Another Monday Vacation

Since this is our last full week in China time is running out to get things done, and having Monday off turned out to be no different. We were up bright and early so that we could head up to the area that sells bikes and purchase some for ourselves.We have wanted to do this for the last 6-9 months so that we could take the time to bike around and explore some other areas of the island, but we always managed to get sidetracked. Finally since we are out of time the bikes had to be bought, we will have to be happy with the short ride back to the apartment as the extent of our biking in China.

At home we spent some time working on completing the moving sort that we have been slowly working on over the last few weeks. The movers came in first thing on Tuesday, so we needed
to have everything sorted clearly as to what was staying and what is to start on its trip back to the States. Once we got most of that organized we were off to a late lunch and then a quick trek through the markets on our way over to Gulang Yu.
On Gulang Yu we finally made it over to see the piano museum, another thing we have been talking about doing for close to two years. It was worth it, small but amazing to see the progression of pianos through the ages, and the entrance fee includes access to a good sized garden that includes some nice ponds, paths, and a 12 cave rock grotto.
Some more wandering through the beauty of the island and we met up with our friends Dan and Howard for a quick drink to watch the sunset.
Once dark Dan invited us over to see his apartment, since he has been talking about having a party there for at least a year. He's got an amazing place, and although he's on a hill that requires hundreds of steps to get there, the beer was cold (and free) so we didn't complain....
After a quick ferry ride back to Xiamen we made our way over to the Wyndham to visit with Jasmine for what could possibly be the last time, and then planned to return home via the night market so that we could enjoy yet another great meal there.
Alas, the night market only had about half of the normal stalls set up, we aren't sure if this was because it was a Monday or because they presume that it's winter and 24C is too cold for people to head out, but since our favorite seller wasn't there we just headed home and picked up a small chicken sandwich from a new shop that opened just down the street from our apartment...

Zhanjiang

Today's adventure was a four hour drive to Zhangjian. We ended up getting lost on our way to the local market. Actually we drove past it, and Mark thought they were taking us to another one, so after an hour or so, when the roads became worse, it dawned on our guide and driver that we may be going the wrong way. Turned around and went to the village we past.

The first stop was to see Miao village, actually it ended up being a landlord's house way back when, which has since been converted into a museum. Ray, our guide took off with one of the local girls to pay, what Mark and I thought was for parking but later came to find out it was for the entrance to the museum. We couldn't stop him in time to tell him no thanks. We were more interesting in seeing the local market, though we did learn about the history of the Miao, and about 3000 years ago they use to live in trees.

Ray was getting hungry and asked if we wanted to start heading to Fenghuang. We asked him about the market and wanted to know if we missed this one, if there would be another market that we would be visiting where the locals still where their traditional outfits. In typical Chinese fashion, he muttered maybe, I think. Which means no. Mark and I told him that we would be going to the market, but will be back about 20 minutes or so. It was a wee bit longer, but had we not asked, our opportunity to visit the market would have been lost and it was definitely worth it.

Miao people

We could have stayed for hours, and glad we were able to see this market, as we we were unable to get to another on this trip.

More fun at the market?

Saturday we spent most of the day over on Gulang Yu, and as always, we get to walk through the market first to get over to the ferry terminal. But Saturday morning the little path across the street, and the entrance to the market were both blocked, and there was quite a crowd and a lot of commotion. The main thing that we noticed were the police - I'm guessing at least 100 of them were milling around, directing people, and doing general police-type things.

Row of 10 police cars on the north side of the street

Looking across (from Temptations balcony) to police in the blocked-off area

At least 11 police cars on the south side of the street.

Army members with the police at the entrance to the market.

We don't really know happened, we got a little story on Sunday translated to us when enjoying a drink at Me & You 2, that some of the ethnic minorities that sell the nuts at the entrance to the market had also been sleeping out there and this angered some locals. Apparently a fight then started, he pulled out his knife and then there was a lot of blood. We don't know - no blood remnants on the street on Sunday, but then none of the nut vendors either.

