鼓浪屿 Gulangyu

Xiamen is known for being a tourist city, its main sights being Gulangyu, Nanputuo Temple and Xiamen University's main campus (not the one I'm on). I was lucky enough to visit all of these places when I was here in March but have already been to them all again.

The weekend before last, Alex and I decided to go to Gulangyu for the afternoon as a change from normal weekends spent going out at night and recovering the next day! Gulangyu is a small island off the main Xiamen island. It is famous for there being no cars, colonial architecture and lots of pianos! It can be reached by ferry from Xiamen which is how we got there but once there the only vehicles are electric tourist buggies and emergency services, even bicycles are banned! Xiamen became a treaty port when China lost the First Opium war so 13 countries set up consulates on Gulangyu as well as churches and other buildings or built in a colonial style. The architecture makes the island very popular with Chinese tourists who often do not leave the country, as it is a chance for them to see something foreign. The foreigners also brought pianos and organs with them giving the island nicknames "music island" and "piano island". Gulangyu has both a piano and an organ museum adding to its list of attractions.

Getting there and back: The best and easiest way to get to Gulangyu is by ferry. We accidentally went to the wrong bus stop so got the ferry there from 第一码头 (number 1 pier) for 8元 (about 80p) but most people go from 厦门轮渡广场 (Lundu Ferry Square) at a cost of 4元. We went that way back to Xiamen island. Although we paid more from 第一码头, it did mean that the boat wasn't as crowded with tourists as the other one. The extra price was because it's a longer crossing. We decided both times to sit upstairs and pay an extra 1元 to get a better view.

Leaving 第一码头

Gulangyu ferry

Arriving at Gulangyu

Seats on the upper deck of the ferry

The "holding area" where people have to wait before being allowed onto the boat

Once we got there, we wandered along the coastal path as there didn't seem to be that much in the area around the ferry pier we'd arrived at. We could see the main Xiamen island as we walked past the beach to get to the busier part of the island. After a while we decided to go further into the centre and wander around the little streets. It seemed that everywhere we went we saw couples having their wedding photos taken in front of seemingly meaningless things to us like walls and gates, but I suppose as it's foreign architecture it's seen as attractive to the Chinese. I'd seen this before when I went in March but at least then they were posing in front of churches and on the beach, this time there were more couples who just seemed to be choosing any spot they could get!

View of Xiamen island from one of Gulangyu's beaches

Lots of steps to get up the hill!

Couples getting their pictures taken in March, I didn't get any photos of them this time.

Alex's room mate on the main campus had recommended we go up Sunlight Rock, the highest point on the island, to see the view and I hadn't been there when I'd gone before so we decided we'd go up for a look. It normally costs 60元 (about £6) to go up there but it was half price for us as we got student tickets. It seems that this only works for students studying in China though as when I enquired about it they asked if we had Chinese student ID. The area covered by the ticket price also included a statue of the moon cake gambling game, a canon, statues of horses and a Chinese man (not sure who he was supposed to be) and Gulangyu temple. The board next to the moon cake gambling sculpture was interesting as it explained the rules and history of the game, I didn't know that it was only a tradition in this part of China! The temple seemed like a smaller version of Nanputuo Temple on Xiamen island but was still impressive, particularly for Alex as he'd never visited a temple before.

Me playing the moon cake gambling game

Gulangyu temple

Gulangyu temple

We climbed the steps up to the rock and knew that Alex's room mate had been right, the view was definitely worth it! Unfortunately we got there just as it was going dark so not great for photos but we could see the whole of Gulangyu as well as part of Xiamen island and the bridge across to Jimei. 

Xiamen island in the distance

Alex and I at the top of the rock

Bridge to Jimei (mainland) in the top left corner

After our descent from the rock we meandered around the streets past the shops, restaurants and bars in the general direction of the ferry. There seemed to be lots of fresh fish available with restaurants allowing you to choose what you wanted to eat while it was still alive (as fresh as possible!) and an outdoor fish/seafood market. There were lots of people giving it quite a lively atmosphere. This was a side to Gulangyu which I hadn't seen on my previous trip as we'd gone on a tour during the day time, sticking to a strict schedule. I think it might be worth staying the night on the island just to explore the streets some more. Maybe another time. By the time we reached the ferry we were tired from walking around all afternoon but I'm sure we'll be back there at some point!

Choosing their dinner

Streets at night

Fish market

The crabs are still alive, they're tied up so that they don't pinch!

