On Friday afternoon, the three of us made our way from our various teaching locations (Minhang, Baoshan, Pudong New District) to the Hongqiao Int’l Airport. We checked in, grabbed some overpriced food and then before we knew it we were on our plane flying from Shanghai to Xiamen.
Xiamen is a coastal city located in southeastern Fujian Province. It looks out to the Taiwan Strait and is near the ROC held islands of Kinmen. According to wikipedia, it is China’s 2nd most livable city and China’s cleanest city. Motorcycles, mopeds and car horns are banned (even though you can still see/hear them anyways]. Wiki or WikiTravel it.
We were greeted at the Xiamen airport by our tour guide holding up a sign with my name +3 on it. Because she had no English name, we decided to call her Julie. We quickly found out that what we thought was going to be a ~30 people tour group was actually turned into a private tour group of just the 3 of us. Which meant that we had a personal driver and photographer for the time we were in Xiamen. Highly convenient for those who did not want to walk around lost in a new city and who also loved having photos taken. Another cool thing about Xiamen? In addition to Mandarin, the local dialect is a form of Min-nan, which meant that I could use my Taiwanese dialect knowledge to understand the local dialect. [the Taiwanese dialect/language is a branch of Min-nan]. The city was clean and not crowded. The taxis were comfortable. We had someone taking us around. Our 2-twin beds bedroom +1 cot was upgraded to a 3-twin beds bedroom. There was free (Chinese) breakfast downstairs. Sweeeeet.
The first day was spent walking a lot. We visited a temple dating from the Tang (or was it another one?) dynasty. It was very crowded because a lot of Buddhists were praying during the Tomb Sweeping Festival.
Afterward, we went to Hu Li Shan Fortress which contains a large cannon and several other cannons. This was a major fortress used in defense against intruders during various wars.
Next stop was one of those mandatory “shopping stops” that are a part of Chinese tours. You are taken to a place where they will show you something cultural/local in hopes of you purchasing. Even though it is not required you oftentimes feel so obligated to that you do. We went to a government run tea shop where they demonstrated different types of teas and let us taste them as well. The one that had the most novelty was the Rock Chrysanthemum Tea that was very very bitter but then a few seconds later actually left a sweet taste in your mouth. The sweetness was highlighted if you had a sip of water right after. Lisa and I split the cost of a package of tea so that she could get a tea cup set that would change colors when hot water was poured into it.After some lunch, we headed out to Gulangyu Island 鼓浪屿, an island accessible by ferry from the main Xiamen Island. The island was set as a foreign enclave after the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 and became the place of residence for Westerners during Xiamen’s colonial times. The architecture there is mostly of the Victorian style. We also had some time to stop by the “beach“ they have there. Beach culture is still in its infancy in China and it’s not like what we may be used to in SoCal. The skies also cleared up to a beautiful scene of white clouds dotting the blue sky when we got to the church which offered fantastic photo ops. It is also a pedestrian only place (no cars except for some fire trucks and emergency vehicles) and has narrow streets. It was fantastic to walk around Gulangyu. Every few corners you would see an engaged couple shooting wedding photos, or a wandering street musician or an abandoned building. Regular people still live on this converted-for-tourism-island.
We headed back to our hotel exhausted. We took a short nap and then grabbed a taxi to a nearby shopping center so that we could pick up some snacks and dinner, as well as to walk around a bit.
The next day, we went to Jimei Park located near Jimei University. The tour guide said something about Mao honoring a guy who had made his money in Singapore and then set up some schools in Xiamen. The weather was growing cold (not good).
This was apparently the last thing on our tour itinerary and so we asked our driver to drop us off at a place where we could spend some time walking around and look for souvenirs. We thought we were going to some street market but ended up at a shopping mall (that came with a Wal-Mart, lol) where we walked around and grabbed lunch. It started to rain really hard at this point and we wanted to just go somewhere warm and read. Called Julie and asked her to tell us where a book store was. Bought some books and dinner and went back to our hotel. We chatted, we read, we ate. And we all fell asleep at various times throughout. Apparently I was the first to knock out because the next thing I remember was that I woke up in the middle of the night to see that the room was dark and both Lisa and Daniella were already asleep.We left for the airport at 9:30am the next day. Got picked up at our hotel and shuttled off to the airport by Julie + driver. Checked in, found our boarding gate and then got shuttled to our plane. About 2 hours later, I was back in my apartment in Shanghai. Goodbye 3 day weekend holiday, goodbye Xiamen.
Back to reality.
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