Giving the Xiamen tour

Here is my neighbor Deborah on top of the mountain behind our building...read more about the exciting tour of Xiamen we are giving this weekend below....

We are in the midst of a really fun weekend, long anticipated. Regular readers will remember the Fulbright family we visited in Xi'an and traveled with to western Sichuan back in October. We had also spent a lot of time with them in Beijing. This weekend they travelled to Xiamen to see us, and Yoni gave some presentations to students in political science on environmental policy. We all just love having them around and are enjoying showing off beautiful Xiamen. I would like to add that we give this same level of service to anyone else who cares to visit (hint, hint) Above is our morning breakfast party, as they are also in the guesthouse. Coincidentally, another Fulbright scholar in English was also here this week and overlapped with their visit, so we are feeling quite popular, and it was a regular Fulbright reunion. Below are the kids posing with the Xia Da founder's statue near the lake.

And of course the main attraction for the kids..the beach. I do want to emphasize that every place we visited over the last 2 days that is pictured here in the blog we got to on foot. The kids brought a lot of little action figures down to the beach to people their sand fortifications. The students on the beach were mesmerized by this activity.

Ooops -- one photo out of order here...these are the giant lily pads at the Nanputuo Temple next door. which we visited today.

Back to last night...after dinner at the vegetarian Buddhist restaurant, we all got the candied fruit on a stick that my kids have grown very fond of -- Tal and Noam had never had it..by the way -- Thomas loves this stuff, just caught him looking weird! If you look at drawings or artwork depicting Chinese children, especially in a street scene, you invariably see them eating these sticks of candied apples (also strawberries, kiwi and other fruits available)....and with good reason -- they are really yummy.

OK, so today we went to the temple, with the primary goal of a quick visit and then the hike over the mountain behind our house, via the temple stairs up the mountain, much more direct than the meandering way we took with the students. Wondering about the fruit hanging off this palm...too small to be a coconut! I didn't take many photos at the temple which was insanely crowded today, because the clouds of incense rendered visibility quite poor, plus we were busy keeping track of everyone. Once we began the climb up the mountain the crowds really thinned out, the day cleared, and we had a great view of the campus from the top.as shown with Deborah at the top of this post. Eventually we reached the very top of the mountain and followed the trail over and down into the 10,000 Rock Botanical Gardens. We have been there several times but never seen the whole garden. Today we saw a section we had never seen before.



While there, a man was selling flowers made from palm branches...think what a business he could make on Palm Sunday in the US! The speed with which he made this rose was really quite breathtaking.

We spent most of our time in the cactus garden..to think I never knew this place existed just on the other side of the mountain I see out my window.



After fending off the tourists and a hearty amount of walking, we made it down the mountain..we did opt to take the bus back, and ended up at one of my favorite restaurants for lunch, which serves Shaanxi style food, with a Muslim influence. I love their dumplings, which they coat with melted dough somehow which melts almost like cheese -- can't really be explained, only eaten. This patio restaurant is far back off the main road up an alley, seemingly where all the really good stuff is in China. In the late afternoon we hang out again at the beach, and saw a beautiful sunset, enhanced, I'm afraid, by the clouds pollution over the mainland, most of which we are spared here. I had left my camera, so if I get a photo from Linda I will copy it. Tomorrow..Gulanyu .