万圣节在厦门 Halloween in Xiamen

I never really expected to be doing much for Halloween this year considering I'm in China and it's more of a Western (American) tradition. However, What's On Xiamen hosted a series of Halloween parties for the 老外 (foreigners) to enjoy and for the Chinese to experience some of Western culture and take lots of photos! 

The first party was actually a week before 万圣节 (Halloween) on the 25th October. As it was so early I was completely unprepared with getting a costume and despite finding some cheap ones on 淘宝 (China's answer to eBay/Amazon), it was too late for us to order them so that they would arrive on time for the party. A Chinese friend, Joseph, had told me that a friend of his knew of a shop selling costumes near the main shopping street 中山路 so the day before the party, I went in search of costumes with a few others with no success. We didn't manage to find the shop that a friend of a friend had recommended and ended up trawling round shopping centres where there were Halloween decorations but no costumes before ending up in 沃尔玛 (Walmart) where they did have some Halloween accessories and children's costumes but nothing too inspiring. The next day, on a mission by now and thinking we'd have to resort to swapping clothes and going as each other, Alex (my boyfriend) and I went on a far more successful costume search. This time we went to SM, a huge shopping centre in the middle of the island, where they had a temporary Halloween shop set up that actually sold adult costumes.

The party took place at 海湾公园 (Haiwan Park). There was a stage and a few stalls for drinks etc. in the middle of the park meaning that it was quite cold considering that it's autumn here now. There were plenty of other people in costumes meaning that we didn't feel too out of place and we spent the evening chatting to different people. There were three costume competitions and we were slightly disappointed to have missed the funniest costume category as our costumes (particularly Alex's) received a lot of attention! Once the outside party ended, we went to one of the bars in the park for a bit before calling it a night. The next day we'd been invited to go to a new resort an hour away from Xiamen so we needed our sleep.

Pre-drinks at our friends' apartment - Esmerelda and Youku (Chinese YouTube)

Bumblebee and Herculina

Bumblebee, Elephant and Pocahontas

Cute Chinese lady selling roses at the park

Scariest costume competition

The next party was on the night of actual Halloween. This time it started at the, already mentioned, SM shopping centre before moving onto a nightclub by the park called Royal KK. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera with me so here's a link to some photos from the SM costume party. This event was different from the previous one as it was more focused around the costume competition with a catwalk where competitors had to perform a short routine in the character of their costume. It was quite entertaining to watch and the winner of the contest won a 4-day luxury cruise worth about £900! What's On Xiamen had plenty of free drinks coupons to hand out once we were at the club so a good night was had by all.

KTV

I haven't posted in a while because I've been really busy! Classes have properly started now which means 4 comprehensive, 2 oral and 2 listening classes a week for my level, 二年上，plus HSK Level 4 prep class - HSK is an internationally recognised Chinese language exam which means that I will be able to say I am at a certain standard if I pass it - and, my favourite, 唱歌学汉语 (Learning Chinese through song).

I mentioned in a previous post that I'd moved myself up a class as my previous one wasn't challenging enough and it's definitely safe to say that my new one is a challenge! The ability of students in the class varies considerably meaning that I am towards the bottom of the class whereas others have no problems with speaking and will happily stand up in front of class to talk about their home country/know all of the characters when we read through dialogues from the textbook. Being in the higher class means that I need to put more effort in with preparation as we are expected to know all characters in the texts as well as the assigned homework. We had a test last Monday for which I didn't do as much work as I should have done and got a C (terrible mark in China!) so I know now that I'll need to prepare more for the next one and how to prepare as I now know the style of questions. 

I find the HSK class to be useful as we go over grammar that we should already know as well as practising questions from previous papers meaning that I should be well prepared when it comes to the exam. HSK 4 has 1200 words that I need to know so every week we are having to revise/learn 150 of them for 听写 (dictation test when the teacher reads out the word and we have to write it in characters). The first one of these is tomorrow!

The singing class is definitely my favourite. It takes place 4:15pm - 5:45pm on Wednesdays which would normally be a horrible time for class but even if it was at 8am I don't think I'd mind! The teacher tends to give us lyrics in characters and pinyin (pronunciation) each lesson and we work through it as a class, translating the song and looking at characters we didn't know. We then sing through it together several times before splitting into groups to make the song our own and perform in front of the class at the end. The first song we learnt was 茉莉花 (Jasmine) - a Chinese folk song and the second was a pop song called 通话 (Fairytale). Anyone who knows me will know that I love learning languages and singing so this is the perfect class for me!

