China Trip - Wei Hai

One of the largest cities near Weina's village is the City of Wei Hai. It is right on the northeast coast and boasts one of the most beautiful beaches in northern China. Wei Hai is a big vacation spot for both Chinese and Russian tourists. Since it was only a two hour drive, we thought it would be a nice break from village life. Without internet, we relied on Hai Ni to find and book our hotel.  She did a great job! Our hotel was right on the beach. Here is the view from the beach looking back at our hotel.

We also brought Weina's dad with us for our two day mini beach vacation. Here we are trying to convince Hao Hao that sand is fun and that playing in the ocean is cool.  We failed miserably. Sir William is not a beach person - yet. We are still holding out hope. He's still young. Matt didn't much like the beach when he was a little guy.

This is the view from our hotel window. The sunset was amazing. What you can't see is all the trash that washed up on the beach - water bottles, dead fish, plastic bags. We were a little bit disappointed by the trash and, other than putting our feet in the water, none of us actually went for a swim.

While in Wai Hai, we also had dinner with Weina's cousins and their kids. We had a great time. The kids spoke some English. Hao Hao had so much fun with the kids that he ended up staying up two hours past his bedtime!

The next day, Weina's cousin picked us up and drove us back to the village. On the way, we stopped at another tourist destination - Liugongdao - an island just off shore from Wai Hai. The island is home to several museums, including one on the Sino-Japanese war of 1894, where Japan and China were fighting over Korea. I don't think we ever learned about this in our World Cultures Class.  Weina didn't want to go into the Museum because she had been drilled on the subject all through grade school. All the exhibits were in multiple languages, so we had no problem viewing the exhibits.  In addition to the history museums, there was also a small zoo on the island.  Weina and William finally got their chance to see some pandas up close.

After a quick lunch at Weina's cousin's favorite restaurant (he's a truck driver by trade - interesting place - great dumplings), we drove back to the village.