Hainan and Chinese New Year

January 14, I landed in Haikou, the capital of Hainan in the north, and my host mom met me at the airport. She rented a car for the trip and had her friend come with us everywhere. Her friend, Li Song, is a tour guide who lives in Haikou. We stayed at his apartment for the first night. He has a wife and a son, but i didn't see them. Their apartment has this huge portrait of his wife in the living room. Haikou was kind of chilly and cloudy and dreary, but the south of the island was completely different: really warm and sunny. We drove a lot and saw a few tourist sights along the way, but I was mostly content just riding in the car looking at the scenery. Mountains and palm trees everywhere. There are so many coconuts in Hainan it's preposterous. Everything is coconut flavored. We had some seafood, but it actually wasn't that good. I got sick from something and I didn't feel much like eating most of the time we were in Hainan. It's really a lot like Thailand: the climate, the people, some of the food (except not as good), the culture, so it felt very familiar.
     We stayed at another of my host mom's friends' place and I took pictures of her adorable twins. She sort of commissioned me to take them for her. I think they turned out alright. We continued on to the south the next day. Met up with Li Song's wife, who works at this ridiculously lavish golf resort for super rich people. Li Song's wife is gorgeous. We spent the night at a hotel nearby and I didn't sleep much because I was pretty sick. I couldn't keep water in me and I was getting pretty dehydrated. The next couple days I felt dizzy on and off, really tired, really sensitive to temperature changes, and I had no appetite. We finally got to Sanya, the city in the very south of the island, and stayed in a hotel there for the last 3 days. This is where we saw the most things. Since Li Song is a tour guide and my host mom borrowed her friend's tour guide ID badge, we got into a lot of tourist sites for free. The sights were pretty cool, but I've never been much of a tourist honestly. It always feels so gimmicky, and Sanya was practically built to create a source of revenue from tourism. And it shows. Everything felt so gaudy. I really like to get immersed in the culture of the everyday people of places I visit. To see how ordinary people live, what they do, what they eat. I got to see a little of that, but not a whole lot. It was still pretty awesome to be there though. It reminded me of how diverse China is.
     It was nice to see my host mom again and to practice my Chinese. She paid for everything too, which I protested against. It was a lot of money and I felt pretty guilty about it. She insisted though and wouldn't take my money. I lucked out with my host family. They're in their 30s. They're pretty modern and laid back. They like to take me places. My host "dad" also loves photography, so he takes me on photo trips and we share our photos and tips and tricks. A lot of other volunteers weren't so lucky with their host families. The only thing that sucks is that I don't get much time to myself when I'm with them. It's just a constant barrage of attention. While I was in Hainan, I started to feel that again. My host mom pays way too much attention to me and by the end of the trip I was craving some time alone.
    We flew to Chengdu on the 20th and celebrated Chinese New Year. All four of my host family's parents came to the apartment and spent the whole day there. We ate two big meals and they played majiang literally all day. I played for a while, but I soon had to do something else. It kind of blows my mind how old chinese people can just sit and play majiang for 6 hours at a time and not get tired of it. That night, as the hour approached midnight, there were more and more fireworks exploding all over the city. People buy fireworks from street vendors and set them off wherever they can. I went out on the balcony and was surrounded by explosions. Fireworks were hitting the sides of buildings only a few yards away in every direction. And they didn't stop after new years. Every night there were fireworks all over the place.
     Over the next few days, we went to visit other relatives and spent entire days sitting and playing, or watching old people play, majiang. Other than that, I mostly sat in my room reading, editing and uploading photos, and writing. My host dad's mother taught me how to make jiaozi. She is super sweet and sometimes reminds me of my own Chinese grandmother. We made tons of jiaozi and ate a lot of it. By the time I left for IST, I was sick of jiaozi.