Saturday, June 03, 2006
Weather, missed Trips and Football
Somehow, despite Hannah's massive post, she managed to forget a few things, about which I shall now recant.
About a month ago we had a weeks holiday - to celebrate workers day - China's second biggest holiday. The local government's foreign affairs department arranged for loads of invited foreigners to go and visit a special village outside Haikou. We never did work out the point of the trip - although there were loads of press (TV news people, three photographers and others) all trying to take our pictures. One photographer became particularly keen on taking pictures of Hannah. She, however, had other ideas, and spent most of the day turning away from the guy - you could see him getting more and more desperate as the hours went by and the number of pictures of Hannah's back steadily grew - I think he got a couple of good ones in the end though. You might think this slightly mean, but if you see a Chinese person with a camera then they are most likely pointing the camera straight at you, rather than their wife who is patiently posing (oh yeah, and not smiling, the Chinese never seem to smile in photos). The trip was pretty bizarre and pointless, although we got to see a mangrove forest and some modern looking houses in the middle of a jungle. Plus we got lots of free, albeit rather odd, food. The whole bbq'ed fish was the nicest, almost as good as the coconut rice (literally sticky rice in a quarter of coconut), however it wasn't so nice when the Chinese guy sitting next to us deftly plucked the eyeball out from his fish and popped it in his mouth!
A few days later we went with a friend to a Chinese tourist attraction, Shishan Volcanic Crater National Geopark - UNESCO recently visited it. It was pretty cool, there were a couple of extinct volcanoes dotted around and you could climb one and climb inside. They were veruy picturesque as they were covered in trees and shrubs. However, the whole site was very chinified, with concrete steps everywhere and lots of bizarre unnatural scenes to look at (pineapple plantation, "traditional" dancing, old people singing local songs etc.). Of much greater interest were these old caves that we went to see nearby. There were loads of interconnecting cave systems, made by the flow of lava from the volcanoes. Even cooler was this small village nearby that was entirely constructed from volcanic rock (basalt?). It was a really lovely looking village - we shall whack some photos up soon.
Those are the two major things that Hannah forgot to say. Life continues as normal here. The weather is very odd at the moment, and very regular. The morning starts out very hot and sunny, with clear skies. Then around one it clouds over and by four or five there is a thunderstorm with very heavy rain. Then by eight the clouds have gone and it is very hot and humid again. Kinda strange.
Finally, the World Cup is pretty popular out here - and loads of shops have got a football theme going on. Not one to miss out on a chance, Coca Cola have joined in, with really bad paintings of Rooney plastered around the place. He has evil red eyes - slightly odd choice of colour. Anyway, I'll post a picture of it later.
About a month ago we had a weeks holiday - to celebrate workers day - China's second biggest holiday. The local government's foreign affairs department arranged for loads of invited foreigners to go and visit a special village outside Haikou. We never did work out the point of the trip - although there were loads of press (TV news people, three photographers and others) all trying to take our pictures. One photographer became particularly keen on taking pictures of Hannah. She, however, had other ideas, and spent most of the day turning away from the guy - you could see him getting more and more desperate as the hours went by and the number of pictures of Hannah's back steadily grew - I think he got a couple of good ones in the end though. You might think this slightly mean, but if you see a Chinese person with a camera then they are most likely pointing the camera straight at you, rather than their wife who is patiently posing (oh yeah, and not smiling, the Chinese never seem to smile in photos). The trip was pretty bizarre and pointless, although we got to see a mangrove forest and some modern looking houses in the middle of a jungle. Plus we got lots of free, albeit rather odd, food. The whole bbq'ed fish was the nicest, almost as good as the coconut rice (literally sticky rice in a quarter of coconut), however it wasn't so nice when the Chinese guy sitting next to us deftly plucked the eyeball out from his fish and popped it in his mouth!
A few days later we went with a friend to a Chinese tourist attraction, Shishan Volcanic Crater National Geopark - UNESCO recently visited it. It was pretty cool, there were a couple of extinct volcanoes dotted around and you could climb one and climb inside. They were veruy picturesque as they were covered in trees and shrubs. However, the whole site was very chinified, with concrete steps everywhere and lots of bizarre unnatural scenes to look at (pineapple plantation, "traditional" dancing, old people singing local songs etc.). Of much greater interest were these old caves that we went to see nearby. There were loads of interconnecting cave systems, made by the flow of lava from the volcanoes. Even cooler was this small village nearby that was entirely constructed from volcanic rock (basalt?). It was a really lovely looking village - we shall whack some photos up soon.
Those are the two major things that Hannah forgot to say. Life continues as normal here. The weather is very odd at the moment, and very regular. The morning starts out very hot and sunny, with clear skies. Then around one it clouds over and by four or five there is a thunderstorm with very heavy rain. Then by eight the clouds have gone and it is very hot and humid again. Kinda strange.
Finally, the World Cup is pretty popular out here - and loads of shops have got a football theme going on. Not one to miss out on a chance, Coca Cola have joined in, with really bad paintings of Rooney plastered around the place. He has evil red eyes - slightly odd choice of colour. Anyway, I'll post a picture of it later.
