Haikou--China unplugged

This photo says quite a lot about our day in Haikou, Hainan.  Aside from our berth in a very industrialized area, the skies were overcast and drizzly.  David had a cold and was uninspired by the included excursion for which we were booked, so he said he would stay on the ship.  A mother-daughter duo that I know (Joan and Kate) said they were going to bag the excursion and just take the shuttle bus to the Old Town area and go shopping--so I tagged along.  

 Hainan is the southernmost province of China and Haikou is it's capital.  There are over 2 million residents in four districts covering 880 square miles.  Because I didn't go on an excursion with a guide, I have little information about the city.  I'm not sure I'd be in any better shape if I had gone on the excursion as others that I talked with the next day reported that they couldn't understand a word their guide said.  So I will just share what I did ashore and the impressions I brought back with me.

 We had a welcoming party who met us after we went through the terminal.  There was a troupe of dancers who were using bamboo poles in a stick dance.  One of the passengers thought it looked fun and decided to jump into it.  That idea cost her a broken ankle.




There were even some friendly dragons next to our red carpet.

The shuttle bus took us to Zhongshan Road in the Qiongshan District of Haikou.  This area of the Old Town shows Portuguese and French architectural influence as a result of their presence in the early 1800s.  

The style of architecture is called Qilou and consists of columns that elevate the upper floors, leaving open-air shop fronts and covered walkways.  The upper floor facades are Baroque in style with Indian and Arabic accents.  The street has been pedestrianized, which makes for an easy stroll.  

A Chinese band welcomed us to this street that has been restored and made appealing to tourists.  It was quite an interesting sound to our untrained western ears.

This is just one of the many fascinating and intriguing shops on the Zhongshan Road.  Several of the people in the shops spoke a little English, or had their translation app open on their cell phone and had us speak our question into the phone.  I managed to find a lovely red wrap with sleeves and was able to communicate enough with the sales clerk to get the price and pay for it.  

At the end of the street was another road which ran perpendicularly and had normal vehicular traffic.  Things were getting a little less sanitized and a little more interesting.  Within a couple of steps, we found a fabric store.  I scanned the rolls of fabric looking for what I think of as "traditional" Chinese fabric to put into the crazy quilt that I'm making as a memento of the trip.  As soon as I found a piece that I wanted, the communication challenge began.  "Can you cut 1/2 meter of this for me?"  The clerk in this store knew no English at all.  There was a lot of sign language attempts until finally, a couple of young men stopped by who knew enough English to help us out.  I got my fabric and paid for it.  Then Joan found a piece that she wanted.  We couldn't see any of the people who had helped us previously.  Then we saw a man sitting behind a desk, so we took the fabric to him, pointed out the width that we wanted and made scissor motions with our fingers.  He looked at us a little puzzled, then pulled out his small note pad and proceeded to write three lines of Chinese characters and showed it to us.  I wondered what about my very western looking face made him think I would be able to read his characters.  We smiled our thanks and left to keep going on our search.  

A little farther along I saw this dress shop.  It was in an alley, no more than 3 feet wide, between two buildings.  I wonder what the rent was for that space.

We made one more turn onto a smaller side street and things got really interesting.  Joan and I both said at once, "Now I'm really in China!".  

This little shop was filled with lace, ribbon, and every other kind of notion you might want.  

                                              No English translation on these shop marquees.

This man's humble shop had a limited stock and only a big umbrella for a covering.

These dried geese looked a little like road-kill to me, but now I realize that in a country where electricity may be too expensive for many people, dried foods will keep with no refrigeration.

This was the second woman I saw dressed like this.  They both were busy keeping the streets clean.

This method of carrying things to market is much less commonly seen these days, but she was the second one I saw that afternoon.

Children everywhere are adorable.  The little boy was very chivalrous and helped the girl get on the little car.

As we headed back to the "car park" to get on the shuttle bus, I saw that the parking spots were not only marked with the lines of brick, but with these little trees.  I guess there's no such thing as straddling the line here.

We got on the bus a little drippy, but happy that we'd had such an adventure!

It was still overcast and drizzly as we left port, but I'd had a great day seeing a small section of this city which seemed quite authentically Chinese to me--not that I'm enough of an expert to know for sure, but it felt like it!