Horse Rearing Island

  Yantai, China
Sunday, October 22, 2006

Today, it was a rainy Sunday afternoon (only about the 2nd day of rain I've seen in the 2 months i've been here), but I was desperate to get out so Shenoa and I decided to go to "the island." I've heard of this island a few times, and found out that its name actually means "horse rearing island" and that we can ride horses there. Great! Even better, it's just a 40rmb cab ride away ($5). Don't question that you can take a cab to an island...

From the island

Anyway, Shenoa and I went to this island and the cab driver took us right to the horse riding place, which turned out to be an old race track. When I say old, i mean REALLY old.. as in it looks like it's been at least 10 years since they've raced there.

Race track

They did have horses, however, and we had a wonderfully exciting trot around the race track. It wasn't exactly the picturesque meandering ride along the beach that I'd envisioned, but maybe my 30kuai went to some munchies for the skinny horses.
After that, Shenoa and I decided to walk around a bit. We spent about 2 hours wandering aimlessly around this island, and it was a really strange place. It was like it was set up to be a tourist destination. It had branch new roads with brick sidewalks, a beautiful square with a giant horse statue in the middle of it that charged 10rmb to get in (that we didn't pay.. you could see the whole square from the fence). But then, all of the buildings looked deserted. The only building that looked like it was actually functioning was a post office. There were a few nice, old looking hotels with broken windows, a lookout point at the top of the island that was covered in graffiti and looked like it was meant to be something more...

Creepy...

it was all rather creepy.

Deserted building

anyway, it was really a nice afternoon: very gray and windy, but it added to the mood.
After we'd had our fill of the island, Shenoa and I started walking back (because there wasn't a taxi in sight by the time we started looking) and it turned into a much longer walk than we expected.

Cold and wet.. but having a blast

Getting desperate

The wind really picked up off the ocean, as did the rain, and we were getting pretty desperate for a ride home when a "taxi" pulled up. It was one of the unmarked taxis, which means that they're illegal and will try to rip you off if you're a foreigner, but we knew about how much to ask for so we got a pretty good price. Just as we were getting in, a real taxi pulled up and the driver started berating our driver in Yantaihuo (the local dialect). I assume it had to do with him stealing the only possible customers within 20 miles.