On Friday evening I thought I would put what I'd learnt in this class to the test by going to KTV with some friends and singing 通话. KTV is extremely popular in China. People go along to a KTV with a group of friends to get a booth and sing karaoke all night! My first experience of this was in Nanjing last summer when we went with our Chinese language partners. It was our friend Elliott's birthday that night so he joked saying that we could do karaoke all night. The Chinese girl organising it didn't get the joke and actually book it until the early hours of the morning, we had to explain to her that that wasn't what he meant and that 3 hours was plenty! 

KTV in Nanjing last summer

8 of us went on Friday and had a really fun time. It took us an age to get there as my friend had been recommended one in particular even though there are so many, but we got there in the end. When we walked in the people working there bowed to us and offered us a VIP booth for 100元/hour (about £10) rather than a normal one for 170元 (about £17). It was quite snazzy and even had its own toilet which wasn't a squat one! We sang a variety of songs and genres including Britney Spears, Queen, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, "My Heart Will Go On" from the Titanic, Gangnam Style and 童话 just to name a few. Although the booth itself was cheap, drinks were expensive at 40元 (£4) for a bottle of 青岛啤酒 (Tsingtao beer) so we decided against drinking so had a sober karaoke evening instead. We stayed for 2 hours which was plenty and everyone had a go at singing which was good! I'm sure there will be similar evenings before this year ends.

The KTV we went to on Friday

Lake outside the KTV

Lexi, Izzy and Tom chillin' in our VIP booth

Izzy and I with out GANG NAM STYLE hats (I've hurt my knee in case you were wondering)

Izzy and Lex singing their hearts out

Gangnam Style!

Favourite photo of Robin ever

Me singing 童话. It has such a sad video!

Tom joining in

"Look at those hips" - Perfect timing for a photo of Izzy!

The group (minus me)

永定土楼 Yongding Hakka Earth Buildings

Wanting to do something in the week-long holiday for Chinese National Day rather than stay at Xiang'an campus the whole time, Izzy consulted her Lonely Planet China book and we settled on the idea of going to see the 土楼 tǔlóu, meaning earth buildings in English.They're situated in the mountains of 永定 Yǒngdìng county in the south of Fujian province meaning that they aren't too far away from Xiamen and are therefore fairly easy and cheap to get to. Two of our friends, Robin - a Chinese student who volunteered to show us round when we were here in March, and Sam - one of the others who came from Southampton in March and is now studying a Master's in International Relations on the main Xiamen University campus, agreed to come with us. We met up with them on Tuesday to discuss the trip a bit more and buy bus tickets. Conveniently there's a train and bus ticket office on the main university campus so we didn't have far to go after meeting up with the other two. Robin organised buying the tickets for 1pm the next day, it is useful/easier having a native speaker with us at times! The tickets cost 58元 (about £5.90) from Xiamen long distance bus station to the Tulou.

The 土楼 were built by the Hakka people who migrated to Fujian from the north of China hundreds of years ago and constructed these impressive multi-storey buildings out of earth, rice and bamboo as well as other materials they could find. The most famous are the round ones but they were also built in squares as well. They are sometimes described as early apartment buildings due to them housing hundreds of people on usually up to four floors. Some of the 土楼 are still inhabited by clans and families today although there are often spare rooms for visitors. We decided that to get the most authentic experience we should try to stay in one of them which meant that we couldn't organise accommodation or return ticket until we got there!

As soon as we got off the bus at about 4pm, a small Chinese lady pounced on us asking if we needed a place to stay and if we wanted to look at the rooms she had available in her 土楼 by the bus stop, a convenient location. The lady led us to a small shop/restaurant/reception area for her business and we booked our bus tickets back for 2:50pm the next day through her costing 60元 (about £6 meaning that she was getting a 2元 profit compared to what we paid for the way there). She then took us across to the 土楼 to look at rooms. We loved it straight away as the place had lots of character with the many chickens wandering around and clear evidence that the building was still lived in. We decided to get two rooms, a three-bed and a single room, for the 4 of us costing 45元 (about £4.60) each. Not bad for a unique experience! The 土楼 didn't have a bathroom or toilets though...

