After basking in the winter warmth of Hong Kong we resolved to store up some 'People's Money' or Renminbi (RMB) and spend our next five day vacation in Anji. That resolve lasted as long as it took to find 760 RMB round-trip flights to the coastal city of Xiamen in China's Fujian Province. As one of the closest mainland cities to Taiwan, Xiamen has reaped some trade benefits and enjoys a prosperous seaside existence.
We touched down in Xiamen to the swaying palms and thanked each other for the wise decision to not dally in the rainy, cold cradle of Zhejiang province. After a couple of bus rides from the airport and a game of hide and seek to find our hostel, we parted with our bags and grubbed down on some food at a backstreet restaurant near Xiamen University, reputedly the most beautiful on display in China. We enjoyed the seafood hint to the food that we had semi-blindly ordered. Fujian and Guandong, two of the Southernmost coastal provinces, are famous for population diaspora to all foreign lands.
Xiamen turned out to be an extremely pleasant city, but nothing special to the traveler. The shopping was great...we thought quite comparable to Hong Kong in terms of selection (discounting the Versaces, etc)...and the food delicious, including the dirt cheap peanut soup. Particularly the strawberries which inhabited every fruit vendor's stall.
The beach was not the most pleasant in the world, although once we made it to the nearby Gulangyu via ferry the sand was at least hospitable to barefeet. Both hostels we stayed at (one near the University and one on Gulangyu) were comfortable and attractive. Our afternoon stroll admiring the decaying and refurbished colonial architecture, the healthy flora, and the crushes of Chinese tourists mercifully concentrated in a few tourist brochure must-see spots was pleasant. The island is a popular place to play dress-up, with many couples hiring photographers for the day to capture various themed outfits. This provided some good people watching. We shared a coconut and wandered aimlessly around the beach front walkways before swathing across the island back to our hostel. Refreshment
While Xiamen was pleasant, the main reason for out journey to Fujian was to see the tulous about 4 hours inland. The ride was fascinating, taking us from expressway through endless banana plantations (at a rest stop we had the best naners of our life for a pittance) into hills and valleys of dirty, wretched excavations in process. Country Roads and Casualties
This was the worst air quality we had yet experienced in China. After an hour of snail-pace navigation through a town in the midst of a paving project that, when coupled with the traffic, made it seem more like a war-zone, we escaped the dusty valley and arrived into the one more preened for tourism. That is to say, where the fronds of banana trees maintain a lush green rather than a layered grey.
We touched down in Xiamen to the swaying palms and thanked each other for the wise decision to not dally in the rainy, cold cradle of Zhejiang province. After a couple of bus rides from the airport and a game of hide and seek to find our hostel, we parted with our bags and grubbed down on some food at a backstreet restaurant near Xiamen University, reputedly the most beautiful on display in China. We enjoyed the seafood hint to the food that we had semi-blindly ordered. Fujian and Guandong, two of the Southernmost coastal provinces, are famous for population diaspora to all foreign lands.
Xiamen turned out to be an extremely pleasant city, but nothing special to the traveler. The shopping was great...we thought quite comparable to Hong Kong in terms of selection (discounting the Versaces, etc)...and the food delicious, including the dirt cheap peanut soup. Particularly the strawberries which inhabited every fruit vendor's stall.
The beach was not the most pleasant in the world, although once we made it to the nearby Gulangyu via ferry the sand was at least hospitable to barefeet. Both hostels we stayed at (one near the University and one on Gulangyu) were comfortable and attractive. Our afternoon stroll admiring the decaying and refurbished colonial architecture, the healthy flora, and the crushes of Chinese tourists mercifully concentrated in a few tourist brochure must-see spots was pleasant. The island is a popular place to play dress-up, with many couples hiring photographers for the day to capture various themed outfits. This provided some good people watching. We shared a coconut and wandered aimlessly around the beach front walkways before swathing across the island back to our hostel. Refreshment
While Xiamen was pleasant, the main reason for out journey to Fujian was to see the tulous about 4 hours inland. The ride was fascinating, taking us from expressway through endless banana plantations (at a rest stop we had the best naners of our life for a pittance) into hills and valleys of dirty, wretched excavations in process. Country Roads and Casualties
This was the worst air quality we had yet experienced in China. After an hour of snail-pace navigation through a town in the midst of a paving project that, when coupled with the traffic, made it seem more like a war-zone, we escaped the dusty valley and arrived into the one more preened for tourism. That is to say, where the fronds of banana trees maintain a lush green rather than a layered grey.
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