Blogs from Gulangyu, Xiamen, Fujian, China, Asia - page 3

We decided to venture across the water to Gulangyu, a small island across the water from Xiamen, where many old colonial buildings and historical sites are still standing. There are beautiful trees, some of which are 200+ years old, and gardens as well. Gulangyu in Pinyin literally means, "Piano Island." The island was home to a famous music school and contains the world's largest piano museum (we'll catch that one the next time around!) One great thing about Gulangyu is that it is not very crowded. It also has NO vehicles, save for a few electric golf carts that drive elderly folks and lazy tourists around. The first thing that one sees upon arrival on the ferry is a beautiful garden. The next thing in sight is...McDonalds!... read more

The rain fell like stair rods as we sheltered beneath a street awning in Bangkok, waiting for it to stop. It rained most days now. People were saying that the rainy season was starting earlier and earlier each year. Was this a sign perhaps, that the effects of climate change were beginning to affect weather patterns that could once have been predicted with a near perfect accuracy? Change was not always for the better. Other changes meant that we had to keep a watchful eye on the number of days we spent in the kingdom. New regulations affecting the amount of time foreigners could stay in Thailand during any 6-month period had come into effect shortly after our arrival in October 2006. Despite being careful however, the final 8 days of our current 90-day allotment seemed ... read more

Arrived in Gulang Island on Saturday around 5pm but the ferry had taken us to the opposite side of the Island than we had expected and needed to be. Unfortunately there are no roads here just paths so no cars just the odd golf buggy, which made travelling to the other side of the Island interesting, luckily for us the island is only about 7km squared. We finally made it to the other ferry port but by then it had gone dark and although we found the road the hostel was on we could not find the hostel (China has no logic!). So eventually we decided to book into a hotel instead, not the best in the world but it was warm and it had a bed. Sunday consisted of trying to find the hostel in ... read more

Well here we are in China on Gulang Yu Island and its been raining since we got here! How did we get here?? Well we got the flight that left late and instead of arriving at 8.30p.m we got in after 9.30 and then could only change US$50 at the airport and it was Saturday night so we knew the banks would be closed on Sunday. We could not phone the guest house as we did not have the number -what i thought was the number was the area postal code. Well the taxi took us to town no sweat till we got near the Ferry and then all the roads were shut (we found out later due to the big marathon they have every year) so he dropped us and without a word of English ... read more

Gulang Yu - 12th Jan 2006 So we have fiiiiiinally left Hong Kong and as a complete change of scene we decided our first stop would be the tiny island of Gulang Yu, just off the south east coast. We caught a ferry from the town of Xiamen (a nice place where you can get some tasty snacks!) and after about 10 minutes we found ourselves on a rather charming and very very quiet island. The lack of noise is due to the ban of all vehicles; apart from some golf buggies which are used to get from one end of the island to another. For the most part, the joy of Gulang Yu is found by just wandering around the island and getting lost in the small back streets and strolling along the pretty harbour. ... read more