Dingle Speaks

Ok, this is the very last post on Xiamen (IIVB), I promise!! Oh, hold on, I just remembered something else, I might hold onto that for a while though before we all OD on Xiamen (IIVB)

You might remember from my first couple of posts about Xiamen (IIVB) that we’d been a little underwhelmed by it all, we’d got the distinct impression of just another Chinese city which happened to be on the coast and was largely inhabited by a temporary heaving mass of the dreaded bus tour groups.

Well, on day 3 we’d done the tulou tour, which had been awesome and as we woke on the 4th morning (a tuesday as it happens) we were a bit stuck for what to do next. In the end we decided to just pop for a look at Nanputuoshan temple, which was very close to our hotel and had been recommended by Tina.

The first thing we saw on arriving at the temple was a large pond with quite a number of people looking into the water. We wandered over for a look and ended up spending about half an hour there, the thing was positively humming with turtles (probably terrapins to be exact), I had no idea it was even possible for so many to survive in one place. The floating turtle coop in the centre of the pond was underwater due to the sheer weight of turtles, stacked 3 or 4 deep on top and everywhere you looked in the water turtles swam and I was surprised to see that somehow large catfish had managed to survive until adulthood and were competing for food alongside the turtles.

H grabbed some berries from a nearby bush and started dropping them in the water attracting a large group of turtles over towards us, several families started doing the same, the kids were having a great time pinging berries off the back of the turtles. After a couple of minutes H pointed to a group of turtles and shouted LOOK LOOK, I looked over to see that one of the large turtles had grabbed one of the baby turtles by the head and was pulling on it like crazy. Within a couple of seconds its head was off and then the other turtles all joined in tearing chunks off wherever they could, all the while being pelted with berries by the unimpressed watching kids. We decided it was time to take a look at the temple..

Not impressed with the berries the turtles quickly turned to cannibalism

Somehow we managed to get in without paying, there was a gate where people were walking through and we just kind of followed, then we noticed attendants at the gate who weren’t really doing anything as we walked past and that other people seemed to be holding tickets, it was all a bit late by this point though, we were already through, unchallenged.

The temple was nice enough, but having just been on a trip to Beijing with my family and visited the Forbidden City (for like the 4th time..) and the Summer Palace we were having fits of deja vu and quickly lost interest. The arrival of a couple of coach tours quickly made our mind up and after playing around throwing coins into the mini-pagodas (it never gets boring..) and taking a few photos we headed back to the hotel for lunch and a nap (well we were on holiday you know…..)

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Last stop on the Tulou tour was Taxia village, which we almost didn’t make at all. We’d heard rumours about it being closed during the day because of “roadworks” on the way. Finally when it came to the time to move there the driver smugly announced that it was closed so we should head back. Foolishness when H was in the car, after a brief minute or so of “chat” we were on the road to Taxia (she pointed out that we’d paid for the day and we’d go back when we were ready, if we couldn’t go to Taxia we’d visit another cluster of tulou 80km further away from Xiamen… you’ve never seen anyone get the car started so quickly).

On the way to Taxia the driver told us the real problem (as he understood it). I mentioned on a previous post that apparently the villagers only get paid 200 rmb per year to endure their houses becoming tourist attractions and apparently at Taxia they’ve decided that enough is enough and are trying to get this increased by stopping the cooperation with the local government. In return Taxia is reported as closed by just about everyone until this is all resolved.

So, there were no roadworks and we basically had Taxia to ourselves for an hour… Unfortunately it had started raining quite heavily and we were already quite tired from all the walking at Tianluokeng and Yuchanglou so we didn’t explore as much as we might. Anyway, here are some pics:

Taxia is basically a large picturesque village of tulou located either side of a valley river

the tulou were largely uncommercialised

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On day 3 in Xiamen we went to visit some Tulou (traditional Hakka earth buildings).

These are quite a way from Xiamen (150km or so) so we actually considered a group tour for a short while, I blame a momentary lapse of sensibility, but after looking at their schedule we thankfully decided otherwise. They were all something like 3 hours of travel followed by a rapid visit of various tulou with about 10 or 15 minutes at each, an hour for lunch, then 3 hours back to Xiamen again.

Actually deciding which tulou to visit was the first headache, there’s something like 20,000 of these traditional Hakka houses in Fujian province, but we opted for Tianluokeng, which is a World Heritage Site and probably the most famous (as well as being a national AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA tourist site or something like that)

So H looked for a driver and eventually found us one at the reasonable price of 750rmb for the whole day (bearing in mind the distance to be traveled), which was obviously considerably more than the group tour, but without the rushed schedule, stops at silk factories/jade museums and megaphones, we could take our own time and decide our own agenda.

The guy picked us up at 8am and we set off for Nanjing County (not that Nanjing). In the few minutes before H took over the entire rear seat and fell asleep she had plenty of time to figure out the driver, “he is too pale” she said, “he must have some kind of disease”, which is Chinese for “I wish I was that pale”. Diseased or not he could drive reasonably well enough but had a dreadful taste in music which H soon put an end to as she was nodding off.

