On Gulanyu with friends

A must see for visitors is the quaint little island of Gulanyu, five minutes away by ferry. We go quite frequently for church, but still haven't really managed to see the whole thing. We ended up back at the stone statue of Zheng Cheng Gong, or the Taiwanese statue of liberty as I jokingly called him (since he drove the Dutch out of Taiwan as well as Xiamen during the Ming dynasty). Any day on Gulanyu is pretty relaxing, even with a bunch of kids. Below, sitting on Zheng cheng Gong (also called Koxinga)'s feet:

Thomas is frequently concerned with looking "cool" in pictures but he liked this one. Go figure...

Kate and her mom looking lovely...

Helen and Noam looking like they may be in danger....there are a lot of things in China which would not pass the strict safety guidelines of the US, including this site and the boardwalk along the sea we took to get there, part of which was nearly covered by the tide coming in.

And finally, the gang of kids and some warrior horses..the kids have become really close, this is the third time we have been together for a number of days and the older ones keep in touch by email.

After our day we had a last dinner at the restaurant next to our building, which we are often frustrated in going to because the menu is only available in Chinese. since Yoni is pretty fluent in Chinese we were able to order a nice meal with some very fresh fish which pleased everyone before our sad parting...we will see these guys in Beijing in February for the mid-year Fulbright meeting. They have been our extended family here in Xiamen and will be missed terribly...

I leave on Wednesday to see my folks in the US, so not sure if I will have the time to blog, but will try to keep everyone updated..thanks for all the kind messages about my mom.