Advertisement
Published: October 2nd 2011
Remy's Garden Inn
The outside of our cozy B & BIt's really quite amazing what a really good bottle of wine can do for one's happiness quotient. LOL. After hiring a taxi to take us to the ferry yesterday, we boarded with a group of ancient Chinese tourists and glided over to the magical Isle of Gulang Yu once again. It was my second trip but Joyce's first. Miraculously, we did NOT get lost on our way to Remy's Garden Hotel, though we had a few tense moments navigating the paths which snake through the hilly little place! It has been very, very hot and humid again today and yesterday which really LOWERS my contentment--ok, well, I should be honest, it just really brings out the ornery in me cuz I just abhor the sweating and humidity! ARGHHHH! Every resident of this city keeps promising that the weather is going to cool off, like any day now, like yesterday. REALLY? Really? They are LYING! LOL There are parkas in the stores. I am not kidding. They appeared last week with that nice week of cooler weather I enjoyed. When I first noticed them I actually stopped STOCK still, looked and did a double-take--mouth OPEN, totally catching flies and said, you're KIDDING,
Bienvenue
Such a charming inn. right? Parkas? When it's like 26 on a cold day? WTH? At home we laugh and say, "Global warming? BRING it baby!" NOT here. OH God NO. Global warming is a BAD thing here. I told Joyce that I don't know how anybody could live in this climate....I am never going to complain about winter EVER again. At least you can dress for the cold. The heat? Naw. You're just stuck with it. My idea of paradise is changing. It might not be tropical paradise I run to after this adventure. LOL
After we'd melted into the cute little B & B and the second we'd paid for our rooms and were shown into them, we turned the air conditioning on full blast to 23 degrees and cooled our nothern selves off. You know it's hot when 23 feels like you're in the fridge. LOL We did have a few tense moments checking in when the young lady at the front desk advised us that we had to show our passports and we didn't have them. We promised to send the numbers to her via email as soon as we got home, but Remy, the proprietor was not worried
The Garden at Remy's
The beautiful garden where we enjoyed our wine, our meals and the peace and quiet. We could actually enjoy the birds singing--a bit of a rarity in urban China. and said all was well. Whew. Close one.
And having survived our first month, and feeling pleased about that, but missing our recently departed amiga, Dawna, we decided to splurge and buy an 88 Yuan bottle of French Merlot. With the exchange, that was about 14 bucks for a great bottle of vino, TOTALLY worth it. We sipped it for 2 hours in the garden, tealights lit, and then were served a lovely supper of steak, veggies, potatoes and a fruit salad and cold glass of white wine. Ahhhhh.....it really was perfect. The most mischief we got up to was sending some texts using our phone, teasing our other teacher friends about not being with us, eating European food and drinking wine and speaking Francais with Remy, whose silky Parisien accent caressed our ears. Otherwise, it was a very tame trip. The quiet of the island is what we craved! China is a very busy and noisy place. Gulang Yu has no motorized vehicles, not even bicycles and we heard and enjoyed the birds, breeze and lack of people, unlike Xiamen proper. After dinner, in the dark, we went for a short walk down the streets , fortified by
Le jardin
At Remy's.....ah...... our wine, and came to no ill. Shopkeepers were still up selling wares like phoney croc shoes, flip-flops, bottles of water and postcards to nobody in particular, and men smoked and enthusiastically played cards. We retired to our rooms by 10 pm and I read another whole book before extinguishing my bedside light at midnight. I have only 1 more English book to read and then I am S-O-L with the books. ACK! I don't know how immigrants must manage when they leave their home countries and have nothing to read when they arrive. I would HATE not to be reading. I realize how much I DO read. More than I actually realized. Anyway, this whole experience is opening my eyes in ways I'd never imagined t'would.
Anyway, after a pretty good sleep on a board disguised as a mattress, we rose and had our breakfast in the garden, served by Remy. Ahhhh, real coffee, REAL COFFEE! It was glorious! Real toast. Real omellette. Was I dreaming? Ouch. I had to pinch myself, nope. LOL NOT dreaming. This was REAL. We did not rush through our breakfast, but did have to rush inside when it started to rain outside--no matter.
After stashing our bags in Remy's office cuz he was expecting other guests in our room, we headed out to walk the perimeter of Gulang Yu, which Remy told us would take about 3 hours. Armed with our cameras, and bottles of water and a damned umbrella which turned out to be a dud, we walked and looked and got rained on and starred in toursists' pictures. We were in at least 2 photos where we were asked, and others where we weren't. We are mostly used to the staring now. LOL
We enjoyed our walk immensely. The Island is beautiful, especially the beach and Sunlight ROck area. One can climb up to the top of the Island and see over the whole area. Of course, that costs 60 yuan, and so skipped that. But I did comb the beach and got some sea glass, and looked for messages in the discarded flotsam and jetsome littering the seashore. Alas, no messages, just junk. It really sullies the whole presentation of the island and the beauty there. Too bad. After some time we returned to the inn and bid Remy and his lovely Chinese wife Lilly good-bye and hiked back up
to catch the ferry. And we didn't even get lost! LOL We shall return again for the peace and quiet.
I do apologize again for the pictures...I have tried my best to put them into order, but this blog will just not cooperate, so instead of wasting time with that, I've given up to go SHOPPING! LOL.....enjoy them. And stay tuned for the adventures of the China Girl. 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.142s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0656s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Dawna
non-member comment
Wow - French Merlot!!
What a lovely time!! You both look so relaxed in the pics. And the hotel - beautiful! I am somewhat envious for sure. Take care.