Last week was my first trip to Xiamen - about an hour away by bus. The city is much more advanced than Zhangzhou. I can see why the students think Zhangzhou is a small city - Xiamen has high rise buildings, so many neon lights at night, etc, etc. It's almost like going from Burlington to Toronto, if you wanted to attempt to compare.
We left mid-afternoon on Thursday (Max's birthday). After meeting his friend Joe at the Bigong Hotel, the three of us went for dinner at Pizza Hut. Some very good people watching there. Because the majority of Chinese people don't like using their hands to eat (they think it is very dirty), they use chopsticks to pick up their pizza. The slices are much smaller than at home, but this is still pretty amazing to watch. From what I saw, they spend more time making a mess then eating. A lot of my people watching was concentrated on the salad bar. Salad is very rare in China from what I have experienced so far. Raw vegetables are considered dirty and are boiled / cooked to ensure cleanliness. This salad bar is a one-trip deal. So one person in each group will order the salad bar and load up the plate. I'm not just talking about piling up the food, but they spend at least 20 minutes at the salad bar carefully stacking fruit & veggies until it looks like a Jenga game. One wrong move and the whole thing will topple over. I have pictures (of course).
After parting ways with Joe, Max and I went to the movies. We saw the Nicolas Cage movie about 9/11 (it was terrible in my opinion). The movie is in English, with Chinese subtitles. After the show, we went to a small restaurant across from the hotel for a drink. We asked for beer and wine, but they only had canned beer. We had a bottle of wine in our bag, so they gave us a bowl of ice and let us drink there - we ordered a late night snack and had a glass of chilled wine before calling it a night.
Friday morning, Max & I went to Gu Lang island. To get there, you have to take a ferry across the water. The sky was grey for most of the day, so many of my pics are a little blah. But the Island was full of adventure. We weren't off the ferry for more than two minutes when some Chinese tourists asked us to take pictures with them. After the photo shoot, the first stop was McDonalds. Inside was a bride, groom and two other wedding party people. The two women were having their makeup done in between bites. It was so entertaining. There was even a photographer taking pictures. While we were eating, a twenty-something kid came over to us and started telling us in English how he takes pictures with every foreigner he sees. He was very funny and his shirt said "Motherfucker" on it - I hope it's clear in the picture.
As soon as we stepped outside of McDonalds, two sales girls from the adjacent store grabbed us and took us into their backroom. Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Lacoste, Burberry, Rolex and on and on lined the shelves of purses, wallets, clothes and watches. In this situation, prices are all negotiable. It is very entertaining actually. They start out with a ridiculous price and then you throw them a much lower price. They become very animated and lower their price a tiny bit. And so it is back and forth until agreement is reached. If you tell them that you aren't interested, they will lower their price until you buy it. At another shop, we were just looking at a pair of Rolex watches and the lady put them in a bag and we were saying "no, no, no" and she continued to lower her price until we ended up paying 50 rmb for the pair - her original price was 250 rmb. (To convert, one Canadian dollar is approximately 7 rmb - so 70 rmb is about $7). Some of the merchandise is really quite nice, and some is not worth a second glance. But they will sell you everything. At the end of the whole production, you leave feeling exhausted, but full of gifts. We also bought some silk scarves & purses in another store and I found amazing paintings in another (one for me and one for Robin). The streets are lined with small shops selling everything...paintings, expensive brand name bags, clothes, watches, sunglasses, silk, pearls, shoes - anything you could possibly desire. And it seems that almost all prices are negotiable. We didn't really do much on the island, other than shop and people watch, but it was a good day.
Joe met us for dinner once we got back to the mainland. He took us to an amazing Vietnamese restaurant called Myanamar (or something like that). After dinner, the three of us wandered the streets for a bit and then went back to the hotel. We walked around a bit more with Joe and then around 11, Max and I went into a small bar across from the hotel. It was just like at home - some comfy chairs & table, tall bar stools at the bar and good music. The owner (Jimmy) is half-Chinese and half-Japanese, but grew up in Taiwan. He hates living in China, but has lived here for 10 years. He played everything from Bob Marley to Heart to Diana Krall to Micheal Buble and in between. We had a few Corona's and he polished off a bottle of whiskey while chatting about life, love, music and China - his stories were very entertaining. Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera died, so no pictures of our new friend - next time. We gave him a list of Canadian / American / British music to download for his collection. There aren't many bars around that have the western-feel. Many of them have private rooms and KTV (karaoke). The music is so loud while everyone sings and plays the dice game that you don't really talk. So it was cool to find a place to sit and chat and enjoy a nice cold beer.
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