Why Hainan?

Well here we go, I said I'll try and so I will. I'm going to 'go back' as they say. Way back, in 2007, I was 'downsized', don't you just love modern day terminology. At that time we were in Abu Dhabi, my home for many many years and a place I really loved. Wifey, who was fiancée at the time, suggested we move to China and I teach English. Hahahahaha was my first response. Anyway, I decided that as I was too stony broke to go back to the UK, and that as Huan was the one who had put me back on the straight and narrow, I would listen to her, with just one proviso. I was not going to live in Dalian; I wanted a 'warm' place, understandable after nearly twenty years in the UAE. A browse of the web found Hainan, without too much info in those days, but enough for me to decide that it would be the right place. The upshot was that Huan came before me and bought our first property in Sanya. "It's a one bedroom" she said. "OK" said I, thinking that we should be able to at least store our stuff there while I went off and worked as a teacher until the day for retirement came. Unfortunately, she was wrong; it was in fact a studio apartment. Shortly thereafter I arrived, with only two weeks before I had to go 'up north' to Harbin.

First breakfast in Hainan

We desperately needed somewhere we could send all our stuff from Abu Dhabi, so rented a car, (on an international licence, probably very much against the law) and had a drive around.

Our rented car, Buick GL8 Not a bad ride but we did 'bottom it' a few times. Roads were not so good in 2007 and at times even non-existent.

One of the many places we stopped really took our fancy. It was on the road to Wuzhishan, overlooking a river,

It joined the list of places we didn’t buy. It looks nice, but carrying bags of shopping up an outside staircase in a tropical rainstorm didn’t really appeal. However, the real put-off, was the upstairs apartment ‘S-Bend’ right in the middle of the bedroom ceiling!!

Stopping in Wuzhishan, gasping for a coffee, we found a 'warm tea' shop and while we were sat there Huan got talking and found out someone wanted to sell their recently purchased three bed-roomed apartment.

View from the bedroom in 2007.

View from the kitchen in 2007. Note the mountain and trees for future reference!

We decided on the spot that it would do us just fine. At the same time we bought a business premises, planning for a coffee shop come bar in our future. (Failed! That's another story.) With our needs sorted out, I left Huan to it and went off to start a whole new career! More on that later.