Back home

We're back at 'home', in Xiamen. Amazingly, the flight from Guilin seemed to go really quick. Its too bad, since we has great seats. Lots of leg room.

We came back to the Wichmann B&B and dropped off our stuff and picked up Mark. We really missed him. So off went for dinner. It was Korean where they BBQ at the table. The beauty of the bbqing is that it's done in front you. From there we went a drinkin'. A cute little 'hole in the wall' for maybe 7 people (if you're lucky). More beer!! Willie you are really going to enjoy this country. Back to the B&B we go.

It Saturday, and a great day!!!! Its time to shop. Off we go to Gulang Yu! Interestingly enough, you don't have to pay for the ferry ride over, yet you do have to pay on the way back. If you want first class seating you pay a little extra. A ferry ride of 8 min. ( I think.) Tina won the bet, by default , Mark gave up trying to time the ride. We wandered and wandered and wandered. Finally our guide let us rest and have a beer. This little island is quite nice and a great place to discover. The beaches are peaceful. In the distance you can see the boats, boats and boats. Large and small. Quite fascinating are the large steam liners that are filled with containers going for the west. ( I think) Greg, remember the show we saw, just like it. I wondered if the captain would meet up with some pirates. We continued on to do more sight seeing.

Some history ....
This little island was once an area used by foreign dignitaries. At that time outsiders were not allowed in mainland China.

Now it was time shop! That was fun. Tina knows all the good spots. It helped that Tina knew some of the merchants as we got some great bargains. It seemed like Christmas, for we received free gifts. I am sure Tina is a great economic supporter of Gulang Yu. Now it was time to go home. Back to Xiamen and we go shrimping.




Meaning, we had to fish for our dinner. Luckily, we could order our food. The 5 shrimps that were caught couldn't sustain cat. Our great fishermen were DOD with 3, Ben (Siew's son) 1 and Christel with 1. The rest of us enjoyed our beers and did a lot of yakking. This took about an hour and we went to order our dinner, which much easier. From there we went to Temptations and enjoyed some nice wine and great conversation. Tina had left for a few minutes and came back with some fruit. We sampled persimmon (really good), custard apple r(really tasty and mice texture), durian (ugh..really stinky and a taste you had to get used) Sorry Sue, (her favourite), magosteen (quite tasty but not much meat to it), Chinese apple (a little drier that our royal galas).


Talked, drank, ate and left!