please pass the rice: leg #2: travel China, Haikou

Our first day at the resort in Haikou it rained, again, so we were basically stuck indoors. We determined, after a thorough investigation of the resort, that we were two of maybe ten guests. We later found out that the whole place was basically just dead during the week; on the weekend there were a lot more people around, mostly Chinese, and more services/amenities were available. We preferred the dead times.

No one that worked there really spoke English, there was one concierge (Bruce), one front desk agent (Linda) and two servers (Doris and Jack) in the whole place with a basic grasp of the language. Jack cracked us up, the first time we met him, he said, "Hey!" as a greeting. It took a second to register that he had spoken English and said something really informal; when it dawned on us, we looked at each other and started laughing. Whomever had taught Jack English only taught him really casual language, so everything he said was completely inappropriate for a staff member at a five star resort, but really fun for us.

The place was pretty nice though, it had a private beach, hot springs and a huge spa, including pools with the fish that eat the dead skin off your body. I did the fish thing in Cambodia, but you can only do your feet there, not your whole body (which was very cool as long as there wasn't really anyone else in that pool).

These were some of the hot springs. I was a bit disappointed, I was expecting something natural looking, like pools carved into the rocks where the water came from. Not so much here though. The pools were all like regular pools, tiled and whatnot, with the hot spring water piped in; they just looked dirtier then regular pools.

The trappings of a great day: beach, beer and treasure.

We signed up for a three day spa package at the resort. We never did figure out if they thought we were dating or what, but they turned our package into a couples' thing, so all of our services were tandem, same room, same time. It was very romantic, lol.

The spa gave us these sweet, silk pjs to wear. That were huge. So we added pillows and wandered around sumo wrestling in them. The beauty of having a resort to yourself.

We mocked this card in our room for the disposable underwear, but we actually ended up wearing some after each spa service. They were ridiculous.

And yeah, these were in our room too. I think there miiiight be a typo.

We hired a driver for the day one day and checked out some local attractions. The hotel had a big list of things to see and do nearby, so we hit a volcanic geopark, a temple and an old shopping street. A lot of the other stuff on the list was way to expensive for what it was. Hainan is basically just known for its beaches and the hot springs.

Our driver that day was AWESOME. He didn't really speak English, but between his English and my Chinese we were fine.