A Day in Xiamen - July 4th

To celebrate the 4th of July and our first day in Xiamen (厦门), we visited three important places around the city. The first was a temple called Nan Pu Tuo Si (南普陀寺), a temple that dates back to the first century. It was a little bit crowded with tourists, and we stood out especially because of Catherine's red hair and Jackson's American flag tank top. There was a collection of beautiful Buddha statues and we were forbidden to take pictures of the inside of the temple, but we felt like celebrities from all of the locals who were trying to take pictures of us! We climbed up the mountain on uneven stairs until we reached the best lookout spot of the area.

Next, we hopped on our air-conditioned bus, Shanna and I got the best seat at the front, and we travelled to Hu Li Shan Pao Tai (胡里山炮台）, an old cannon battery used to fight against Taiwan and other countries during wartime. It was right on the water making for a spectacular view of the skyscrapers and mountain ranges surrounding Xiamen. There was a steady breeze on top of the battery which made the heat bearable. After about an hour, we were treated to a family-style feast for lunch. Unfortunately, the food was not my favorite part of the day. For example, the first four dishes they brought to the table were various kinds of seafood, for example, whole squids, shrimp with their eyeballs still staring at us, and an...interesting plate of vegetables and strips of fish. But we weren't hungry for too long...after about thirty minutes they brought the one thing we all love - rice! While the food was not my favorite, I still appreciate the efforts Dr. Chen made for us to eat well.

After lunch, we drove across the bridge to travel to the hometown of Xiamen University's (厦门大学）founder. There was a long street filled with little shops that we could go into an browse, and at the end of the street there was the Turtle Park with a temple and an obelisk looking over the coast. It was cloudy and windy so we could enjoy the view with a little less heat than normal.

This is a photo of one of the cameras in the tunnel

Something that we noticed while sitting in the front of the bus is the number of cameras the government has installed around the city. Every tunnel, every road, every building, every highway sign, every exit, and every ramp has a camera. Some posts even have five or six just to capture every angle. In tunnels, the cameras take a photo of every car at the beginning and end of the tunnel. We noticed because there was always a big flash when we drove through. We all thought the different views of privacy in China was fascinating.

We decided that there are three terms you need to know when spending a summer in china:

1) Turn up the AC!

2) Where's the REAL toilet?

3) I don't eat seafood, do you have other meat?

For dinner, we ate at a really nice buffet at a 5-star hotel (thank you taxpayers!) and ate until we couldn't stomach any more food. By the end of the day, we were EXHAUSTED. We got to see so much and I look forward to seeing even more of Xiamen.