Getting over my lazyness

Since I last wrote, I went to Hong Kong to meet my friend Jessie and we were there for a week. The week was full of big city life, Disney land Hong Kong (thanks to our friend who happens to be a princess), islands, and crazy night markets that went on for miles in narrow alleys. It was great but after a week we went to china. Our first stop was Hunan province where we met up with my dear friend Amy and headed off to Wulingyuan park. I had already been here a few weeks before but it was so beautiful that I could not pass up going again. Also, this time we got to see tons of monkeys and that made it all that much better.

From there we headed south to the town of Fenghuang or Phoenix Town, which is nothing like the one in Arizona. This town was a drizzly little river town with winding little roads and lots of chinese tourism. It was quaint and really refreshing, partially because it was not the tourist season so we had it all to ourselves.

We took off from Fenghuang with one goal in mind; warm weather. So straight south we went. First by bus, then by train and after an eight hour over crowded and seated train ride we were in an small town where we caught one more train to Nanning, Guanxi Province. Although when we stepped out of the train station we were a bit disheartened to see it was also raining. There was a unexpected rainstorm that was being followed by a small monsoon. We had originally planned to go straight to the southern coast, but when Jason told me that he had wonderful weather in Kunming we headed there instead.

Once in Kunming the weather was beautiful and it stayed that way for the next month. Jessie and amy both left within a week and I soon started to get restless. I did not have a job, I was not enrolled in chinese lessons, and Jason's study was not nearly enough for two. So after tossing up options, I decided to get a job. I started looking around and applied for a field research position in Qinghai province on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau doing grassland research, but it turned out they were looking for Amdo Tibetan people for the position. Then I found seaturtles911.org and before I knew it I was packing my bag for yet another new town, province, and climate.

So right now I am working for an organization that rescues sea turtles and I live in an apartment with six turtles. Two very young green turtles, one green turtle that is around ten, and three hawksbills that are between 3 and 7 or so. I live on the top floor (8th) of an apartment building that faces the ocean and is only separated from from it by a road and a beach. I am living in Sanya, Hainan which is the southern most town on the southern most island in China. It is very hot here and often humid, but I have been getting used to it and it is kind of nice to be able to swim in a warm ocean. I also work for the company that funds the organization that sells online gaming services, which is pretty much the last guess that I would have had for a funding source but it is cool all the same.

I have only been here for six days, but I have been pretty busy plus I work nights which gives me the whole day to do stuff. So last week I went surfing for the first time and managed to get a few 10 second rides, which I hear is pretty good but I do not know if they were exciting enough for me to want to go again. I also really want to explore the snorkeling around, so surfing may have to wait. I also stayed up until six one morning (on my day off) fishing with a line net (a long net that is about 2-3 feet tall that you stretch out over rocky areas on the coast to catch crabs on fish that get tangled). After we gathered up the net we came back to my apartment and untangled the crabs and fish and fed them live to the turtles. You could hear the crunch of a crab when the turtles would bite down in the next room. It was awesome.

In the next few days I will hopefully be going out my bosses z_____ boat (the ones that look like a raft, but have outboard on the back. I keep on picturing them in navy seal movies. Silently creeping onto some beach in the dead of night loaded with guys holding harpoon guns.) This should be a beautiful day and a great chance to check out some snorkeling on nearby islands. I will try to update soon and I will get some pictures up too.