If we even find out more we might just update this post - stay tuned.

Life in Xiamen...

Cruising through the headlines over at WhatsonXiamen when we ran across the headline "Xiamen police strike hard on street walkers". Since I know that you guys won't click into that article I'll post a copy of it here for you all -

Street walkers soliciting along a street is not a rarity, although they are illegal in China. Recently, 24 street walkers were caught for soliciting in Dajingjiao Alley near Zhongshan Road, one of Xiamen’s popular shopping streets.

According to the Lujiang police post, they sent out more than 40 policemen for the operation. A total of 24 women were taken to the police station on suspicion of soliciting on the street.

In addition, a patrol team will soon be set up to patrol and stand guard around the area 24 hours a day, according to the police post.

A few years ago, there were many illegal venues disguised as hair salons around the alley which made some of the old tenant's move out of there leaving empty houses with relatively cheap rent. Thus it has become a paradise for streetwalkers to hang out.

So there you go - they're cracking down on the many streets of prostitution here in one of the best livable cities in all of China. Since I didn't include the photo from the article, I'll post one Tina snapped a while back when we were strolling through the alleys.
Legs - apparently soon to be a vanishing sight. Where now will we take our guests to show them the "real China"?

If the rains hold out we will have to take to the alleys this weekend for a few last photos of a dying breed. Unless, of course, this is just another short lived crackdown the likes of which one sees quite often in China - bad this week, fine again in about a month. Time will tell.

Elaine & Emily - Guest Blogging Post #5

May 31 – Up at 7am a quick, light breakfast of toast for Emily and Elaine; nothing for Tina and Mark.... Mark, Tina, and Emily were all feeling a little under the weather.

So we leave the cold damp mountains to head back down to the Hong He (Red River) and drive through the valley towards Jianshiu and finally back to Kunming. Along the way we stopped at a Mongolian village, it was more than 750 years old and still populated with some of the Mongolian people that ended up stranded there when the Chinese drove the Mongols out of their country and back up north.

Along the way back we stopped for lunch at truck stop – Mark and Elaine were only ones eating, but it was very good with corn cakes, a local item, which were very tasty, then continuing on to Kunming airport for our flight back to Xiamen……..

We arrived back in Xiamen 7pm, happy with the dry and warm weather that greeted us. After unloading at the apartment, we stopped by temptations for wine, and then on to the Bashi night market for great food and people watching.

June 1^st - Again everyone is up first thing with a tight agenda; Tina’s great at packing it all in. We took a 90 cent taxi ride over to Xiamen University and walked around the campus. It was graduation so excited students in caps and gowns were everywhere.

Quickly followed with a quick tour of Nanputo Temple.

Then began the whirlwind of shopping and getting last minute gifts; we went Zhongshan Lu to kick-off the shopping extravaganza. We had lunch in the expat area as a little western food was needed to calm our stomach which has been a little iffy after Yunnan. We walked back through Electric City, a technology market. Then on to the tailor’s to pickup Elaine’s new wardrobe – she got some great shirts.

We ended the day by hitting Pearl World once more, then tea tasting – one of the highlights.Then an hour back massage with cupping; Amazingly, Elaine came through and now has 10 spots.

Mark was the most toxic.

Then shrimping which was fun; we caught 15 jumbo shrimp and began eating at 11pm.

Then back to the Wichmanns for packing, wine and bed at 2am.

We had a fabulous time. Tina and Mark run a 5 star B&B! On to Seoul where we plan to hijack this blog and share our stories without the Wichmanns.

