After our lovely holiday in beautiful but cold Finland, back in hot and humid China again. On our arrival to China, we got to experience our first typhoon. Because of the red alert, all the traffic to Ningbo was cancelled so we were stuck in Shanghai for two days. Luckily this typhoon didn’t cause much damage here and we found our home in a perfect condition.

To escape the heat and enjoy our holiday before Niko starts working again, we decided to make a short trip to a nearby beach. Living in the costal area, we have been planning to go to a beach since spring. There’s no real beaches here, said everybody that we talked to. Go to Hainan, the socalled Thailand of China. Well, after two and half hours in a bus and fifteen minutes in a taxi, we found this. Looks like a beach to me…

Southern Sands Zhu Jiajian Zhoushan

The beach is called Southern Sands, located in the nearby island called Zhoushan. Sure, there’s no five star hotel resorts, no hot bikini babes or drink bars, but it’s a basic beach where you can swim. The beach was relatively clean and it provides basic services like showers and toilets (that I didn’t go and check). A perfect place for a day trip, especially if you have a car or a driver and bring your snack with you.

Benjamin enjoyed the beach so much, he was jumping into the waves again and again and started crying when we had to leave. For me the day was too hot, but we finally got to swim in a warm water!  I also enjoyed the seascape and the mountains with clouds hanging around them. I’d like to go back there when it’s off-season, just to walk by the seashore and to enjoy the sound of waves.

And what do the Chinese do on a beach? They want to stay as white as possible, so they don’t lie on the beach, but sit under an umbrella. Some ladies walked into the waves with almost all the clothes on. Most people in the sea had some kind of a swimming aid with them and I didn’t see anyone swimming. I wonder if they can swim?