Haiku

The first city we visited on our little tour of Hainan province is called haikuo - at first I thought it was spelled like the poem, and everybody went around all day speaking in Haiku's. You know, something like:

Nathan is very hungry
So he ate an egg
Now he is regretting it

But no, it's not even pronounced the same. Then I thought about what a nerd I must be to get excited about that. You'd think it was Limerick Junction or something - or maybe Punsylvania. Yeah, that's more up my alley. It would be like Transylvania, only the punpires would go around trying to suck your best puns from you. The only way to repel them would be by reciting prose from period novels or something, you know bore them to death, or life, or send them back to the pun-derworld.

So I guess we're gonna drive around Haikou with a tour guide for 2 days. First, we are going to see a volcano, then visit an animal reserve. Wouldn't it be cooler if they combined the 2? You could have llama's swimming in lava and magma-monkeys swinging from stelactytes. That would be awesome! The volcano was pretty cool. It's dormant now, so quite cool, actually. We walked to the top where you can get a really nice view of Haikou city on a clear day. It was cloudy, so I got a really nice view of other tourists. Still, it was nice.

At the animal reserve, we saw lots of different creatures: more tourists, t-shirt peddlers, janitors, and oh yeah, animals. At first you stay in your car and drive through the lion zone, then elephants, bears, and finally you can get out of your car at the Giraffe pen, watch wild horses kick each other, and camels with very peculiarly-shaped toes. I felt sorry for the elephants, because the babies could roam free but the huge guys were attached toa chain. I guess they tried to escape once to see an advanced screening of the Elephant Man.

We parked our car and got out to finish the tour on fot. I was pretty excited when I heard we were going to Monkee Mountain. I was hoping they would have Michael Nesmith chained to a tree and you could fling dung at him for a buck. How disappointed I was when I found out they were only actual monkeys who could fling dung at you for free while you tried to take their picture. I think some people were littering at Monkey Mountain, because I saw one monkey carrying around an empty pop bottle, while another one had a chip bag in his hand. Maybe we could hire these little custodians to help clean up the downtown east side back in Vancouver... heck they's work for peanuts, or bananas, or stuffed crust pizzas or whatever monkeys eat nowadays. Then I thought about what would happen if they got into the heroin and crack down there - now that would be grounds for a reality tv show - Junkie Monkeys - I can see it now!

After they took me to Monkey Town, I saw some Hippos swimming around in a lake. I heard they cause more human deaths per year than any other animal in the wild. Being the only caucasian around, I figured they might have mistaken my head for a small white marble, so I got outta there. If these guys were truly Hungry Hungry Hippos, then I didn't want to hang around to find out.

i walked around a bit more and saw crocodiles, lions, tigers, ligers (it's exactly how it sounds), orangutans, and in one cage, A Flock of Seagulls. I guess since the 80's ended, the band hasn't had any hits so they'll probably take any gigs they can get. Birthday Parties, nature reserves, AA meetings.. Anything that will help give them that big beak.

After we left the Ani-mall (I'm pretty sure you could buy them if you brought a suitcase full of money), we went out for dinner with a bunch of friends of my Mother In Law. I guess it's customary to call any man who is older than you "Uncle" here in China. Apparently I have 50 million Uncles over here I didn't know about. But that's China for ya, one big happy family. They ordered a whole bunch of dishes, all placed on a giant turntable so you could spin it if you want to get the squid on the other side, or if you want to pretend you are DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Shrimp.

My uncles ordered 2 bottles of hard liquor, which my wife told me is equivalent to moonshine back home. I guess they figured they could get me drunk and have fun looking at the drunk white boy. I felt like the hippo's back at the zoo. Little did they know, my Maritime blood allows me to drink like Boris Yelson but stay sober like that 1 Russian guy. I downed shot after shot, and besides the Lysol-like flavour and the subtle bouquet of paint thinner, I was doing just fine. This one uncle got insanely drunk and started saying Vancouver over and over, but he was pronouncing it Vanawa. Something about his daughter and wife left him and went to Vanawa. Poor guy, couldn't even stand up straight to propose a toast.

They also served us a glass of Yop, but it wasn't flavoured, like the stuff we get back home. I'm not a big fan of yogurt, i usually call it flavoured mayo, so I "accidentally" spilled mine. Darn! But lo and behold, the waitress appeared with a fresh glass. Usually I enjoy good wait staff, but this one picked the wrong time to suddenly offer good service. Needless to say I forgot to drink it. We all walked (some more upright than others) off the boat and went back to the hotel. Did I mention that we ate dinner on the Love Boat that night? Well we did.