Yunnan Province - Elaine & Emily Guest Blog #4

Elaine and Emily left this morning for a few days in Seoul, South Korea before heading back to their normal world in Chicago, but as we mentioned, they did leave us with a daily journal that we can use to update our blog. The following is more of what they left with us from our trip to the Yunnan Province:

May 30 – We awoke to fog but forged ahead with seeing the terraced rice fields. Our driver did a good job at getting us to clear areas where we could see the rice fields and take photos before the fog rolled in; it was amazing to watch as the fog spread over the fields.We were able to see some of the Duoyi Terrace and then drove on to a Yi minority village market. We walked around and observed all the activity; selling all varieties of fresh vegetables and meats, local people selling and buying raw tobacco and bartering for fresh poultry (one sold and alive in the bag was quite entertaining). We bought some baozi to eat as we walked the village streets.

We had lunch and returned to our hotel to rest and wait for the fog to clear. In the late afternoon, we continued the tour of rice fields and visited a Hani minority village. We had to park at the top of a hill and walked about a mile downhill into the village. These people live in “mushroom” houses and you’ll be able to see why from the photos. This was another very authentic experience…

Aw, nuts....

Somewhere about 6-8 months ago, we don't exactly know when, we started seeing a bunch of new vendors on the streets of Xiamen.
Nut vendors, guys on bikes that will hang out by the bigger bus stations and the entrance to the bashi market that we go to. There's actually a lot of them, we presume them to be Uighurs, one of China's many ethnic groups - these being from the Northwest part of the country up near Kazakhstan.
A crowd gathered when we decided to buy some walnuts last weekend, apparently they don't see foreigners buying nuts too often. Actually we don't usually see anybody buying from them, but they always travel in groups - we saw 4 of them when we stopped and made our purchase.
We think he overcharged us, as these ended up tasting like the stale old walnuts that we can get back in Canada and the States....

Changing the water.

Yesterday we took our standard stroll through the markets near us, but this time we saw something that we hadn't seen before.

One of the vendors was cleaning out the fish tank that they keep their fish of the day in. Fish tank? Well, the small stryofoam box that the fish are always kept in, who knew that these things needed to be cleaned?

But where do they put the fish while they are cleaning out their tank?
Yep, they just throw them out on the street...

They're back...

We had complained earlier that all of the shoe polishers had disappeared, and that Siew Yih had told us not to worry and that they would return in a few months.

That was back in August, and for a few months we were worried that Yih was wrong and that for some reason unbeknown to us they wouldn't be returning. By the time Tina's family came to visit some of them had started to return and we were able to get our shoes polished, but there still weren't as many of them and the timing of when you'd find them and their location was still hard to figure out.

But this Sunday when we went to the market, back in their usual location we were greeted with a nice row of at least 8 people waiting to polish our shoes.
So Tina and I walked past them all smiles to know that they had indeed returned, and when the ladies that usually polished our shoes saw us we joked "好久不见", bartered a little and then sat down to get our shoes polished up all nice and clean.
It was good to see them again.

Xiamen Markets and other Fun - Guest Blogger

Well today is a new day, Tina and I are off to Tai Chi. Mark's working from home and will be looking after DOD (our dear ol' Dad) this morning. Since the day is off to a slow start for dad, he was curious for about breakfast. Since Wichmann B&B doesn't include breakfast he wasn't sure where his morning 'grub' was coming from. Luckily, he brought groceries for Tina and Mark from Canada.

Tai Chi is a wonderfully slow excercise. It is energizing and meditative. Tai Chi has the ability to strengthen muscles you never knew you had. Flexibility is also a benefit. Tai Chi is a total mind, body and spirit excercise and it a lifelong endeavour. It is especially invigorating when done outside in nature. We finished and headed back to the apartment.

We gathered our belongings and headed for lunch and a small 'walk'. Tina and Mark took us back to the local market and walk through the different alleys. A total culture shock. When you have done these alleys you really didn't know whether to feel guilty or sad. An unbelievable way of life! The alleys are wide enough for only 1 person, so single file we go. These people have a very simple life and poor. The real ironic part is -when you look up you see the new highrises. According to Tina and Mark, eventually these old sections of town are being slowly demolished to make way for the new. Part of our alley tour gave Dad a real eye opener. Dad and Mark went down their own 'special' alley. In other words, the women would be 'cramping their style.' As we were going through the alleys we couldn't help but laugh. We met up with the men and heard their story. Let just say, they (according the them) were lucky to get out in one piece! Ya, Ya,.............

