Haikou, China

Haikou is the capital and most populous city of Hainan province, People’s Republic of China with about 2,000,000 people. The southern end of the Hainan province is considered the Hawaii of China. I’m not sure we agreed with that, but hey, our standards are a bit different.
We had to do a "face to face" with our passports to disembark the ship, and for some reason, they didn't like Jeff and I. We got pulled aside while Jim and Nancy watched closely. There was much discussion, all in Chinese and whatever the decision was, they let us go.
We were only here a short time, but we wandered into a park, and it being a Saturday morning during the Chinese New Year celebration, it was packed! There were probably 8-10 dance events taking place. We weren’t sure if these were classes, had someone leading a group or were just for fun. As we continued to wander through the park, there was croquet, numerous pingpong games, cards and ball games involving 2-3 people. Then we came upon an area that had dozens of pieces of permanent exercise equipment – all in use! It was fascinating!
The only ones having a better time than us, were all the locals taking pictures of us!
There was even one mother that gathered her childen around us to get a photo. So, if you see us on Facebook, don’t be surprised!
In any case, this fairly busy city broke us in to the crowds we will encounter in Hong Kong tomorrow. We have become fairly complacent, sailing around small islands here and there throughout our trip. Even some of the bigger cities didn’t seem too intense. We’ll let you know how it goes. Czytaj więcej