It was during the national holiday break that we took a trip to Fujian province. The first city we explored was Xiamen, a city by the sea. We woke up super early in the morning, and left by speed train to Xiamen. National holiday is the time when everyone in China goes on vacation, and we were a little bit late buying tickets, so we didn't have tickets there, and the trip was six hours. Lucky for us, we were the first stop on the train, and we grabbed a seat in the food car. I remember on the way there I did a lot of sleeping, but we also watched The Incredibles and a Chinese movie called 何以笙箫默, which was a movie adaptation of a tv show that Hui and I really liked. I must say, the second movie was just terrible. I mean, it was so bad that they shouldn't even have wasted the money to make it, but Hui and I finished it, because we thought it was hilarious how bad it was.
Anyway, we finally arrived in Xiamen, and we tried to find a ride to our hotel. If you read my blog about my first time in Shanghai, you will know that I am really wary of 黑车, and our way to get to the hotel was pretty sketchy looking, so I fought Hui, tried to ignore them like I always did, but it turned out to be a normal thing that was set up by the train station. I still don't regret not trusting them, because it was just some random guy with his car, what can I say? On the road, we were talking about Xiamen's most famous attraction, an island called 鼓浪屿(gulang yu), and we found out that all of the boat tickets going there were sold out. Luckily, our driver knew a guy who could sell us a ticket to a TRAVEL GROUP that would include a boat ride to the island. Now, if you have been reading my blogs for a while, you know that travel groups are pretty much a terrible investment and just a front to sell things, but we were desperate for that ticket, so we went with it, and they said they were going to call us early the next morning to pick us up at our hotel.
When we arrived, we found we were staying at a hostel, not a hotel, and when the people at the desk saw me, they said that we couldn't stay there. I didn't completely understand what they were saying in Chinese, because I was tired and stressed out by the car situation, and I accidentally thought that they just didn't like foreigners, and they were trying to kick us out, but I was actually really wrong. Hostels are actually very popular with foreigners, and they tend to cater toward them, but it is a government rule that foreigners are only allowed to stay in hotels during the national day break. Don't ask me why, that's just how it is, and I didn't want to be breaking any laws, so we went and got a hotel. I hate that I thought they didn't like me, and that I cried in front of the manager to make him feel bad (and because of all the stress). It wasn't his fault. Oh well, he did help us get a hotel, and it was really nice.
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| the view from the lounge outside the hotel room |
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| the hotel lounge |
In the evening we rented a double bicycle and rode across the beach. It was really nice to get out and forget about all the stress of the morning. It also helped that Xiamen is just a really beautiful and relaxing place. Every day we saw people taking wedding pictures around, which was kind of interesting. I definitely think it would be a great place to take some wedding pictures by the ocean or in the old fashioned houses on gulangyu. For dinner we went to a very busy street of bbq vendors selling every kind of seafood you can imagine. It was so amazing. I feel like I ate so many clams and shrimp in Xiamen, which made me really really happy. Also, Xiamen is home to the world's biggest mangoes (a statement made up by your's truly), and I love mangoes so much, so we had to get one.
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| all the girls are out there doing wedding photos |
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| had a nice grilled giant snail for dinner |
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| Xiamen is home of mangoes as big as your head |
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| I didn't eat them, but check out these giant lobsters |
That night, Hui was stressing, and he was pretty sure we got hustled over those boat tickets, because they didn't give him their phone number. I would have been so bummed if that were true, but sure enough bright and early they called us, and let us know we were going to meet them at the big Buddhist temple called Nanputuo. It was free to go in, so we went inside to check things out. It was pretty nice, so I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures of it, but I didn't so sorryyyyyy! Here's a nice picture of it from nanputuo.com. It wasn't that nice when we went. It was actually raining.
Finally after a while we got going, but we were headed to the shopping portion of the travel group, which included a presentation of all the "interesting" things you could buy. Ohhhhh how boring it was, and we were so starving. Thankfully, we had the great idea of walking out of the presentation to go get some food, and our tour guide wasn't there to see it, so we were all good. We went out to explore while also watching the time, so we would be sure to get back to the group by the time the presentation was over. There were many interesting things to see along the ocean outside of the jewelry shopping areas, so we really enjoyed just relaxing and taking everything in. Unfortunately, some of my pictures from this time are missing, so I will have to look into what happened to that and post them later.
After the shopping portion was over, our tour guide brought us to the boat "station" to get some food and get ready to go to gulangyu. We had a really awesome lunch, and we were able to try many things we never tried before, such as shrimp cooked inside of sparrow eggs. Everything was delicious! Now, I guess I have to talk about one big thing I had always planned to eat when we were in Xiamen, a popular Xiamen street snack called 土笋冻(tusundong). The English translation of the name is worm jelly, and, as the name suggests, it is a gelatin type of jelly with worms inside. At this food court place that we went to, I had the opportunity to eat it, but for the second time I turned it down. I didn't think it was time to be eating the stranger things yet. I was saving it for later.
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| 鼓浪屿is just ahead on your left! |
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| a lady showing us how to open a clam to get pearls out |
I'm going to end this post off at this point. I don't want my blog posts to be too big. I will pick right back up next time when Hui and I arrive at gulangyu. Thanks for taking the time to read everything, and see you next time!
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