Hainan Island

Our next stop was a beautiful little spot called Hainan Island. We were only here for two days, but what a magical resort spot - perfect weather, warm ocean waters, beautiful beaches, charming town.

The first beach we drove and walked to was basically deserted. So amazing to find any spot that's a part of China where we could by ourselves.

A fishing boat passing by:

The next beach had lots of people, but with well-maintained walkways through the trees, as well as the beautiful sandy shore to stroll along.

I love these gnarly trees and this descriptive sign: 

At the end of the beach is this rock. The Chinese characters say "End of the earth", so everyone like to prove that they've been to the end of the earth, and back.

Finally we got to get into the water, although I don't have any pictures of that because I was in the water. We had been hearing that they had turned off the heat in our dorms back in Qingdao, but it was hard to imagine being cold and miserable when we were a world away on a pleasant beach with warm water. This is part of our group:

Shanghai Museum

I've been to some dusty, dark  old museums before, but this was not one of them.  The building was beautiful; the displays were well lit, and the artifacts so impressive. There were four floors with several rooms and each room had it's own theme. I have included just 1-2 objects from each room. Wish you could have been there for the whole tour.

Cool Masks






Intricate Tapestries

Typical dress of minority groups

This was fascinating because it was made of something cool - like lizard or fish - but now I can't remember.

Mask stitched onto funerary cloth

Elaborate headgear

Marble furniture












Gorgeous wood furniture

 Beautiful porcelain

Can you guess the purpose of this one?
It's a chamber pot!






Three more to guess:

Yep! Three very hard, very high pillows!

Another great design!











Cool statuary!

 A Bell

Weapon

 Guess what these are. Not knives - money!  And I guess that enough to give you an idea of this amazing museum!
The End
                                                                                                                                                                   

Shanghai Part 2

While most of the others continued to shop, three of us decided to tour an elaborate old dwelling compound with living space around a courtyard - obviously a very wealthy family. I wish I could convey the feeling we had of stepping off the hectic, noisy, packed streets of Shanghai and into this peaceful, open space.
First part - the roof line
Second part - walls and garden
Third part - halls and rooms

Yep, that's me in the red coat.

Long dragon tail!

 A few foggy views from the top of this TV tower:

 In the Race to the Top -
The pointy building in the middle used to be the tallest in the world 10 years ago. The one on the left passed it up as the tallest in China, but will be surpassed next year by the one under construction. The one in Dubai is still the world's tallest.

Yangtze River

Out on a glass ledge looking straight down.

One of the many funny signs we've seen