ivman's blague

We have finished the first of our three weeks of classes, and our students seem to be enjoying what they’re learning. The officials in charge of us here at the university are eager for us to experience many of the places and cultural aspects of the island. At first they wanted us to leave with a tour group on Friday afternoon and return late Sunday. We asked them to please shorten that to just the day Saturday since we needed time this weekend to rest and to prepare for next week’s classes. They said they understood and that we would just concentrate this weekend on several sites not far from our city of Haikou.

The only expression that I can think of to describe yesterday’s day of tourism is “sensory overload.” I do not at all mean that in a negative sense - it was an absolutely great day! During the course of the day, though, every one of our five senses was assailed by so many sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures that it’s hard to know where to begin to recount them to you. I’ll just go through the day in chronological order. We were met at 7:40 a.m. at our appartment by a university mini-van and its driver, the vice-dean of finance, and one of my students, the daughter of the man directly responsible for us “foreign teachers” this summer. Alice, another “foreign teacher” who is a former student of mine from BJ, and her fiance Caleb who lives here completed our group of seven.

We went first towards the sea, stopping at a stand so that each of us could drink the milk of a coconut.

We made several stops along the way to see some beautiful places along the sea. The picture below shows the early morning sun on the South China Sea. You can see the city in the background.

Our main destination of the morning was Crater Park. At this park we hiked to the top of an extinct volcano. Below is a scene along part of the hike up. There were beautiful gardens almost everywhere.

We even saw bird of paradise in bloom.

As you can see, it’s not at all a rugged trail. The only thing that made the climb difficult was that the temperature was moving toward the 38 C (100 F) degree mark that would be the high for the day. Here is a look down into the crater - remember that this is an extinct volcano.

On the way down we stopped by a tourist stand in the park. Caleb bought us all a Magnum ice cream bar. Those of you who have ever had one can best imagine how much we enjoyed this cool treat.

After the hike we returned to the city for lunch at Dumpling Plaza. Not only did we enjoy several kinds of JiaoZi (see an earlier blog entry for an explanation), but also a hot pot typical of a family dinner table. It contained potatoes, green beans, pork, small sections of an ear of corn, and many other etcs. Around the sides of the pan were sweet corn meal pancakes.

After lunch, during the heat of the day, we all went home for a nap. The same group met again shortly after 3:00 to go on a slightly longer drive to see the mangroves. Along the way we saw many things that I was unable to photograph well from the van - rice paddies with water buffalo, duck farms, banana groves, and buildings ranging from simple farm houses to gorgeous governmental buildings.

At the mangroves we went to the pier below.

As best we can determine, the motor on the tour boat was broken, so they negotiated with a fisherman to tow us in a boat behind his fishing boat.

We learned that mangroves are trees that grow in salt water, and only in a few locations in the world. The trees have the ability to filter out the salt and take in only fresh water. Below is a closer shot of the mangroves.

While there we also saw some wild pineapples. They grow on tree-like plants taller than us!

Then we went back into the city to Green Park, the largest “green space” in the whole nation. From the size of the crowd, it looked like there would be a festival going on - but it was a typically good way to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon/evening. Below is a cute little girl - I couldn’t resist photographing her pigtails!

Then we went to another restaurant for dinner. One of the neat experiences here was the tea we were served. Below is a picture of the server filling Caleb’s tea cup with hot water.

Below is a picture of what our chrysanthemum tea looked like - extremely tasty!

At this restaurant the food and floor show after the meal are typical of the northwestern part of this country.

After all that food, we may need to reread our latest iv on diets!

Tags: China, food, travel

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