We just had a glorious visit to Hainan Island with my folks – the southernmost tip of China (at least the undisputed part of China) . . according to the Chinese there are things further south. But that’s another story. The pictures speak for themselves. It was pure luxury and a welcome change from our small apartment in polluted Xi’an. The swimming/beach pictures are from the hotel we stayed at – complete with water slides, beachfront, banana boats (we got thrown in the middle of the ocean), seawater pool, daily acrobatic show, you name it. Most of the tourists were Chinese, but there were also a ton of Russians, not to mention Koreans and a few other Westerners. Noam at one point looked at me and said, “it doesn’t even feel like we’re in China anymore.” Apparently Hainan, the island, feels very much like other parts of China, just with more tropical weather, but the place where we stayed for almost all of our visit (it was hard to drag ourselves away) – Yalong Bay, Sanya – is really an international resort. My dad and Tal even played golf one day, and there was lots of things to buy at VERY Western prices.
We took one day trip to a fun place called Monkey Island, where the monkeys roam freely. Even Tal came with us to Monkey Island, although it was touch and go for awhile. This time the monkeys stayed away from him, and he did his best to avoid sudden movements.
