles we found started at $25. Yuck. After more searching we found something cheaper that said spf 30 on it and of course ended up being face whitener. I figured this out when I spread it on my face and instantly turned into Casper. It was a horrifying sight. I do NOT need to be any whiter.

Consequently, we sprung for the expensive stuff.

And this post has already gotten too long, with so much left to say: the paper hot air balloons floating above the darkened beach on the last day of the Spring Festival. The huge fireworks exploding overhead, so close we could feel their heat, as waves lapped against our toes. The strange screeching lizard that woke me up in the middle of night, perched next to my head. My unfortunate accident on a boogie board (I'm still limping).The fact that the not-quite-snug swimming suit I bought here keeps getting knocked off by waves (I've managed to avoid exposing myself to everyone on the beach...mostly).

The days have been full. It's been good.