All four of us go visit Xiamen university. Despite a security guard telling there is no parking inside, we go in and park. It's a very scenic campus, that seems built around a man made lake. Dad does not remember any such lake back in his days. There is a big group of uniformed high school students visiting the campus. I guess it is to motivate them to study hard. I later learn how many hours they spend in school.
First year college students all sit in the same classroom and desk for the whole year, teachers come in to teach thei various subjects. So they don't have to take books around, all their books are already in their desk.
We see lots of new buildings, as well as some old buildings that dad remembers. There are a few signs for the century anniversary that the college just celebrated.
Nanputao temple is almost connected to the university. So we visit that too. It has monks studying as well as hordes of tourists and worshippers. There is a pagoda statue that folks are throwing coins into the window orfices. Presumably a wishing well tradition. We see a lion with a ball in its mouth and so Songtao points How the ball is often constructed within the teeth. Xiangching buys a bag full of treats to take home for the family. I wish I thought of that.
We pass a small market with assorted items and I notice the rolled up tshirt tradition is still alive. I think it must just be too cold for the natives to demonstrate this earlier.
We see a space like a playground on the university, but it is filled with wooden gymnastic parallel bars. That must be a sight to see during pe class.
We have Lunch at a Thai Vietnamese restaurant. After parking for lunch, I comment that there is a guy handing tickets out of the parking gate machine. It seems like quite a water of man power to do something a machine is already in place for. Songtao later explains patiently to me that he is the only dude for parking fees. No one at the exit. So he has to manage the fee with some duration variations. Thai Vietnamese is not like the us version. It could be a variation for Chinese tastes. There isn't phad Thai. :(. Still it is yummy, and yet another difference I experienced.
After lunch, we take the ferry to gulangyu Island, where they do not allow any gas vehicles. It's a place for locals to go for relaxing, and perhaps to gawk at the foreigners architecture left there decades ago. The Ferry charges 1rmb for upstairs, which is much less crowded and have seats. It is standing room only downstairs. After we get there, I admit the view back to xiamen is particularly nice. But it seems to have as many people on the island as there were back in Xiamen downtown! The streets are filled with tourist shopping, and surprisingly a number of fresh seafood mongers. When we finally sit down for some tea by the sand beach, we are gouged by the plastic tabled entrepreneurs, and are charged 70rmb for a little bag of cheap tea. Still this island is quite different from how dad remembers. It used to be full of embassies of european nations. There is a piano museum full of pianos left by those embassies.
You cant help but wonder about the cars as we drive around xiamen. There are a few american brands. But mostly japanese cars dominate. Thee are chinese brands, but they are more rare than the american. There are a large number of bmw's, and audi's. There are a very large number of porsche cayennes. The rich got to flaunt it here. Songtao says the rich have so much money they pretty much have to work hard to try to spend it. At least thats how i choose to interpret him.... Numerology is still strongly believed here. License plate numbers considered lucky are very much desired. Songtao would like an Audi Q5. I never see one, lots of late model q7's though.
Perhaps in response to my complaints about the expense of Dinner last night. Of which Songtao again paid for completely. We try going to a Food court above a shopping center. It is the kind where you pay for a card loaded with some yuan. Then you go choose your food with that card, and you get a refund of money off the remainder on the card. It's rather adventurous food to me, though I say i could manage. Dad finds some food that reminds him of local Changting cooking. But in the end, we decide it isn't good enough. Dad tells me later that it must have been my face that said: go somewhere else.
We choose a Ginger duck restaurant that we saw advertised in the elevator up to the food court. It was quite yummy, and frequented by plenty of locals. [as if I could recognize a local.] the restaurant service had one interesting feature. After the waitress took our food order, a Tsingtao girl took our beer order. Apparently, it's an agreement the restaurant has with Tsingtao.
-Larry
[Sent from my iPad]
No comments:
Post a Comment