Hainan Island @ China (2) – Haikou
2/3/19 (so many stupid walls are building !!! Yummy ice cream in the coldest day on earth :))
For the next two weeks comes the celebration of the Chinese spring festival. Thus the best place on earth to go is China. So today let’s continue talking about the China trip!
The Hainan island is located at the south of the altitude 23 in the northern hemisphere. Thus the entire island is tropical. Most people lived on this island used to be the Li and Miao minorities. Many of them nowadays moved to the central part of the island where the mountains are located. But you still can see the influence of their languages and food on the local tourist sites.
Haikou is the capital of Hainan. It is not until 1988 that Hainan becomes an independent province. There are not many differences between Hainan and other places in China from what I can see, except that people here are generally shorter and darker, and they are on scooters instead of on bicycles.
waiting at the dash line
The most interesting place to visit in Haikou is called “Qilou Old Street”. It is an area where the old historical buildings are preserved. “Qilou” in a word-to-word translation is “riding buildings”. It is an architecture style popular around 1900s in southern China where multiple different buildings are connected together on a same surface. The buildings can have different colors and have a mixture of European and Asian styles. The buildings are typically 2-3 stories high. The bottom is shops and the top is where people live. The height of the building and the width of the street often form a golden ratio to create a pleasant space as a whole. I heard that this style is also very popular in Taiwan, Singapore in the similar period of the time.
China has many similar old streets for tourism. This one is special because it is “real old” instead of “newly-build-mimic-old” :). Closing my eyes, I almost see my grandfather walking down the street to start his work. The street is almost the entire city back then; there are temples, post offices, markets, hotels. Interestingly, you can see “serve the people” “viva chairman” “viva communist party” these important slogans engraved on the surface of the buildings, as if it was 1970s in the major cities of China.
Another tourist cite here is called “Haikou Volcanic Cluster Global Geopark”. Compared to the big island in Hawaii, this park is like a joke. It displays a few lava stones behind the fence. Maybe I went to a wrong park?! Don’t get me wrong. This park is a fun place to visit. I saw many interesting tropical fruits sold in the market are growing in the trees here. You also can hike down to a crater (with stairs). But this park is so well-planned by people, and it is nothing like a volcano park.
There is also this place called “Huochetou million seafood square” (I literally copied this English name from their poster, so I am not taking the blame for its strangeness :D). This place has a seafood market and many seafood restaurants. Most of the restaurants take your orders and then immediately go to the market to buy the seafood and cook for you. So they are very fresh. The famous restaurant people like on Internet is called “Sichuan xiaohuzi seafood”.
If you travel with your family or a group of people including kids and elderly. I recommend Mission hills resort Haikou. This place has restaurants, golf courses, kids playing areas, gas station, supermarket, and importantly is famous for its warm springs. There are more than 100 warm springs in this resort. Each warm spring is designed based on a country and set up appropriate temperature, decorations, perfumes and teas. My mom and I visited it during night, and feel like we are doing some warm-spring crawl 🙂 The resort has very good service. You can immediately see the hotel stand when you exit the airport. The hotel has free and frequent buses that take you from and to the airport, the city, the shopping and restaurant areas nearby.
You can buy coconut anywhere on the street, 10-15 rmb each (1-2 dollars)