So I know you have been itchin to see some pictures of China, and finally, we've got them uploaded. Now of course, I'm not taking any credit for these pictures; they are all Ed's work. But it should give you a pretty good idea of what we are living like and in (and of course eating!).
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| Our Apartment Building |
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| The Typhoon Bay where the fishing ships are supposed to go if/when we have a typhoon. |
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| Gulangyu |
Right outside our apartment building and across the water is a small island named Gulangyu. Its known for its 'Western' architecture, and seeing that it once housed the embassies of a couple countries its a pretty big deal here. Its a neat little island and we want to go back to it, when there aren't so many tourists there.
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| The General |
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| Our lunch for the day. It wasn't bad until we noticed this in Ed's soup |
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| Yup thats a bug--ewwwww (and no we didn't get sick from that) |
Nanputo Temple: Another Xiamen tourist highlight.
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| Trying to get money to stick on the rock surface. If you can get it to stick, your wish is granted |
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| Ed "I'm going to be famous; even if it just one picture at a time." |
Typhoon Fanpai:
So last week Fanpai came and visited Xiamen. Fortunately, we got a day off from school. Unfortunately a ton of trees fell and a few people lost their lives (not in Xiamen though).
It was kind of cool to watch the storm from our window and to see the people out and about in 110mph winds. We realized why so many people end up dying in these storms. It has to be because they are out and about, riding their bikes, walking to God knows where, when in reality they should be at home.
Food: Yeah, we may have had a few problems 'adjusting' to the food. So our stomachs end up not being entirely happy with what we've put in them more than once. But it has been a delicious ride.
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| Best Mango Chicken in Xiamen |
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| Really good soup and 'sandwich'. Total cost: $3 |
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| Fresh Pigs. |
I'm not going to add the photo showing people picking up their fresh pigs. They load them right onto their bikes. Half a pig hanging off the back is quite a site. But it might be a bit too graphic for some of you. If you really want to see it, email me.
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Wet Market |
Harvest Moon Festival:
Our landlord is a really nice guy. He's the same age, knows very little English, lives with his in-laws and randomly invites foreigners over to his house (yes that means us). He invited us over to "celebrate the cultural event of Harvest Moon Festival" with his family. This is what we were fed (and yes it was really, really good). That's his daughter. She couldn't figure us out and almost refused to look at us most of the night.
To celebrate (besides eating really good food) they play a dice game to win these things called Moon Cakes. I wish I could fully describe to you what a Moon Cake is, but just imagine a biscuit like cookie on the outside, boiled egg on the inside. Not the greatest thing out there...but the Chinese love them. We had a good cultural experience.
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| Tsing Tao: deadly |
