Day 1. July 3. Thursday. Lakes and Hot springs


Breakfast

The hotel 湖泉酒店 was a big resort. We stayed at building E, which was close to the hot springs. The breakfast was in another building 400 meters away. The hotel provided constant shuttles, so we took the shuttle to the breakfast building. The buffet was huge, like a full dinner buffet in the US. The restaurant was beautiful too, they even had an indoor koi pond.

SIM card

After breakfast, I called the local 中国电信 store asking them about purchasing a SIM card with a US passport. They first said that they required a working permit. After I insisted that this was not the case and that they should check the policy, they said that they would call me back. Not giving up, I took Didi to get to the store and pleaded with the store clerk in person. She said that they had not done it before. She called some people and I waited over one hour before she finally got it approved. The card cost 100 RMB, less than half of what I paid at the airport. The person was very nice, she said that even though in-person cancelation was required, I could just tell her to cancel the account over WeChat on the day to cancel, and she would do it using all my ID information. 

Lakes

I went back to the hotel and gave Claire the SIM card. She had been enjoying the movie Kung Fu Panda all the time while I was out. We decided to walk around the lakes outside of the hotel. 

The hotel was located inside the eco-park 湖泉生态园. It was a very beautiful park with many lakes. 


After the walk, Claire watched another Kung Fu Panda movie. Then we took Didi to go to the hotel 启航酒店 which was the base of her summer camp. There were camp people at the hotel lobby and everything went smoothly. I then went back to my hotel.

Hot springs

I changed to my swim wear and went to the hot springs area 半山温泉. Hotel guests could use the hot springs for free, other guests could buy day passes to use them. There were many hot spring pools. Each pool had different things in the water, e.g. red wine, mint etc. All pools had a temperature indicator. The temperatures ranged from 38.5 - 39.4 C. One pool was a special fish pool (temperature 27C), where little fishes nibble on the dead skins on your feet. It was ticklish.

Dinner

There were locker rooms with showers at the hot springs, but I walked back to my hotel room to take a shower and change. I then walked to the restaurant near the hot springs and had fried tofu and veggie soup for dinner. By the way, Claire and I were not hungry at lunch time, so we just skipped lunch.




Spending

  • Didi rides
    • From hotel to 中国电信营业厅 to buy SIM card: 6.7 RMB
    • From 中国电信营业厅 back to hotel: 6.7 RMB
    • From hotel to 启航酒店 (Claire's summer camp hotel): 9 RMB
    • From camp hotel back to my hotel: 8.5 RMB
  • SIM card: 100 RMB
  • Water-proof case for cell phone: 30 RMB
  • Dinner: 39 RMB


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