The CHINA MAJIANG OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

Sarah thought the water was chilly. I tried it and she's crazy. The water off Boao is much balmier than it is off Santa Monica!

The last day, after the tournament was finished, most of us got packed off in a tour bus to go see Boao, including a little boat excursion.

Sohana and I were bussed off to Haikou, where I caught my flight to Beijing and Sohana caught a ferry to Beihai.

These workers were tearing up the pavement the hard way!

A real rice paddy. We also saw one farmer using a water buffalo to pull his plow, the old-fashioned way, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera.

On a rare occasion where the signage didn't include any English, I was able to read "Beihai" and show Sohana which window she needed to go to to buy her ferry ticket.

We were quite a sight in downtown Haikou - they apparently don't get a lot of Westerners wandering through every day. Lots of folks wanted to practice their English words on us. We got lots of "Hello's" that day!

I wanted to get a photo of this statue (we'd passed it on the way into town). I thought it very existential (you are here, no, you are here, no you are over this way...). This shot was taken through the taxi window.