A week in a small fishing village

Greetings from Sanya Phoenix International Airport. My flight is supposed to begin boarding in about 20 minutes, but I have a sinking suspicion it won’t depart on time. There were thunderstorms this afternoon and everything seems to be be backed up. Nonetheless, I fulfilled a more than decade-long dream of visiting Hainan Island (which is also Hainan Province). One of the things that I like to do is take advantage of all the interesting places my friends live (although I go to places where I don’t know anyone too).

Shortly before I departed the U.S. for China I messaged my friend A to tell her I was coming to visit. She replied that she wasn’t in Beijing like I thought she was, but was instead working in Sanya and I could visit her there. I was able to find some time in my travel schedule and this past Sunday evening I flew to Sanya. It turns out A was working in a small fishing village on the island of 西岛 (which means West Island) and I got to spend the week staying in this really cool renovated house. The old houses of West Island were built with coral and we stayed in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house that had been completely renovated, but still retained much of its old-fashioned charm. 

I spent the week relaxing and wandering the village and surrounding areas. Each afternoon and evening we would eat with her employees (my friend is the operations manager for a company that is renovating building and even some boats on West Island). In the evenings A and I would take a walk and explore even more of the island together.

While, I enjoyed the opportunity to have not only authentic Chinese food, but local food, I must admit I struggled with it. While I love salmon (although I won’t touch Atlantic farm raised salmon) and halibut, I don’t care for other types of fish very much. I struggle with all the little bones and I hate getting them in my mouth. Every meal (except the last one today) had at least one type of fish. Some meals had two. Each meal also had a soup and a rather bland tasting rice porridge (a couple of different types). That having been said the meals did have some really good aspects. The cooks were magicians with vegetables. Some of the vegetable dishes had to most amazing taste. Today’s lunch was also exceptionally good. One of the chefs had made a pork dish that was out of this world. The pork was succulent and flavorful. When I arrived at lunch he asked me if I liked pork (I suspect he’d heard about my not liking fish because yesterday we’d had fish and fish balls for lunch. Dinner was only the lunch leftovers and there was only one leftover vegetable dish. It thus became very apparent what I wasn’t eating) and told me he’d made the pork himself. There was also a dish which he called tofu, but it was made with eggs rather than soybeans. He proudly told me he’d made the tofu himself. There is another “tofu” dish I’ve had in China called “Japanese tofu” which is also made with eggs, but he told me that this was different (honestly, I thought it was quite similar). Lunch also consisted of soup, rice porridge and two vegetable dishes. It was a final meal on the island.

I took a lot of pictures and even a short video. I’ll upload those and post this tomorrow from Beijing. I need to go and check the status on my flight to Beijing because we’re supposed to begin boarding any minute. I hope you enjoy the pictures from this week’s adventure.

Update: I didn’t manage to get this uploaded while I was in Beijing and then I stayed in Baotou with a friend of mine that didn’t have Internet. After that I spent three days in Shanghai (Shanghai Disneyland is a lot of fun!) and now I am in Wuxi. Hopefully, I will get posts written on those adventures in the future, but for now I hope you enjoyed reading about my week in a small fishing village.

 The chef.

 Water drops on the leaves of a banana tree 

 The kitchen of the house we stayed in. The wall on the left is the original wall made of coral. 

 These are the front doors (and the view inside of the living room)

 This is jackfruit. There’s a reason it’s sold cut up.

 We hiked up to the lighthouse on top of the only hill on the island (it was a pretty good hike, especially in the heat).

 Fresh coconut water (inside the fresh coconut)

 A banana tree!

This is a zongzi after you remove the coconut leaves it’s wrapped in and two peeled lychees

The Lychees in Sanya are fresh and large

 A zongzi wrapped in coconut leaves beside two lychees. One peeled and one not.

 Hainan is a tropical island in the extreme southern part of China. 

 A coconut that fell from the coconut tree. 

 This is from the fishing boat we took to the island. The people in the front work in the kitchen for the company my friend manages operations for.

These buildings are located on a completely artificial island. Apparently these are luxury condos and extremely expensive.