David's Big Adventure in China

First a correction: one of my astute readers pointed out that it probably wasn’t bamboo juice that I had to drink and you were right. It was sugar cane that was squeezed into a juice not bamboo. Other miscellaneous ramblings………I finished my online business English class a few days ago and submitted it to be graded. I have been to KTV (Karoake TV) a few times in China and the Philippines and it is quite popular here. They have different sized rooms that have sofa’s and chairs, a large tv screen with a good sound system connected to it and a couple microphones. The rooms accommodate from 4 to 20 people and many of them have a private bathroom. You can order food and drinks and it is really pretty affordable. Most of them have a pretty good selection of English songs as well as local songs. I’m surprised that this concept has not caught on in the U.S. It’s a great place for friends or colleagues to gather, eat, drink and have fun. KTV is one of the main sources of entertainment here in China. The entertainment industry is very underdeveloped here and it seems there are great opportunities for growth in this area. They do not have well developed professional sports or cultural entertainment options. My guess is that with the growing affluence here there are opportunities in this area. There has been quite a bit of news coverage here about food safety issues. The coverage has highlighted what the government is doing to assure food safety and that the recent issues were just rare exceptions. They said that they have a 99% safety rating for exports which is similar to the rating for imports from the U.S. That’s the party official news perspective anyway.
I spent a week in the Philippines visiting a friend there and returned to Guangzhou on the 15th. Most of the time in the Phils we spent in Baguio, which is a medium sized city in the mountains in the northern part of the country. I heard that Baguio was nice and that the weather there is more moderate and that quite a few westerners chose to retire there. I have posted some pic’s from there. Baguio reminds me of Sausalito near San Francisco although Baguio is not as upscale. The weather was nice and comfortable and it was great to have a break from the heat. We visited some nice parks, the Philippine Military Academy and a hot springs resort. There was poverty and pollution in Baguio but nothing like Manila or Angeles City. I spent 2 nights in Manila only because I flew in and out of there. There is so much poverty and homelessness in Manila and it is very crowded with lots of air pollution from all the vehicles. Many of the vehicles are the Phil version of buses which are called Jeepneys. They look like old Jeeps that have had an extended cab put on the back with a long bench seat on each side. They accommodate about 14 passengers and are normally decorated on the front to look like a gawdy pimpmobile. One of the pictures is of a sign I saw from outside Baguio. I’m not really sure what it means…..are they saying that senior citizens are pigs or maybe that the seniors are breeding with pigs??? Let me know if you have any ideas on that.
On Monday the 16th I left GZ on an overnight train to Xiamen. I will be traveling around China for about 25 days and have a travel partner who will serve as a tour guide and Chinese language tutor. We were in a sleeper cabin on the train (the best accommodation offered) that sleeps 4 and it cost about $50 per person. There were 2 lowers bunks and 2 upper bunks and our cabin mates were an older gentleman that is a professor and a young lady that is an accountant and both were traveling for business. The trip took about 13 hours and I slept quite well (thanks Buckie for the sleeping pills!). The train route was not directly up the coastline due to the many mountains. I read in my tour book that China’s topography is 33% mountainous. We arrived in Xiamen at about 8:30 in the morning and when I exited the train station the first thing I saw was Wal-mart, McDonalds and KFC. Xiamen is a coastal city and is the nearest city to Taiwan. There is a small island between Xiamen and Taiwan that Taiwan claimed as it’s property after the Nationalists moved to Taiwan and set up their own government there in 1949. Chairman Mao shelled the island from Xiamen every day for many years even though there was nothing on the island just because Taiwan claimed it. Xiamen is a fairly small city by Chinese standards with about 1.4 million people. It is a modern and prosperous city and was one of the first cities to benefit from the opening of the China economy. The first day here we visited Xiamen Botanical Garden, Resident Abroad Museum, South Putuo Temple (a Buddhist temple), Xiamen University, the beach and Zongshan Road shopping area. In the pics you will see some great examples of stone carving. In the picture of the beach you will notice that you don’t really see people in bathing suits. The Chinese are very modest at the beach……..sorry men, no hot Chinese babes in bikinis.
On the second day in Xiamen we visited an area called Jimei which was the home of Chen Jiajeng. Mr. Chen left China when we has young and went to Malaysia and was very successful in business. He came back to Xiamen in the late 1940’s and donated lots of money to build schools including Jimei University, Xiamen University and other local schools. He also donated the money for the Resident Abroad Museum. We also visited the Stone Carving Museum (not too much to see there) and Gulangyu. Gulangyu is a small island very near Xiamen where about 20,000 people live and the only access is via ferry . There are no vehicles there except electric carts and there are many shops, restaurants and hotels there. It also has a nice beach. If you look at the pic’s one at a time you can see that the file name provides some description of the pic. I have not seen too many western people here in Xiamen and I have been asked a couple times to pose for pictures with the locals. They get a kick out of seeing a foreigner and are often quite curious and I get quite a few stares.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 4:51 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.