Adam is in China: Xiamen

The train from Guangzhou to Xiamen was a night train of 14 hour. Unfortunately, for this journey, I did not have the luxury of a bed in the sleeper cars. Instead, I had a "hard seat" I don't want to complain too much, but it was something near miserable. the seat was indeed hard and the seat-back was directly upright. I found it very difficult to sleep and I think that I got a total of 4 hours throughout the night. The next city, Xiamen, was definitely worth the torture. William and I got to the city in the morning, bought a map and then went to lunch at BURGER KING!!! While enjoying our lunch, we pull out the map to examine exactly where we were and what we wanted to do during our visit. The first glance at the map revealed something shocking and we both said in unison "We are on an island?!" We were aware that Xiamen was ocean-side, but we were not aware that it was ocean-surrounded. We did, after all, come in by train, so this was indeed surprising. After glancing at the map for a bit we decided that after checking into the hostel, we would go to the beach and then check out the area around the University which we were told was beautiful... Here are the pictures from Xiamen

The hostel that we stayed at in Xiamen. It was pretty cool: Italian Villa style.

hillside by the hostel

THE BEACH!!!!

Water meets Rock

The stairs of a fort on the island

Cannons

looking down:across the fort

the view of the city from the fort

Awesome

I found a cannon!

It was warm and bright that day and I forgot by sunglasses

walkway going around by the beach

I like this picture so much: I put it in twice (by accident)

Helping these bearded brothers figure out the map

Xiamen University: maybe the next place I want to work in China!

Corndog!!!! YES!

On the3 second day in Xiamen, William and I decided to check out the island near island. We could take a ferry there. So we did. here are the pictures of this island.

The old RR that leads through a park to our Hostel

AWESOME BREAKFAST

I lost the jacket real quick... it GOT HOT

European Architecture for the colonial period is still intact on the small islet of Gulangyu. Absolutely beautiful!!

Yeah. AWESOME. I know. We didn't want to leave

This place was empty: I'd love to take it over and restore it!

A giant stuffed bear working the window at one of the shops.

"CAUTION: DROP DOWN"

William. Our hostel is right behind his head on the main island.

'NO STRIDING'

this place looked pretty cool. It was a Hotel where you could rent one of these little houses for a night. right behind is the ocean. I think that i were to go back I would splurge the 300 RMB (50 USD) on this!