Oh China, I'm so going to miss the perks of working here! We're in one of those times of the year where you can't help but love the fact that you're in China and not anywhere else. This past week I had the privilage of chaperoning the school trip to Hainan. At first glance this doesn't appear to be so much a privilage as a curse, but as I pleasantly discovered this week, chaperoning doesn't have to be all bad! Hainan is an absolutely gorgeous island in the south of China, west of Hong Kong. We stayed in the resort town of Sanya, and it felt nothing like any part of China I've ever seen before! Hainan is called the Hawaii of China, and that's no exaggeration. I couldn't believe how blue and clean and beautiful everything was. Water, air, sky, three things China does not do well, and here they all were and they were all breath-taking! The sand was unlike sand I ever encountered before. It was the softest, whitest, cleanest sand I've ever had the luxury of laying on! And the hotel...there are no words. I was expecting a China holiday on this trip. China hotels are not pretty. They are square boxes, with twin size beds, cockroaches, mosquitoes, a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor to shower over and that's about it. But this, this was heaven! I have never in my life stayed in such a fancy hotel, or slept in such a wonderful bed! I had a luxury suite all to myself, how fantastic is that?! We're talking king-size bed, huge bathtub, 50 channels of satellite tv, and the most amazing view from an absolutely fabulous balcony. Can you tell I liked the room? I came home to my little queen-size bed on Thursday and it felt so small, it was kind of sad. And the pool at this hotel, it was straight out of a travel brochure! We had 150 kids on this trip and we ALL fit in the pool with room to spare! It was MASSIVE! And right out the back of the pool area was the ocean with a private beach for the hotel guests, so we had beach chairs and umbrellas and a little restaurant and jet skies and inflatable rafts and a volleyball net and parasailing and the list goes on! So we got to the hotel Tuesday at 11am, ate a little brunch and swam and suntanned all day. Tuesday we did a half day of shopping in downtown Sanya and then went back to the hotel for more sun and swimming. Thursday was another full day of sun and surf and then we came home at 10pm Thursday night. The kids were relatively good. Nothing major went wrong, no really bad stuff, just the usual stupid kid stuff. A few jellyfish stings, a few kids trying to sneak out at night, a few kids trying to hide in other people's rooms after curfew, but I mean that's always going to happen on these kinds of trips. The only unfortunate part for me was the sleep deprevation. We had to be at school at 4:30am on Tuesday to leave for the airport and then it was a full day, plus staying up until midnight until the kids were settled. Then getting up at 7am for breakfast (that wasn't optional for the teachers), and then staying up until 3am until the kids were settled the second night, and again getting up at 7am for breakfast. I had four cups of coffee Thursday morning, but still, I was a zombie most of the day. I'm still trying to catch up, but we have to work this whole weekend because next week is our spring break holiday and we have to make up some school days. It's a bit of a tough slug right now, but in two days I'm on holiday, so I'm looking forward to a lot of sleep in the very near future! :) Hooray for Chinese holidays!
Here are a few choice pictures of Sanya, you can check out the pictures section for more.