Shortly after the end of our journey to Xiamen, I had the desire to record our journey and my feeling. However, due to lack of energy and time, I just jotted down a few lines to record this precious memory.
It was a 3-day tour but the real visiting time for us was only 1 day. Unfortunately, it rained on the morning of that day so we cannot make it to Southern Putuo temple which was a pity for some colleagues since the temple is a Buddhist holy place in southern Fujian next to Xiamen University, the most beautiful university in china. I had visited Xiamen years ago so it’s fine with me.
At around 5 on June 10, after 4-hour bullet train traveling from Ningbo East Station to Xiamen North Station, we arrived at 9 p.m. We were the only arrivers in the grand station. Though Fujian and Zhejiang are neighboring provinces the temperature gap was considerable. The first impression was its humidity and hot weather. For Fujian, I don’t know a lot. Though I had lived there for 2 years, but the city then was quite different from today’s Fujian. I was young and naïve didn’t have lots of memory left. Out of the station, we got on the bus to hotel. On our way, we listened to tour guide’s introduction to this city. She said Xiamen is like the shape of one’s hand, with Xiamen Island as the palm, 5 channels to the outside inlands as the fingers and thumb. Jimei was the first stop, which was located beside the southeastern sea of Fujian, in the center of golden triangle of southern Fujian and was the important gateway to Xiamen special economic district. Its location was so advantageous. Jimei district is a famous tourist and inhibition area of overseas Chinese with over 60,000 overseas residents. It has quite and elegant surrounding and beautiful scenery including Chen Jiageng’s former residence, Aoyuan homecoming gate, Lilin garden, dragon boat pond, alligator garden, Wanbao Mountain orchard, Education Garden architecture complex and many other humanistic spots with the characteristics of southern Fujian, with a visitor number of over million person times. Jimei is also the cultural and educational district of Xiamen and Jimei education village has a history of 90 years since its establishment by Chen Jiageng, the famous patriotic overseas Chinese. It has won the reputation around the world and is equipped with complete education facilities and system from kinder garden to university.
As the tour guide said, there are three route in travelling Xiamen, namely “by sea, by air or by land”. “By sea” refers to visit by boat or speedboat, “by land” refers to visit by bike and “by air” refers to visit by air cable car, enjoying the full view of Xiamen. In my impression, the land way is the most interesting and fun one with sunshine and beach along while enjoying the tracks of Xiamen international marathon. But it’s beyond our schedule so we had to visit on our own expense. So we gave up. At 8:30 on June 11, we started from the hotel to Gualngyu Island. There were too much tourists so we made it it’s already nearly 10. We quickly visited the spots with tour guide’s introduction. It’s so tiring for a person like me who doesn’t travel much. Unfortunately, it rained at that time so we were soaked. Looking back, Gulangyu is not a suitable spot to visit by group. If friends together have a couple of days there, listening to the violin in the piano museum and enjoying the magnificence of Shuzhuang garden, tasting the architecture’ beauty and alley’s uniqueness, it would be wonderful. If tied, one can take a quick tour by speedboat and the roaring tides are pleasing and refreshing.
Hulishan batteries represented the temperament of this place. Faced with the threatening from Japanese invaders, the cannons responded with their roars. Only the persisting resistance can win respect.
That’s all the movement I received from this tour. The other visiting items like bamboo charcoal living hall and KungFu tea performance were just attracting shopping desire. For potential shoppers, who made lots of purchase, it’s not so bad though.
