A long time coming.

Part 1 - because my hand cramps when i type too long... -_-

Well kiddies sorry I have been gone for a while. It was a matter of being busy, tired, lazy, and just not around. But I shall try to make light of what has passed these few weeks. First there was the vacation. Here there is a holiday called National Day (October 1). This holiday is quite amazing because most everyone gets off from work/school for a whole week. So this was awesome, but at first it was kinda bad cause I did not have my passport back yet from the god knows who bureau that gives you your visa. So I didn't want to make any plans since I wasn't sure if I could do anywhere. Some of you may be thinking... just travel in China. It's not that simple. Here in Shenzhen there is a special border. The inner districts are part of what they call the SEZ (special economic zone). In order to get in you need working papers or a Visa. So there was the off chance that if I traveled when i would try to come back into the SEZ I would be asked for papers and not let back in because of the lack of them. So I didn't want to make any plans until I got my Visa. So when did I get the holy grail...the Friday before the vacay. So the rush planning began.

I knew that I wanted to travel with someone who knew a thing or two about picking up and going somewhere. So who better I thought than Rachel and to my excitement Rachel would be traveling with Lauren and Taylor. All 3 are returns to China, world travelers and awesome people, so I was glad to go anywhere they were. So I pretty much left the decision making up to them and agreed to go anywhere they thought would be cool. They started looking into flight info to different countries. Some places were crazy expensive, and no shit since we were doing this the weekend before one of the biggest holiday/breaks here. Then we found a few that weren't too bad but there was a problem... these were all online deals and they all required a credit card. None of us had one or if we did it was a bank card and no one had the amount of cash we needed to pay for it. So then they tried travel agencies. The prices ballooned to a crazy amount leaving us bewildered. We soon talk and agree upon a place called Sanya. It is on Hainan Island just west and south of us. It is nicknamed the Hawaii of China but soon would be known for nothing of the sort.

It is now Monday, I have a small suitcase packed with random stuff since we only decide on Sanya in the local starbucks that day. We buy the tickets that afternoon and head to the airport. The Shenzhen airport isn't bad at all. And my most favorite thing ever is when they say a flight will be leaving at 9:40 it is in the air at that time. No horrible taxi-ing for an hour. But one thing that made me laugh was when the announcements were telling you that the plane was gonna take off soon they literally said... flight blah blah blah is going to be leaving soon please make your way to the gate. Soon O.o! what is that... like 20 minutes....5 minutes.... only in china would they say soon at an airport and not a definite time frame. Ahh that also falls into the maybe category, i will explain that one soon, lol. No really I will but the maybe explanation is it's own post i think.

Ok so back to the story.. damn sidebars... So yeah we take a nice short 45 minute plane ride... sweet huh? And then we arrive to the lovely pit pat of typhoon rain. We have landed right as a small one is passing over, but we don't let that get us down. We stand in the lobby area trying to decide where we are going, since we landed on the other side of the island and Sanya is a 3 hour bus ride away. Lucky for us we briefly talked to a nice lady (American) who actually lives in Hainan, she sees us standing there and asks where we are off to. We tell her we have no clue and she offers to take us into town to find a hotel to stay for the night and in the morning we can make our way to Sanya. We are totally grateful but soon i am conflicted with this act of kindness. Because she is meeting up with her family. A husband and 4 kids. They do have a cool van but who do i get sat down next to... the 10 year old. Now if any of you know me personally you can imagine what I will say next. I thought I was gonna shoot myself in the face..... That little girl talked my ear off like there was no tomorrow -_- I hate children and this was karma getting back at me. We rode in the van for what felt like days... until i saw freedom on the horizon and it was a hotel.

The nice woman walked us into the lobby, did her Chinese thing and got us a room for 400 kuai when it was a business suite that usually costs 1,600 kuai a night. Now those are some china skills. We thank her and settle into the room. It's very nice, 2 beds, western bathroom and a computer with internet. The last was the most important because we used this to look up where we would be staying in Sanya. Both Rachel and Lauren had been here before so when the hostel that Lauren had stayed in showed availability we decided that was where we would stay. So the next day we head out. The hotel offered the night before to order us a private car to take us to Sanya. The car costs the same as the bus which would've made a million stops and therefor taken longer. So we opt for the car and make our way to Sanya.

Part 2 next time... fingers need a break.