Now that we are turning the corner on winter, I have realized that I have not yet scheduled my annual cold-weather-escape trip to Sanya. That makes me 0 for 3 on my annual activities. I did not manage to make it to Dino Beach water park, nor did I go for outdoor lasertag. Nor did I replace these with any other suitable activities.

Rather than moap around feeling like a total failure, I intend to do something about it. Schedule a last-minute trip to the island? No way! Who has the time?

Instead, I plan to purchase a bag of genuine Sanya Island sand, and sprinkle it into my luggage. Then I will trick myself into thinking that I did actually go to Hainan, and did subsequently enjoy some relaxation from the experience.

Brilliant.

Sanya Sand – 10rmb per kilo

If you are planning a trip to the beach, don’t forget our favorite – the Waboba Ball!

Chinese girls are jealous of your white skin

Your female Chinese colleagues yearn for skin as white as yours. But in reality, you look like you just joined the Little Lord Fauntleroy Society for Albino Hemophiliacs. Your skin tone could use a little bronzing. 

Nobody in China wants darker skin! Would a Chinese website such as Taobao even carry a product like this? 

Indeed it would. But while your Chinese friends spend hours comparing the 1.2 million skin-whitening products on Taobao 美白,  you need look through only a few hundred options for tanning lotions 助晒油. Most of them are familiar imports such as Hawaiian Tropic. 

If you happen to be looking for Hawaiian Tropic items, note that many listings on Taobao misspell the name. Even though every product image has the name printed correctly, many Taobao Sellers describe it as “Hawaiian Trpoic” products.  A reflection of Taobao’s copy/paste culture, this mistake has been repeated by many different shops.

While the markup at most beachside shops is reasonable, this is one product that can be crazy expensive.  So if you want to keep your bronze ambitions, be sure to pack it ahead of time.  With the money you save, you can run over to the tanning booth and start yourself a nice base tan. 

Tanning lotion – 100rmb

 To tan…

…or to whiten?

Chinese people really aren’t that into the beach. That’s great news. Because if they were, then there would be much more demand for these fantastic beachside hotels, and they would quickly get much more expensive.  Luckily, Sanya’s Dadonghai beach is oversupplied with great accommodations at a very cheap price. Some of these are condos that have been converted into hotels. And many are just footsteps from the sand.

While there are other websites built specifically for arranging hotels, the Taobao template is a very good way to get a great room at a reasonable price. Good listings will have generous photo tours of the facilities, and you can use WangWang chat to ask questions and make sure that you get the perfect booking.

If you want to max your relax, you should book a room with a good balcony. Breakfast on the balcony is probably my favorite part of the Hainan experience. Get a good selection of local fruits, some coconut-coffee powdered drink and those thin crispy pancake pastries. Fantastico. 

A Hainan Hotel – 100-200rmb

When I was a kid, the tennis ball was my ubertoy. Besides being an ideal baseball substitute, me and my friends used it for all kinds of made up games, which were usually just excuses to chuck the ball at each other.

It seemed like the tennis ball could do anything. But once we brought it into the swimming pool, it lost all its mojo. The soft water surface, which begged for us to jump and splash and attempt spectacular diving catches, also stubbornly refused to let the ball bounce as it did on land. So instead of jumping and splashing, these games were all about walking slowly through the water to pick the ball up where it had stopped short.

It took a Swedish design mastermind to come up with the answer: a high-performance sport ball that bounces on water. And it’s not like it kinda bounces on water. It really bounces on water. The Waboba Ball has taken the game I always wanted to play as a kid and made it possible.

Now there are 2 versions of the Waboba Ball. The Waboba Blast is larger, lighter and slower for easy-breezy games. And the Waboba Extreme is the performance version, which bounces farther and faster for more heated competition. If you’re like me and want to go for spectacular diving catches, go for the Extreme.

The folks at Waboba have bounced all the way to here to China and have planted their flag in sunny Sanya. Head over to their website, Sanya Bounce, and you will not only catch some sweet movies of the Waboba ball in action, but also a ton of excellent, unbiased advice on how to get your Sanya on right.

This thing is perfect for the beach, and should be an essential part of your vacation kit. Pick up a Waboba Ball today so you have it handy on your next tropical outing.

The Waboba Ball on Taobao (via Sanya Bounce) – 60rmb