day 155

last night i had one of the best meals of my life. it was perfect chinse food, the best on this trip that's for sure. to top it off, the restaurant was located in an incredible historical chinese house (over 200 years old), beautifully restaured and decorated in the original hainanese style. and so, i ate thinly sliced bbq duck in a sweet sauce, along with chinese broccoli in a sweet-garlic sauce and these wonderful turnip and carrot dumplings. it was so good that i ate it too fast. it was so good that i wanted to lick my plates!

then today i did some walking around, taking in the historical sights of the city. it is absolutely insane how many nice buildings there are here. almost all of them are colonial with foreign influences. it's so charming! i visited many temples, a fort, and a couple mosque. unfortunately i was spotted right away at the last one (a very beautiful one, kapitan kelling) by islam recruiters and got stuck in a few hours of religion debates. but on the good side of things, i was allowed to enter the mosque's prayer hall and observe and take pictures... a rare thing around here really. it was quite interesting... and i now have many pamphlets to read though!

tomorrow... december 31st. i have no plans yet... maybe the beach, maybe more walking around, maybe some far away stuff. and then, i will go out, of course. hopefully not on my own though. but the people at the guesthouse are just weird. i mean, not the kind of people i really get along with... so we'll see. but i refuse to go drinking alone!