Anyway, let’s forget about the journey, nothing of interest happened apart from to say that it was a loooong journey. After 2 hours we started climbing and I figured we were nearly there, but we just kept going and going on a road thankfully devoid of coach tours (we’d timed the trip well for the first weekend after schools went back and this was the monday morning).

Roadworks on the way to Tianluokeng

We finally arrived and paid our 90RMB entrance fee to the Tulou area and continued driving for another 20 minutes or so before the driver finally pulled over and indicated the viewing point across the road. We got out for the first view of Tianluokeng.

Tulou are either round or square. The story goes that when the US first sent up the spy satellites they became convinced that China had constructed thousands of missile silos all over Fujian, all ready for it to kick off in Taiwan..

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Day 3 in Xiamen (IIVB) and so far so good, although to be honest we’ve been a little bit meh… about xiamen (IIVB) so far. More about that later I guess.

Anyway, today we hired a driver to take us out to see some Tulou close to Zhanzhou, we’re currently en-route. I’d tell you where but google maps is all in Chinese and H is asleep and not in the mood for helping (to be fair she probably would have been until the 3rd or 4th time i pushed strands of her hair up her nostrils, now i’m in no doubt that she’s not to disturbed until we arrive..). Anyway, it’s close to some palm trees:

The weather forecast is pretty bad but fingers crossed that the rain holds off, will hopefully get lots of pics to post when I get back!

I just arrived in Xiamen, it is very beautiful, for a holiday with the wife.

The only thing I know about Xiamen, it is very beautiful, from talking to colleagues so far is that you have to say “it is very beautiful” every time the word Xiamen (it is very beautiful) is mentioned.

Here’s a pic of the scenery I just shot from the taxi, so far so good!

If I learn anything else exciting in the next few days I’ll be sure to update you.

That is all.

Edit: more from the ferry to Gulang Yu at Xiamen (it us very beautiful)

Happy CNY 2011 everyone! We just got back from H’s hometown in Jiangsu province where we’ve been staying for the last 5 days, it’s good to be back!

Here’s some random photos from the trip:

Eating great home cooking at H's parents! Although after eating there for every lunch and dinner for the last 5 days we went straight to Di Shui Dong when we got back last night!

Helping H burn money for the dead, it goes straight into their heavenly bank acount innit.

"Gold" and bundles of "bank notes" to be burnt for the dead. Each "bank note" is worth 50,000,000, apparently the currency of heaven is Vietnamese Dong.

The official village dragons, they come to dance at each house to bring luck for the next year (or something like that), the neighbours watch closely to see how much money you give them, this is a sign of how successful you've been in the last year, anything less than 1000rmb is viewed as a disaster..

On the back of the official dragons come all the local beggars and money swindlers etc, most of them with homemade dragons, it was pretty much like being in a zombie movie with the sea of arms waving through the gates at regular periods through the day. Apparently at CNY everyone who turns up gets something, nobody gets turned away, so they come, in numbers, at one point I noticed a group of guys on motorbikes going round begging at the house gates, so blatantly not poor.... The only thing you have to watch out for is that they tend to keep coming back, several times during the day, they just do laps of the whole block....

One of my colleagues once asked me if I was proud to be British

“Yes, of course” I replied, “are you proud to be Chinese?”

“Yes” he said, “why are you proud to be British?”

“I’m not sure” I said, “why are you proud to be Chinese?”

“Because we have the atom bomb”

I just found this great site, they take pretty girls, give them makeovers and make them look dreadful (or am I really not getting it).

I haven’t got a clue what happened to the third one, looks like she was swiped with the toilet brush.

(Click to make them biggerer)

It seems that no Shanghai based blog is complete without male accessories, and while I’m not as metro as some of my good friends I do like a nice watch. I’m not really interested in expensive (or fake), mainstream stuff, it’s always the obscure, interesting stuff that interests me (yeah, I’m a cheapskate).

Anyway, I saw talk about these watches on watchuseek and just had to have one (and they’re not easy to track down). It’s made by Seagull (Tianjin Seagull, different from the Shanghai Seagull camera company) and is a reissue of their 1963 chinese airforce watch. It seems that demand is high, I had to wait months to receive it, worth the wait though! My pictures don’t really do it justice (the best I can do in my hotel with a P&S and a desk lamp) but take a look at the watchuseek pics above to get a better idea.

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The movement is Seagull ST19 (handwound chronograph), the seagull movements are pretty much copies of ETA movements as far as I know, and by all accounts they are a pretty good match in terms of performance. Apparently the text reads “China: Tianjin Watch Factory” although apparently they’re made at the plant in Shenzhen.

My only minor gripe is that I’d prefer something a little bigger for my chunky wrist, at 37mm it’s a little on the small side of what I’d normally wear.

I just need to find a decent strap now, it’s still on the khaki NATO strap it was supplied on, anyone know any decent shops in Shanghai for straps?

EDIT:

Oh, by the way, Seagull watches are stocked at Tourneau in Xintiandi (not this model though), I took a look, their range is certainly premium priced but not really to my taste, they do have a reasonably priced tourbillon though.