Hainan China

Girlwing, her parents and I went for a eight days vacation to Sanya on the island Hainan, which is a tropical island south of China. Hainan is famous for its beautiful beaches, fancy hotels, pretty seashells, tasty seafood, giant Guan Yin (观音) and sweet coconut candies.

To the left you can see the first hotel we stayed at. GuestHouse International Hotel in Sanya is quite fancy with a great view from the top of the mountain and not too far from the beach. We payed around 400 yuan per night for a room.

The Guesthouse by night.

This little friend was waiting outside our hotel room one morning.

One day we went to NanTian Hot Springs outdoor spa. There they have fish that feed on visitors. They like exotic Swedish flesh.

Another day we went to see the giant GuanYin. On the way there we stumbled over some ancient grafitti. This one say longevity (长寿).

Here you can read "Live long and prosper" (寿无量).

These are common in temples and used for praying.

The entrance to the temple. Over the entrance you can see "二不" which should be read from right to left and literally means "not two". I leave it as your homework to figure out the deeper meaning of that.

The goal to our journey. A view of the giant Guan Yin.

Guan Yin again.

Next day we spent some time in the town and I found several interesting things to take pictures on. This is some strange tea.

When it is hot and the sun stands high, you should protect your skin from the strong sun.

Selling narcotics.

Need a copy of a key?

Or maybe buy some second handed shoes?

Here we are selling meatballs, fish balls and other kind of balls cooked in oil on a stick. To the right they sell lemonade.

In Hainan you can buy all kinds of fruit for really great prices.

Fruits are sold everywhere.

Lottery is the weeks highlight.

Selling more drugs.

A dried fish store.

An ice cold soup made of fruits like watermelon, sweet potatoes, cocnut, beans and some more stuff mixed with coconut milk and ice.

A lotus flower in a pond in the hotel area of the second hotel we stayed at.

Our bedroom in the more fancy Crowne Plaza in Sanya.

The hotel beach.

The hotel beach.

They serve drinks as well. Nice :)

This is the hotel area where we borrowed a tandem bike.

The Crowne Plaza is a really big hotel. This is just the hotel lobby. Second floor is housing a café. I like the ancient style. The hotel were the location for the miss world the same year we where there, but earlier.

Fika

In Sweden we really like this thing we call "fika". This is something we probably have done for as long as we had coffee in the country. I think coffee came to Sweden in around 1673. Maybe we had something similar even earlier when the Vikings drank their mead.

I don't know any word for it in English but when I look it up I get the translations "coffee break", "tea time" and "drink coffee". Those translations are partly true but in reality it includes some more parts like:

Finding a cosy place to be at

This is mostly of personal preference but I would choose a smaller place on a side street. Not too much people so you always can find a seat when you go there. Dark interior with sparse but strategic lighting. Soft and comfortable couches that you can sink into and relax every muscle in your body. Others might like to stay at home by the kitchen table or sit outside in the snowy forest around a crackling fire. Sometimes we have to search for a while and visit several fik until we find a vacant table at a place that we like.

An adequate supply of hot non-alcoholic beverages

The minimum needed for a Swede is regular hot black coffee but a selection of different types of coffee, tea and chocolate is something most people appreciate. Beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages does not qualify for a fika.

Good selection of snacks

Snacks are not crucial but it is something that most prefer. At least we need a cinnamon bun and a selection of small sweet cookies. If we are lucky there will be a selection of berry pies and cream cakes. It is also common with muffins and sandwiches.

Time to relax

Fika is not something you do in ten minutes. It takes at least an hour unless it is a snabbfika (fast fika) just to increase your blood sugar level. It is common that you sit and talk and drink several cups of coffee or tea for several hours.

Nice company to talk to

This is almost as important as the beverages. Bring a random friend and talk about everything and nothing. It is not the same to fika by yourself.

Chinese green tea

Before I can leave China and go back to Sweden I have to buy some real green tea. It is hard to find in a good quality for a good price back home.

Since I visited China for the first time in 2006, I have been fascinated by their green tea. It can not be compared to the cheap crap that for example Lipton makes and the imported green tea that I have tried have been old and lost most of its aroma.

I also had talked to some colleges that are interested in real Chinese green tea and I had promised to try to buy some tea home for them too. I knew that we didn't have so much space in our suitcases but I had set my mind to buy anyway even if it was just a little.

Girlwings parents are friends with a tea dealer in the area so we all went there together to buy some tea.

As you can see the store is not very big or fancy and they even sell some electronics like lamps and clocks to have on the wall.

Directly when you come in you have different kinds of green tea for display. These are the cheapest kinds in the range of 1.9 to 15 yuan for 50 grams.

We were out for the middle range of quality and those were to find behind the counter. There even exist some really fancy teas for several thousands per 50 grams but I doubt that they have them in stock here. I know that you can find them down town.

Under the glass counter there are small bowls with tea samples of a lot of different kinds. They vary a lot in price and quality. You kind of want to buy a little of them all to try.

As a bonus we bought a bag of dried red berries that you are supposed to put into hot water together with the tea. They say that the berries are good for your eyes because of the high content of vitamin A.

And of course they also sell special tea bottles. They have a lot in glass or clay and even metal thermoses. I personally use plastic bottles from FuGuang.

Chinese fika

Girlwing likes to fika. A lot... So we try to fika when we got the chance. It can be a bit hard to find any regular coffee place in Shanghai so often you might have to try something different.

You can find these alleged low quality coffee places like Starbucks (which actually is 100 times better in China than the copy Waynes coffee in Sweden) in Shanghai but it is more interesting to try the local stuff.

So we went in to a modern Chinese tea house and sat down at a table in the middle of the room. Soon I started to curse the absence of regulations against smoking in public places like this. People were smoking at most of the tables. Try to switch on the ignore mode in my brain and enjoy the moment.

We got the menus and they were impressing. They had everything and a little more that you can think of involving tea. It was not easy to make your pick but finally I decided on a cold sweet and sour green plum and green tea with aloe vera cubes and Girlwing took a cold honey green tea.

You can see my beverage in the front and Girlwings in the back. In the middle and in the beginning of this article you can see the sweet potato strips which is quite close to regular potato strips but red in colour with a little sweeter taste.

Girlwing didn't like her drink so much because she thought it was too sweet. I liked my tea even though it didn't resemble much of a tea and it was quite sour. The aloe vera cubes at the bottom was tasty and easy to suck up through the wide straw. It would be a great drink for a hot summers day.

Grönt te

Var in i en te-butik och fick provsmaka två sorters grönt te. Försäljaren var mycket noggran vid bryggningen av drycken och det var intressant att se proceduren. Det var mycket gott och vi diskuterade kvalitén och tillverkningsprocessen. Vi drack ur minimala koppar av mycket tunt porslin och så fort vi drack ur koppen så fylldes den på igen. Jag drack säkert tolv sådana små koppar. Jag köpte bägge till slut. Bara 50gr av varje för att prova men jag kommer nog köpa mer av dem senare. De var ganska dyra så jag kommer nog välja någon billigare också som jag köper mycket av och som kan räcka länge. Det blir nog inte så ofta man åker till Kina så det är bra med ett litet personligt lager.