Next came our shopping, I did manage to pick a small Samsonite for $40, thanks to Mark and he's bartering. The price of the case started at 480RMB and ended up at 280RMB. Just divide the amount by 7 to give you the dollars.

We arrived back at the apartment and Tina made up be real quiet as not to disturb Mark. So that's what we did. Our next stop was for a foot massage. Dad was so excited. This time around it was painful. My guy hit all the right spots. He must have found all the tense /stress spots. Wow! It hurt. The funny thing about a foot massage here in China is the masseuse also works on the your back. Boy that was even more painful! My masseuse found all the right spots, again.... I thought for sure I was going to fall off my chair. Oddly, the discomfort I had to endure was gone in no time when he was finished. Now it was time to head home.

We arrived again at the apartment, so we could pickup Mark for dinner when he was finished his work. Again, Tina told us to keep quiet as Mark was working. So we waited. We didn't want to disturb him, so we were quiet as as mouse. We waited. Basically, we just relaxed again. Not me, I am told to write this blog. So like a good sister I did. Now, it was time to get Mark and go for dinner. If you know Tina and Mark's place its not that big. Its a 2 bedroom apartment. Really nice and really, really spacious. It must be, since Tina couldn't find Mark. She didn't realize he was gone. Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it? Anyway, we headed out for dinner.

A local restaurant called 'Good Taste'. Quite an interesting meal. In the middle of your table is a gas burner. The idea of the meal is to order assorted dishes to cook. The pot has a basic stock - ours was fish and from there you add your own indgredients. Tina ordered for us, which also included live prawns. The prawns are added to your boiling pot. I just didn't have the heart. One thing about China, all their food is fresh. I mean alive and kickin'. For me, it would take some getting use to. We have been lucky, we really enjoyed the food. There really is no alternative. It seems any Western type food will cost you more and Tina and Mark wouldn't take us there anyway.

We loved the food, and went back to the apartment to retire for the evening.

(As a side note, I had told Tina that I would most likely be heading out in the afternoon to visit a vendor for work. I did also send a text message to her, while they were being quiet waiting, telling her to just go out and eat without me - I think she just wanted to enjoy her family being quiet.... I did manage to finish and come home by 19:00 so that I could enjoy more family time.)

Part II – Friday night

After the wedding, both Mark and I were hungry as the food disappeared quite quickly, so we decided to find some food.

It was about 10pm at this point, and Mark suggested the market. What a great idea! By now, everyone knows that we really enjoy strolling through the market during the day, but in the evening, the market becomes a culinary delight, and we enjoy it just the same, if not more.

It's amazing how busy that market is in the evening with people of all ages enjoying their meals.

As we wandered down through the market watching everyone prepare food, eating and drinking, we came upon one vendor that looked like he may have what we wanted.

By this point every Chinese in the market, just looked at us, as if we just landed from another planet. Typically we get looks during the day from the locals, but at night, it’s a whole different ball game. They don’t get foreigners walking through the market at that time of night, let alone sitting and eating. If they are lucky to spot one our species, we are generally with other local Chinese, so needless to say we made many friends that night curious as to why we are there, and where we hail from.

Mark went and picked out some food and 20 minutes later we dined on chicken, octopus, and a host of grilled vegetables. It was damn tasty and still one of our favorite places to eat in Xiamen.

After three baskets of food, and many conversations later, we headed home. We were walking back and one table full of Chinese men offered us more food and beer. We stopped and chatted with them for awhile, and had some food, and we continued on our way.

A few of the vendors wanted their pictures taken as well as some young Chinese men. We took the photos and Mark promised to send them the pictures.

The next day, Mark sent off the photos as promised to the young men.