Quanzhou and Chongwu Outing

Last Tuesday, I had the pleasure of going to Quanzhou and Chongwu for the day. An outing was arranged by the Millennium for some of the expat women to go and visit these two towns.

Chongwu was our first stop, and probably the highlight of the trip, and not just my opinion. Due to the time we spent there, we missed out on a few of the other sights that were scheduled for that day but it was worth it.

This town has an ancient wall which is approximately 2.5kms. The beauty of this village is that the town has not changed much over the past 1000 years. The narrow roads, make it perfect for wandering around the town. Alas, we didn't have as much time as one would hope, but it just means that I need to bring Mark here and we can spend the day taking photos.

The local people, called Hui'an have kept their tradition. The women's tops are tight and short, exposing their bellies. There is some legend, which escapes me at the moment and no I didn't get any pictures. Also, the Hui'an have a tradition, where by when a man and woman wed, they do not stay together until she becomes pregnant. Apparently the men stay with their families or friends and the woman stay with her family. The bride cannot make contact with the groom other than the holidays, which are the Spring Festival, Tomb Sweeping Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. According to my taiji teacher, sometimes even when they have a child, the man and woman still live apart. Well I guess, they would never tire of each other.

Ancient wall, one of the best preserved walls in China

These are the black chickens that you can buy in the grocery stores

After spending a couple of hours here, we drove to Quanzhou. Quanzhou is part of the maritime silk road, and has been around 1000 years before Christ. Quanzhou is known for it's silk and some pretty outstanding temples. Back in the day, Quanzhou was quite the melting pot, so there is a strong Arab presence in this city.

Due to the time restriction that we had, and the very aggressive sightseeing agenda, not a lot of time was spent in this city. That being said, we did manage to see the Maritime museum, Kaiyuan Temple, the Mosque and the tombs, and the renowned puppet museum.

The Kaiyuan temple was one of the historical sites that survived the Cultural Revolution, thanks to Deng Xiaoping. The pagodas which are located to the east and west are over 1000 years old, built during the Song Dynasty. They are the best preserved stone pagodas in China.

Pretty impressive

These women decorate their hair this way every day. It takes a long time.

After getting lost a few times, we finally made it to the Mosque. The mosque was built over 1000 years ago, however an earthquake destroyed most of the mosque leaving only a skeleton.

Shannon, one of the tour guides, who happens to speak fluent Chinese was interviewed by a local television station.

The last stop was the puppet museum. Unfortunately, we were unable to see a show but some of the gals bought some puppets to take back for their children.


After a long day of driving, we managed to get back in the early evening. It was a great way to spend the day and enjoy some of our province's unique history.

What wasn't spent this last weekend.

Last week, while groggy with sleep, I received a bogus 50 RMB note from a taxi driver. I'm sticking with the sleepy excuse, but I doubt that I would have noticed it even if it had been in the middle of the afternoon instead of 05:50. We've heard that there are a lot of counterfeit bills floating around, and that most of them were 100's. Being that 100's are the largest note, and we only get them from the bank we were fairly confident that we wouldn't end up with one. Yes, we have head stories from others that fake bills have come out of ATMs, but we've never seen it.

But on my way home last week the taxi driver refused my 50 telling me it was fake. I looked at it and realized that it did seem a little off, but figured that I'd be able to spend it at a bar fairly easily over the weekend. No such luck - the few times I tried to spend it they returned with it asking for a good bill...

I guess if you're always on the watch for the fakes you notice them a lot quicker. Can you spot the fake from the real one?
These didn't scan in perfectly, the color is closer between the two bills then it looks. Visually they are pretty close together, there are some slight differences in Mao's look but the only way you can really tell is by feel, checking the thick section near his collar, or by holding the bill up and viewing the watermarks. Even those are copied, but apparently just not well enough...

One more 老Joe post.

Whenever a guest comes into town they're always good for a few quick posts - and the return of 老Joe is no different.

We had a fun Saturday of drinking at Me & You 2 and The Key followed by an easy going Sunday tour of Gu Lang Yu and fishing for our dinner at the shrimp restaurant. Monday night we had agreed that we would meet him in the evening over at the Millennium Hotel for drinks up at the bar.

The Millennium used to be the Crown Plaza, back where we first stayed when we move here, so we still know a few of the people that are staying in the hotel (they've been there for years) and a few of the workers. So we sat around and caught up with Roy, Jasmine, and Joe for a while and then Joe mentioned that he had purchased a discount foot massage card from the hotel and since he still had several more free ones available would we like to join them for a relaxing massage.
The last time I had a foot massage I found it a tad painful, but Roy and Tina explained that the massages at the hotel are much more like a spa in the states then the rough clinical massage that Tina and Edlin dragged me too last time. This, and there was some name calling, convinced me to try it again and down to the massage parlor we went.
They were right, this massage is nice and easy, very relaxing - the occasional point the is a little sore but nothing compare to my first foray in letting someone massage my feet. All is good, maybe I'll try this again some day.

Still playing tour guide.

Although Joe spent more time in Xiamen then we have, we have still managed to pick up a few things to do that aren't always standard touristy things to do, and thus we offered to tag along with him and his tour group so that we could share our knowledge. Yes, most of our non-touristy knowledge is based around local watering holes, but that's just what this group needed.
Of course, the number one item on the tour is Gu Lang Yu - that's not the bit of our information, but we figured we would head over with them and tour around.
This time we actually hiked all the way up to Sunlight Rock, I don't think that we've climbed up there since Matt was here to visit almost a year ago. It does help that we've gotten another cold front here, as it is much easier to hike up all those steps in 20C instead of 27-30C, the downside to the cold being that it was also very hazy - not as nice for enjoying the view.
But after the trip to Gu Lang Yu, that's when Tina's tour guide instincts kick in and take over. Any regular reader should have a guess as to where we went afterwards - and if you guessed Temptations you would be mostly correct. We swung by Temptations to grab some wine to take with us to dinner, and for dinner we went to the prawn restaurant.
This was one of our better outings at this place, with each of us catching at least 3 shrimp. I think overall our haul was somewhere over 20 prawns. Enough to get the order split and have them cooked in 2 of the 18 ways they will prepare them - we went with garlic prawns and the salt-caked prawns. Happiness, and we've finally gotten to a point where we can order the food without having to call for help, and stepping up to a fine wine with dinner was a definite improvement.

From there we head back over to our favorite local little bar, My Way, for a quick drink and to say hi to Gino...

The Return of 老Joe

This weekend one of the guys we know that used to live here in Xiamen came back to visit with his son Brian, and Brian's girlfriend Ashley. The stop in Xiamen was at the end off a trip that took them to Australia and then back up to Beijing, lucky them....

So they flew in on Saturday afternoon and after getting themselves settled at the hotel they gave us a call to meet them over at Me & You 2 for some drinks.

老Joe

Ah, it was good to see Joe again and to catch up with him - it's been a good 4-5 months since he moved back to Canada. We stayed at Me & You 2 for an hour or so before heading over to The Key...

Ashley & Brian

Joe and Tina

Another photo of Ashley & Brian

The Key is always crowded, and sometimes a bit of a pain since they only have bottle service. But we managed to agree on a bottle of Absolute along with some tonics and sprites. The band there is always good, and a few of the people at the table wandered over to the dance floor - eventually there was a conga line that came right up past the table we were sitting at, it was all a good fun night.

Joe dancing with one of the staff