Our week started by deciding to head on Mondays bar crawl. Typical chawker saw the responsibility to show her sister a good night whilst on her Etihad stopover, so we saw it our responsibility to join to fun, and head to the airport at 4am after a night out. However, once I get tired my body shuts down and I was definitely found having a powernap on the sofas in the bathroom. After falling asleep unwillingly about 5 times, I took the role of the responsible drunk, confiscated passports and checked us in. Success. And we headed to Sanya! Feeling very delirious on the plane only made us more confused when we all woke up to the cabin crew exercise routine. A serious routine they know as well as the safety demo, to stretch everyone before landing. Only in china.
Once we arrived, we headed straight to the beach. Bikinis on, hair up and tanning time. In retrospect, we should have invested in suncream first, I have never been so burnt in my life and am now shedding my skin like there's no tomorrow. Sexy. If only the Chinese sold proper cream that didnt have skin whitener in, I could probably moisturise!
 |
The beach was amazing though. And so worth it, got myself some sexy tan lines to show off... Who doesn't want flower shaped sunburn on their chest?!
Oooops. Don't tell my Nan...she'll kill me!
Sanya was literally FULL of Chinese people, a handful of westerners is all we saw. And they were alll Russian pretty much. Observing how the Chinese act on holiday is a real treat to the eye, and often comical. For example, the ladies that take their umbrellas swimming in the sea so they don't catch the sun? Orrrrr the man who spat (lots of phlegm) in his wife's face to impress his friends in the sea. Orrr the ridiculous number of sleezy men that took photos of us sunbathing, my personal 'favourite' was the man who was in awe of my bum, face planted in my towel I clearly didn't realise he was observing my backside until Twist got my attention. I hope he was just trying to make out the letters of 'SoCal' as opposed to judging me for being a fatty. We had men asking to take our photos, men pretending to subtly take photos and failing and then just men that stood next to us staring. After a day, it got a bit frustrating. I'm not a pretty sleeper, and I really am not happy about my sleeping face and sweaty beach pictures being in several Chinese mens photo albums, eww. Chinese men are basically obsessed, even the taxi drivers who turn around and creepily tell you in Chinese you're really beautiful, what more can I say other than 谢谢 and I quickly changed the conversation. Most awkward taxi ride ever. Creepy!
Food in Sanya was sensational. I never used to like any form of food from the sea, and I now can't get enough. Never eaten so many prawns and oysters in my life, but when the oysters are 20p for each one, and cooked sooo nicely in a garlic flavouring, you can't say no. Almost every day we picked fresh shellfish from the tanks of various fish, so much fun but also pretty sad watching the little guys swim around and then consuming them merely 5 minutes later. Sorry fishies, but my dad would be mega proud. We've been back two days, I already want oysters again.
One thing I love is that the amount of street dancers everyday was so cheery, the same song all the time and could even hear it down at the beach front from the balcony, my favourite part was when the dancers had a break and Charles and Twist began the Macarena. Not the most in sync Macarena I have seen, but it certainly attracted a few looks.
Isn't the Music cheery though?
I learnt that 'cockfighting' is a real thing too last week. Genuine chickens fighting to win. Probability is they'll all be slaughtered soon because of bird flu anyway though, the poor chickens. Spend their lives fighting each other to win. It doesn't even make sense, what in life could you achieve by saying 'world champion cock fighter owner', nothing, absolutely nothing!
For once, I didn't go out much whilst we were away, a mix of sunstroke, exhaustion aaand feeling ill meant me and Emma stayed in most nights, however we made it to the beach by a reasonable hour, which can't really be said for the others! We found a secluded part of the beach too, twas lovely. We also managed to avoid the majority of the evening mosquito bites the others obtained. Didn't help us that much though, we still got bitten alive. We probably should have researched the malaria risk of the island a bit more before going!
With the bird flu situation here and being faced with malaria ridden mosquitoes in Hainan, we're all crossing our fingers pretty tightly that illness is not going to strike!
And now were back, back to class and back to preparing for our first batch of exams next week. It really sucks how you can go from so happy and chilled to so stressed in a matter of a few hours!
Wish us luck!
