• Share it :

Happy 4th of July!

China exploring 厦门 Friends NSLI-Y 厦门

Today was our most adventurous day so far. It was also the hottest day. Today, to celebrate the 4th of July, we went sightseeing all over Xiamen. Our wake up time was 8:00 am which clearly did not give me enough sleep. We had breakfast at the University cafeteria which is very odd. The first level is apparently forbidden to us for some unknown reason; therefore, we always eat on the second floor. Which would been fine if the food was the same. On the second floor it is more "Americanized" food, which generally I would be very happy with, except their version of American food is not really American food. Downstairs they have tons of "cha shao bao" and upstairs they had fried fish and questionable eggs and potatoes. But they did have this fried bread things that I should know the same of but I don't. So for breakfast today I stuck to the bread.

After breakfast we hopped onto our bus again and drove to this ancient Buddhist temple that dates back to the 800's. It was stunning. The architecture is so unique and incorporates Chinese characters into the walls. But, it involved A LOT of walking in the hot and humid air. At first I thought, "this isn't too bad" but then you round the corner to see an endless flight of stairs that seem to touch the sky. Each couple flight of stairs led to another temple of some sort. Sometimes it would be small, sometimes it would be massive. At the top was the prettiest view I have seen so far. It was the perfect panoramic view of Xiamen, including mountains in the distance and skyscrapers creating an epic cityscape. Once we took our photos we hurried off the rock because boy was it hot up there. Then we were faced with the impossible task of going back down all the stairs we had just climbed. And the stairs weren't evenly spaced and level like they are back home, they are crooked and jagged. But do not fear, all 32 of us survived.

After climbing through old temples we gladly got onto the air conditioned bus. Our next stop was an old, unused war fortress which was about a 15 minute bus ride away. It wasn't as interesting as the temples but by that time I think our bodies had adapted to the insane heat because it didn't feel as hot even though we were out in the open. So that's an improvement.

Me and Catherine eating pear ice cream

We didn't stay at the battle fortress for long. After about an hour we got back onto the bus and headed to lunch. This time I claimed the front seat in the second level of the bus. This had a perfect view of the road through the bubble like window that surrounded us. Lunch was interesting meaning it was mostly seafood. But mom you would be proud of me because I tried squid. And no, the squid was not like calamari, it was a full squid with tentacles at the end. For those who don't believe that I would do something crazy like that, here is a picture.

After eating a little bit of squid and mostly rice we headed to the founded of Xiamen University's hometown which was on the continent which meant we went across the bridge and off the island. We went to a "Turtle National Park" which makes no sense to me because there were no turtles whatsoever. But it was pretty and since it was right by the ocean there was a fantastic breeze. After we spent some time in the park we had 45 minutes to do some street shopping. Even though I didn't buy anything I did help my friend Catherine bargain a fan down to 8 RMB instead of 15.

Turtle Park

Cool architecture in the Turtle Park

After shopping we headed to dinner which again was mostly seafood but it was okay. Because a majority of our day was spent in the bus, we had a lot of time to talk to one another. For example we came up with 3 necessary things you must know how to say in Chinese to survive in;

1) Crank up the AC
2)Where is the real toilet (rather than the holes in the ground)
3) I don't eat seafood

Know these 3 phases and you're good to go. We also got to observe Chinese driving with has virtually no rules what so ever. Our bus driver would tailgate the car in front of us to the extent that we thought we would hit it. Also I only saw one driver us his turn signal and he turned on the left blinker but changed lanes to the right. Also the pedestrians walk anywhere and everywhere, no matter if a bus going 35 mph is blaring towards them. And don't even get my started on the bikers and motorcyclists. It's like they close their eyes when they drive and hope for the best. They drive the opposite way in traffic and drive straight through an intersection regardless of the stop light. Some crazy things happen in China.