XIAMEN and GULANGYU (Island Paradise!)
Friday, August 3rd, 2007With temperatures in Hangzhou now reaching 39-41 degrees, I take an umbrella with me everywhere I go – it offers protection from the sun AND from the daily afternoon thunderstorms. I do feel a bit like a ‘wuss’ carrying an umbrella around in the sunshine, but if I don’t, I risk passing out on the street! The thunderstorms here beat anything I have seen back home. Flames of light, crackling across the sky, followed by some of the loudest ‘booms’ I have ever heard – a few have practically blasted me out of my chair!
XIAMEN is a place I have long wished to visit, but delayed going to, due to the throngs of Chinese visiting during each holiday. So, with our weather’s temperatures ‘going through the roof’, I decided to head to Xiamen for a short holiday.
I invited a friend of mine to go with me. Kathleen is a Chinese university student who worked with me at Dell Language School last year. She’s a real sweetheart, always upbeat and someone who I knew would be an easygoing traveller. Our journey south to Xiamen was just over one hour by plane. I discovered this was Kathleen’s first flying adventure, which made our trip all that much more special. According to my guidebook, Xiamen was a thriving port in the 17th century, influenced by Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch fortune-hunters. It features a pleasant mix of old colonial-style buildings and clean, orderly streets, pavements and shops. In the early 1980’s Xiamen was declared one of China’s first Special Economic Zones, like Shenzhen, so it has become quite prosperous over the years.
I have lots of PHOTOS to share with you… BUT, I have run out of space (again) on this blog. So, please click on the link located on the right side of this website to view my pictures. You can also view them in slideshow format, and can also control the speed too! Enjoy!
A popular tourist sight is Xiada, Xiamen University, which is located adjacent to Daxue Lu, the coastal road which runs past beautiful sandy beaches. The university also features several lakes and mountains on its campus, making it one of the most scenic universities in China. I would love to study there! What a fantastic natural environment! Just a 10-minute ferry ride from Xiamen’s downtown core is the island of GULANGYU, which boasts a wealth of old colonial architecture left over by the Europeans and Japanese. This is where we stayed during our holiday. Gulangyu’s charm is the island’s traffic-free streets – no cars, no bicycles, no electric bikes. The only way to get around is by foot or via the island’s electric passenger vehicles. The resulting atmosphere is quiet and restful, and I found the local people here very laidback and friendly. Exploring Gulangyu’s shoreline and tourist sights can easily take up a day or two. The island’s narrow tangle of streets can also be a confusing place to find one’s way around (we got lost several times), but it didn’t present too big a problem since it’s only two square kilometers in size. What impressed me the most, however, was the wide variety of wonderful old mansions and consulates, most featuring architectural designs from all over the world.
Xiamen and Gulangyu are famous for their abundant varieties of fish and seafood, particularly oysters, crab and prawns. Our hotel permits its guests to use their kitchen, so one night we decided to ‘dine-in’. We found a nice food market where we purchased a nice assortment of vegetables and some fresh, large prawns. Kathleen can’t cook at school, so she jumped at the opportunity to venture into the hotel’s kitchen, and VOILA! She turned our groceries into a delectable meal for the two of us. There was so much left over that we convinced our hotel manager to join us. I particularly enjoyed another popular dish on the island which is Chinese noodles mixed with a Chinese-style peanut sauce – absolutely delicious, and it only cost RMB 3! (less than 50 cents). Oh, and the Chinese seem to really love their bread here on the island – I have counted SEVEN bakeries and I am sure I didn’t find all of them! Strangely enough, we never encountered ‘coins’ when making purchases. In Hangzhou coins are very popular, but in Xiamen/Gulangyu, paper money seems to rule the day. Some of the paper money in use is quite old – I found that many of the bills returned to me have been replaced by newer varieties in Hangzhou. Also, with no ‘wheeled’ vehicles permitted on the island, I was curious to see how supplies and materials are delivered to shops and homes. Ancient wooden carts are pulled by hand for everything from produce, to household goods and even construction materials like wood, stone and concrete! All have to be loaded onto boats to be transported to the island where they are then loaded onto these wooden carts. Lots of backbreaking work indeed!
Just before we arrived in Xiamen, I found out that Kathleen had never seen the ocean before. With Xiamen and Gulangyu both surrounded by the sea and its many beaches, I am sure she’s had her fill by now! She will have many stories to tell when she returns to school.
Would I like to visit Gulangyu again? You bet! Temperatures were cooler than in Hangzhou, only 35-36 degrees celsius!
carolh452003