10/4/12 We take off from Taipei to Xiamen on the China Airlines 8.45am flight. Our journey will now take us into the unknown because we have never been to Xiamen and Meizhou; our next stop after Xiamen. We have read up on 夏门 and from what we have gathered it is a progressive, tropical city with clean, wide streets and some fantastic cuisines.
I booked us into BESTEL 毕思特酒店 for two primary reasons: it is within walking distance to the Zhongshan Lu Pedestrian Street 中山路行人街 and the world famous Gulanyu 鼓浪屿. On both scores I was dead on.
Bestel is situated on 思明西路 inside the 南中广场。The Zhongshan Lu is only 3 minutes walk away and the ferry to Gulangyu 8 minutes.
Nice comfy room
We walk to 中山路行人街 to take a look see. There are certainly many shops selling food and consumer goods. However we are very disappointed at the quality and have concerns about the general cleanliness of the area.
Rubbish collection
KFC and McDonald's will eventually bail us out many times on Chinese soil
2.30pm we catch a ferry from Xiamen to Gulayu. This is a shot of the ferry to Gulangyu. On Gulanyu there is no mechanized vehicles allowed including bicycles.
For dinner tonight we manage to find us a pretty good restaurant Chaozhou Cheng 潮港城 not far from the Marco Polo Hotel. We were concerned about the quality of food and so we settle on some safe choices of 潮州抄饭 and 福建抄粉丝 which does not have any meat in them.
For dinner tonight we manage to find us a pretty good restaurant Chaozhou Cheng 潮港城 not far from the Marco Polo Hotel. We were concerned about the quality of food and so we settle on some safe choices of 潮州抄饭 and 福建抄粉丝 which does not have any meat in them.
Workers use this type of cart to transport building materials as no mechanized vehicles are allowed on the island
View of 夏门岛 from 鼓浪屿
As viewed on the highest point on 鼓浪屿 - the 曰光岩。
The oldest type of housing built on Gulanyu from the 1700's (so I am told)
These are residential housing on Gulanyu
Overall our first impression of what we have seen on the first day on Xiamen is .... this city sucks!
We find the city polluted with traffic and people. The cab drivers are crazy drivers and people spit and smoke everywhere, even in restaurants. The pedestrian street and Gulayu is over rated and expensive. For example it costs us CNY 120 of entrance fees to climb up to the highest spot on the Island. It is almost extortion by the Xiamen city.
And the city also taxes us 3% on hotel bills and CNY3 for every taxi ride regardless how far we travel $$$$$$$. We dread to think of where to eat and where to go after our first day in Xiamen. And we have booked 4 nights' stay on this Island.
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