Update: If you’re planning a trip, check out my guide to Xiamen for detailed hotel, restaurant and transportation information (3/29/2010).
After two days visiting the tulou in western Fujian, my friends and I returned to the port city of Xiamen (Amoy). With less than 24 hours to explore the city before our flight back to Changsha, we decided to focus our efforts on Gulang Yu. This island off the coast of Xiamen was home to the city’s expat community in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and its streets are still lined with European-style buildings.
The European villas hide behind gates and trees.
The short ferry-ride over to the island reminds you that you are still in China — riders pack onto the ferry the same way they pack into city buses, in a hurry and with plenty of physical contact. But when you step off the ferry, you can almost imagine that you are somewhere in Europe. There is nary a car nor a white-tiled building to be seen. European villas hide behind imposing gates, and leafy trees frame views of the Xiamen skyline. We spent hours happily going up and down hills and getting lost in the island’s narrow streets.
The skyline of Xiamen is visible beyond the old villas.
The food is the one aspect in which Gulang Yu still feels firmly Asian. After a few snacks of xiao long bao (small steamed dumplings), wontons and coconut tarts, we stopped for lunch at one of the island’s many seafood restaurants. The critters, still alive in plastic tubs of water, were available for inspection in the doorway of the restaurant, and the choice ranged from basic shrimp to unidentifiable crustacean. We settled on a mix of the familiar (clams) and the unfamiliar (a cross between a shrimp and a centipede), and were happy with both. And then we washed it down with Dairy Queen. (Not everything there was straight out of the 1910s.)
This centipede-shrimp hybrid tasted a lot like crab.
On the subject of food, I should not fail to mention the fantastic seafood meal we ate the night before in Xiamen proper. Fresh off the bus from the tulou, we were ready for something more sophisticated than the simple stir-fries we had eaten in the countryside. But we were also a little lazy, which is why we ended up at basically the first restaurant we saw, just down the street from our hostel. We chose fish, shrimp and a green vegetable from the assortment of raw ingredients on display, plus an order of dumplings. On our hostess’s recommendation, we ordered one small seafood patty covered in a fuzz of dark green seaweed. Everything delighted. The fish came in a flavorful brown sauce reminiscent of a great meal in Penang (at this place), while the delicate shrimp were lightly flavored with cilantro and peppers. The dumplings were exceptional, and the fuzzy green mystery was so good we ordered more. Of course I didn’t write down the name of the restaurant, but if you happen to be in Xiamen, you can find it at the corner of Liaohua Lu and Huyuan Lu.
Related posts:
Add to your RSS Reader
Subscribe by e-mail
Follow me on Twitter
Flickr photostream
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
If I’m ever in Xiamen, you’ll find *me* at the Häagen-Dazs buying my nephew the “creation” of his choice. :-}