Xiamen, Part I

Well, I suppose I shouldn’t make promises about when I’ll post things because so much of it is out of my control.  I did write this post two days ago, but was unable to post it.  Yesterday morning I spent about an hour trying to upload pictures (unsuccessfully) and just when I decided to post it without pictures, the power went out.  Then I went home because I wasn’t feeling well.  So, here we are on Friday.  The internet is still running very slowly, so unfortunately there are only two pictures here.  Maybe I’ll get the rest up later.  In the meantime, here’s the post:

All three of us were very excited for this trip, because it – rather pathetically – marks the first time we’ve left Zhejiang province (unless you count Shanghai, which I don’t).  Due to the brilliant and not at all confoundingly frustrating Chinese train ticketing system, we were very limited in the amount of time we’d spend in Xiamen, but we were determined to make the best of it.  We had a little scare on Saturday morning when, aboard the B2 bus in Hangzhou and about to leave for the HZ rail station, my mom realized she didn’t have her passport OR her train tickets.  Miraculously, with super-human effort plowing through the pouring rain, she ran back to the apartment, retrieved her missing documents, caught a cab, and made it to the station with time to spare.

So, relieved that we’d all be making this trip together, we installed ourselves in the train and prepared for our 6+ hour ride on the dong che (fast train, albeit not the fastest train, which is called the gao tie).  Riding a train in China is an experience in and of itself.  The noise level is quite a few decibels above anything you’d encounter on an American or European train, although nearly all the noise is “happy noise.”  We shared our car, for instance, with what seemed to be an extremely large family which passed the trip laughing, sharing food, chortling, crying a bit (the children, that is), and playing computer games and movies with volume at full blast.  Due to the high volume of people traveling, Chinese trains also offer standing room only tickets, although these tickets cost the same as a seated ticket.  We discovered this the hard way one day between Shanghai and Hangzhou.  As a result, people are constantly walking past, standing next to your seats, crouching down in the aisles.

The trip was half the fun, though.  In addition to the entertainment inside the train, we also passed some incredible scenery.  The trip began in a steady rain, streaming across the windows and making it almost possible for me to imagine I was aboard the Hogwarts Express, although the food trolley was selling cup of noodles and chicken’s feet rather than droobles and chocolate frogs.  As we moved further away from Hangzhou, the landscape quickly became more rugged as the rain turned from a steady downpour to a pervasive mist.  This mist was quite complementary to our surroundings, which were dotted with small villages, terraced farms, bamboo forests, and the occasional scarecrow.  The further south we traveled, the more persistently and successfully the sun tried to burn off the clouds.  The landscape turned humid, lush, and tropical.  Honestly, my eyes were dazzled by all the green.  I kept thinking about how people say Ireland is green and wondering, could any place on earth possibly be greener than this?  It was lush, emerald, and incredibly fertile-looking.

We arrived at Xiamen North station a little after 4 pm and ran to the taxi line.  Our haste paid off and we immediately hopped into a cab.  After a 45-minute ride and a bit of wandering down small, unnamed streets, we found our hotel.  We stayed in a place called the Yoga Village Inn, which turned out to be an excellent choice.  Not only do they offer free yoga classes every day (hooray!) it was cheap, clean, friendly, and very interesting.  The inn is located in the former Indonesian Embassy, dating back from a more colonial era, I think, so the ceilings are extremely high (at least 15 feet) and everything looks romantically but functionally dilapidated.  The complex is encompasses a courtyard filled with flowers and jasmine trees, and a happy little kitten attacks everything in sight, be it plant, animal, shoe, or book.  Does it sound too good to be true?  It seemed so, really.  Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take pictures of the hotel and the following dark, blurry picture which features me rather than the hotel is all that we have:

Yeah...not a very good picture

Not wanting to waste any of our short time in Xiamen, after checking in we immediately set out to explore.  The city is vastly different from Hangzhou.  Although Hangzhou has been around for eons and was briefly a capital of ancient China in one of its incarnations, most of what we see today is new and modern (and boring, in my opinion).  The streets are wide, straight, and obviously planned.  There is no old architecture to speak of with the exception of a few temples and pagodas around the West Lake.  Xiamen, on the other hand, somehow escaped destruction from World War II AND from the Cultural Revolution and thus remains charmingly ramshackle, meandering, and colorful.  Starting in the 1500s, Xiamen was one of China’s main ports open to the West, a fact heavily reflected in the city’s architecture.  Much of it looks colonial in a Caribbean sort of way – full of wrought-iron balconies, pink- and green-painted buildings, and windows you can imagine pirates’ wenches hanging out of – and the Gulangyu nightscape reminded me bizarrely of Rome (Gulangyu is on of the islands that comprises the city of Xiamen, and is its most famous attraction).

So, we window-shopped and people-watched, then stopped quickly for some xiao chi.  Xiao chi is probably best translated as “street food,” because it is food that one buys and consumes on the street.  Literaly translated, it means “small eat” or “small food.”  It is ubiquitous throughout China and reliably much better than what we Americans might think of as street food (mainly, I think, hot dogs, popcorn, and stale pretzels).  In fact, sampling a bit of xiao chi is an excellent way to get an idea of the local tastes, and we found Xiamen’s to be delicious.

[Here was supposed to be a food photo, but after 30 minutes of trying to upload it I’ve given up]

Shortly thereafter, my mom decided to head back to the hotel for the night to rest up for the next day.  Ryan and I both wanted ice cream, so we stopped for McFlurries and continued to wander as the sun set.  Xiamen was still alive with activity, though – another nice difference from Hangzhou, which shuts down relatively early.  We walked down to the waterfront, relishing the the distinct ocean smell we’ve been missing for 9 months.  The atmosphere was excited, carefree, and summery, bright despite the dark sky.  As the ferries between the larger island and Gulangyu run until midnight, we decided to take a nighttime boatride and check it out.

Gulangyu is a maze of tiny, pedestrian-only streets lined with miniscule shops and restaurants that literally tumble out of and over themselves.  Vendors crouched on the ground hawking their wares and restaurants displayed buckets of fresh, still-swimming seafood available for purchase and consumption right there.  Plenty of people were eating dinner, something we found surprising given that people in Hangzhou, at least, usually eat dinner around 5pm (our Chinese teacher thinks it’s ghastly that we often eat around 7:30 or 8).  Ryan got a great picture of the Xiamen skyline:

We didn’t want to overdo it that night, though, since we planned on spending all of the next day on the small island.  So we made our way back to the ferry dock and squeezed our way on, fighting through quite a crowd:

[Another failed picture]

We then retired to our little Yoga Village Inn and awaited the next day.  Which is what you will have to do, too, because I think this post is already long enough!  So, as long as the internet cooperates, I’ll post the rest on Monday.