Deer Turns Around with Fräulein Bärbele

So I found my Fräulein Bärbele who kindly accompanied me to Lu Hui Tou (鹿回頭) for the day. Ironically, I was a bit sick as well, and the weather was not so great because of the typhoon that had arrived in Guangzhou. Nonetheless, the day was just so relaxing and enjoyable. While watching the sunset behind the cloudy sky, the stillness enveloped the atmosphere.

Lu Hui Tou, which literally means "Deer turns around", refers to a park at the top of a hill on a small peninsula sticking out into the ocean. Its name comes from a legend where a Li (黎 - one of the minority groups in China) hunter chased a deer for several days, trapping it on one of the cliffs of the hill. Left with no recourse, the deer turned around and transformed into a beautiful maiden.



My camera is not functioning still, but between the two of us, we had one that worked. Views of Sanya City from Lu Hui Tou:

Phoenix Island (鳳凰島), linked to Sanya City by a bridge:

An old and yet still formidable tree near the top of Lu Hui Tou:

The view of the peninsula and ocean out from the top of Lu Hui Tou:

Sunset behind the clouds:

Afterwards, we had dinner at a small shop that served very authentic Hainanese Chicken Rice (though the dish seems to be more popular in Malaysia and Singapore than Hainan):

There was also a very tasty (but perhaps odd looking) local dessert called 雞屎藤 (Ji Shi Teng), which comes from one of the herbs we saw up on Lu Tou Hui.

Hilton Sanya

I arrived in Sanya actually on 9/21, and have been staying at the Hilton near Yalong Bay (亞龍灣) using my points. Somehow the Hilton Sanya Resort is only classified as a category 3 for points (the scale goes roughly from 1-6, where a 1 would be the hotels with the fewest amenities, and a 6 would be the five star, top of the line hotels), which seems like a real bargain. There's also a point stretcher promotion for the Hilton Sanya during pretty much most of September and October, which means it only costs 15,000 points per night instead of 25,000 points.

Anyhow, due to my Diamond VIP status with Hilton thanks to my many business trips to Minneapolis and Chicago, they upgraded me to a room with an ocean-side view. In addition, I got free fruit everyday, complimentary breakfast, and a bottle of wine that made for a good gift.

Some pictures that were taken on 9/21. The room:

The view from my balcony:

The rest of the resort:

Sunset at Yalong Bay beach, right by the resort:

The End of the Earth

Sanya (三亞). The southernmost city in China. Here there is a spot called "Tianya Haijiao" (天涯海角 - literally "limit of heaven, corner of the sea"), which in Chinese literary tradition, refers to the End of the Earth, the very limits of the Civilized World:

Self-timed picture:

Walking alone:

Unfortunately, my camera got sand in it and now it cannot focus, which means I may not have any easy means of taking any more pictures. However, with the sunset coming up and no camera, I couldn't help but look to alternatives - I bought a disposable camera to capture the beautiful scene:

The sunset was amazing. To the west, the mountain seemed like it was burning, on fire with a radiance beyond the horizon that was surely far greater than anything mankind could summon, even with all our weapons of mass destruction combined. The sky looked painted with breathtakingly beautiful colors laid on top of God's canvas; so round and so perfect was the curvature of the world with the radiant atmosphere bending around it. Laying upside down on the rocks, the clouds were below my feet, and with the strong wind, blowing against my face, it felt perhaps like freefall; an everlasting descent into the eternally distant clouds.