Government Mandated Holiday #1

So here in the PRC the government mandates all of the national holidays. They can change each year... it all depends on the people in charge at the time (and maybe a little $$). This year we had a 3 day break in mid-September for Autumn festival. For the festival two friends of mine, Kyle, and I went to Tantou Island with a local excursion group. We weren't quite ready to be booking our own traveling in Chinese yet... The trip started with an 8am pick up in downtown Shanghai. From Shanghai we had a 4 hour bus ride south and to the coast where we boarded a barge boat that took us to the island. We arrived at the island and then took a golf cart ride to the area of the island we would be staying on. There was an option to stay in a hostel on the island or you could camp on the beach. Kyle brought his tent to China with him, so we camped. After we got our tent set up, the island locals were nice enought to inform us that the tide would come up almost to the ledge where the beach ended. All of the "high land" spots had alreay been taken, so we did a lot of digging and made an 8x8 square we could put the tent on. We pulled rocks out of the sand for probably 45 minutes until we could cover the amount of rocks left with sand so it would be suitable to sleep on. For dinner we had seafood that had likely been caught that morning. It was a spread of several types of fish, calamari, several shellfish, rice patties, and even jelly fish. I tried everything. the jellyfish wasnt my favorite... but I can't say I hated it. Our tent situation worked out well. The tide came within 15 feet of us, but we were sleeping. Since I had been in China, I can say that I hadn't seen stars. Well the sky these two nights might have been the best sky I have ever seen. It was a full moon, and they had a festival one of the nights where they shot off fireworks right next to the moon. It was incredible. I thought it was going to be stupid, but it looked amazing next to the huge bright moon. It rained the next morning, so we played cards under a pavilion on the island. That afternoon we hiked to the top of the "mountain" that was on the island. There were close to 20 wind machines on the peaks of these mountains. I NEEDED to touch one.

It was good hike; about 3 hours total. It was mostly on gravel roads, but we went through 2 deserted town areas that the workers and their families lived in when they were installing the wind machines, but when they were finished, they just left. I mean they left in a hurry. There were still shoes on the mats outside peoples doors and in staircases. Kyle thinks something else happened on this island that made people leave in a hurry. I guess we will never know. The rest of the trip included eating tons of seafood, a bit of beach time, and enjoying the company of other expats we met on the trip as well as some local chinese people. The second night was supposed to be a barbeque. "BURGERS! YES!" I thought. Well, the Chinese tour guides tried very hard to make the Americans happy and full of delicions hamburger meat, but that just didn't happen. The meat was more than rare, it still fell apart in between the bun. Somehow a few people choked a full burger down. I couldn't even bring myself to eat a bite. They also had a fire and some marshmallows to cook over the fire. GREAT! Another let down. Fruit flavored marshmallows. Apple and strawberry. I did eat those... and they weren't half bad. Regular is better, but a flame broiled strawberry marshmallow is nothing to complain about. We stayed up late this night around the campfire and learned some Chinese games. We hit the sack one more time and in the AM got up to have breakfast and then sit on a barge/bus/taxi for 5 hours back. When we got back, it was universally decided between Kyle, Cameron, Emily, and I that we needed some good western food after 3 days of seafood. That s exactly what we did. I had a glass of white wine and a big pile of chicken mushroom alfredo linguini. Mmm. Then I went home and slept in a bed. Glorius bed sleep.