Inside the 土楼where we stayed the night

Our luxury hotel 

After paying for the rooms and being given the keys we went off on a tour around to see various 土楼 scattered around the mountains. It was too far to walk so the only options were go by car, 80元 （about £8 a person. A rip-off as it had cost us less than that for the three-hour bus journey to get there), or motorbike at 40元 each (about £4. The price had started at 60元 but we managed to get it down a little bit). Being students we of course went for the cheaper, and probably more fun, option of going by motorbike, three on each bike. The drivers took us up through the mountains and along dirt tracks to visit the more remote buildings, some of the views were stunning. We went inside one round one where we had to pay 10元 (about a £1) to have a look around. After that we went into a couple of square ones as they were free and we didn't really think that the round ones would vary that much!

Entrance to a 土楼

Very impressive buildings!

Over here! Me inside a 土楼

Izzy and I with the motorbike driver

It started to get dark and we couldn't really see much so we decided to head back to get some food and an early night. The lady who'd sold us the bus tickets and the rooms for the night had told us that we could go into the main 土楼 area for free if we went at 4am so the plan was to get up very early! However, once we got to our rooms I think we all wondered if we would actually sleep. We could hear fireworks, pigs squealing and the sound of KTV (karaoke - a big thing in China) as we were trying to fall asleep. We did manage to get some sleep in the end and woke up to the 3:30am alarm.

Mine, Izzy and Robin's room. The bed closest to the camera was mine, the other in the shot was Izzy's

Mine, Izzy and Robin's room. Robin's bed

Fireworks preventing us from sleeping!

The lady was right that we didn't need to pay as we entered the 土楼 area at 4am but it was cold, dark and we couldn't really see anything! After wandering around for a little while, we came across a small restaurant where the owners were busy getting things ready for breakfast, the lady still in her pyjamas. Although they weren't yet open, they took pity on us and allowed us to use the toilet and sit around while we waited for breakfast to be ready - boiled eggs and beef balls about an hour later after our arrival. We left the restaurant at abou 5:30am as it was getting light. Unfortunately just before 6am we got caught by security who told us that we needed to buy tickets even though we'd gone there so early. Seems like we got up early for nothing! We got student discount as well meaning that the tickets we originally thought were going to cost 90元 (about £9), were actually 45元 （about £4.60).

土楼 at about 5:30am

My ticket with the time 5:57.36 - proof of how early it was!

Now that it was light and we had our tickets we were free to wander around, have a look at the buildings and take a few tourist snaps. It was interesting to see the local people still living a fairly traditional life with a market selling vegetables and meat as well as women washing clothes in the river.

Tourist photo

Vegetable market stall

Mobile butcher

Another 土楼

Some square 土楼

Laundry day. We wondered if they were just doing it for the tourists but, as it was so early and there were so few people around, this must actually be how they still wash clothes

Growing crops

Not entirely sure what he was doing but there were loads of these mats around

Sam, Izzy, me, Robin

Apparently this tree was over 600 years old

By about 7:30am we felt like we'd seen all there was to see but had the slight issue of our bus back to Xiamen not being for another 7 hours. We went along to the bus station to try and get onto the 7:30 bus but it was full. The lady working there said that she would let us know if we could leave on the next bus at 12:30 but that it was unlikely. With plenty of time to kill, we went off to have our second breakfast of the day before wandering around the village and up the road where the bikes had taken us the evening before. We found a path leading off the road and decided to go for a little explore. It took as along over a couple of streams and up to a dam that seemed to still be under construction. From there we continued up a track, covered in earth from landslides, up the mountain. We saw quite a few tombs along the way but Robin told me it was disrespectful to take photos. 

World Heritage Site stone

Izzy on the dam

Impromptu hike

On our way back down the mountain we got a call from the lady at the bus station telling us that we could leave at 12:30 after all. This was good news except for the fact that we only had 45 minutes to get back there and it had taken us about 2 hours to get to where we were! We realised that our only way was to hitchhike so we went back down to the road and walked along with our arms out until a nice Chinese family from Guangdong - father, grandmother, grandfather and two children - stopped and allowed us to sit in the boot. I got to practise my Chinese as Robin seemed to think they'd be more likely to pick up foreigners! Unfortunately the car couldn't take us to the bus station as it was locals only in that area so we ended up running for about a kilometre to get there in time but needn't have worried as when we got there the bus was late as the driver was having his lunch. 

All a bit of an adventure!

Sam and Robin in the back of the Chinese family's car