How time flies. Chinese New Year was so late this year that although it is hard to believe it is almost time for the Spring Festival.

I am leaving Xiamen tomorrow to take the bullet train up the coast to Fuzhou, and will post a few pictures looking back.

Xiamen has been recorded as a city for around a thousand years, but apparently little ever happened here. During a period around 1000-1200 when China was open this was a major export city for tea. That’s about it.

General Koshinga retreated to here with his Ming army in the mid 1600’s when the Manchu were overthrowing the Ming Dynasty. He apparently stayed here quite a while. Maybe a decade. This is interesting (probably only to me) in that when the Manchu began to pressure him, he crossed the straights to Taiwan, besieged the Dutch Trading Port at Tainan, and threw the Dutch out of Taiwan. Apparently then living happily ever after.

It has been quiet for me too. My hotel turned out to be not so good, and in a not so interesting area. It has been cold and drizzly with grey skies every day. And going around the city the people are sullen and act as if they are being watched or afraid of something. So I will be glad to go.

Interestingly, this the major city in China for returning Chinese, those who made their money in the west and then returned to their own culture. They can surely live like kings here.

 

The city is quiet, clean. Has great seafood everywhere. Nice shops and markets.

I took some bus trips. 17 cents US.

There is one little not so interesting museum.

A huge university.

Plenty of beaches with walking trails. . A good place for a bicycle ride or some wedding pictures.

Nice suburbs.

A little old city near the beach. I did not make it into the actual old town. I have to return to Xiamen to exit China in a way that I can get to Taiwan, and will stay in the old town in a week or so.

I cannot imagine how many restaurants there are in this city. Thousands and thousands. They line the streets.

It was cold and rainy this morning, and I live in an area that has some shopping malls, so I went down to just one for an indoor walk around, and took some pictures of the restaurants in there. Many of these are mall food, but some are pretty nice. We could use a few of these in Bemidji.