闽菜 is mean 菜

these shells were about size of my hand

福州 pictures

banyan tree

on the street

3.5 days in 福州

Fuzhou for me was like the after effect of strong coffee: existential, anxious, and feeling a persistant tightness in the intestines. You'd think a place nicknamed the city of banyans （蓉城）would have more to offer than countless shopping streets and high rises, but alas it does not. While the banyans are pretty and there is a fun night-market all along the outskirts of Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou is a filthy, prosperous (as its name suggests) city with terrible traffic jams. Not to mention, it was really cold for the 3 days we were there and I was unprepared for that, having come from more warm and humid places.
Meeting Shawna's dad's side of the family was also a lot of fun. More delicious meals were had and more merriment over expensive baijiu.

Sanming: Day 2

Our second day in Sanming has been interesting indeed. We took a walk in a public park with Shawna's grandpa and he told tales of his personal history during the Cultural Revolution. We walked up a small hill from which we could see the entire town of Sanming and the factories in the distance coughing out smoke and contributing generously to the haze over the valley. Afterwards we had another big dinner outing with Shawna's mom and her mom's old college friend. The guy looked like a cross between Mao Ze Dong and the villain from "Story of Ricky." You'd imagine the head of the computer science dept at a local university to be a bit of a square, but this guy was a wealthy mob-boss-looking guy with a greasy comb-over and bad teeth. He brought along an equally mafia-involved-looking friend who had a cinematic scar over his eye and we ate a bunch and drank a bunch. It was hard to imagine Shawna's mom having a friend so different from her. Afterward we had tea at "The Boss" house and met the guy's son who is a grad student. The son took us to the one and only bar and hot spot in this small town to drink light beer and play dice games. He even went so far as to hire a girl to play dice games with us and to generally be present.

On the road again: 三明

It’s been an awesome day. We took a 5-hour bus ride headed westward through the mountainous terrain of Fujian province. When we arrived in Sanming, Shawna’s mom was at the bus station to meet us and we were taken to her grandparents’ apartment where I met her 3 aunts and uncle-in-laws in addition to the grandpappies. They were all extremely warm and welcoming. After walking through a public park that hugged a small river (small by Chinese standards, I should add) we had an epic dinner banquet to celebrate Shawna’s grandfather’s 80^th birthday. The dishes kept coming and the Bud Light kept pouring. Among the dishes, the most challenging was a big bowl of spicy broth within which were these types of eels (鳝鱼 shan4yu2) cooked whole. They were slimy and squiggly and all bore a terrified, emaciated expression on their faces (see picture). They didn’t taste so bad, but definitely didn’t look so good on the other hand.

The rest of the evening we looked at old pictures of her mom and aunts wearing Communist outfits when they were young adults.

A thought:

Nothing can beat the feeling: a long day of exploring and then settling in for the evening in our new apartment. I’m looking out the massive window in our bedroom at the area 13 floors below. The city is winding down but the lights are still bright. Taxis are practically the only vehicles on the road and pedestrians are sparse. It is a very surreal sight in a Chinese city to have such empty streets. I’ve just showered and feel the clean freshness that a long day has deserved. Here I am at my perch, completely satisfied.

permanent vacation

Here at an internet cafe this is the first time I've been able to access my blog bc it is blocked in China. I've needed to set up a proxy which only works when I have fast internet and so far I've just been using someone else's weak signal in the apartment building. Our apartment is real cozy and each day I'm more happy with it. It seemed like a good idea to make Xiamen our base for now and staying in hotels day by day would have been quite costly. By renting an apartment for 6 months we've boiled it down to about $6 USD per day which is far better than if we had stayed in a hostel or hotel. Certainly, things aren't as cheap as they used to be in China. With that said, I'm going to be looking for some ways to bring in a little money, but for the most part I think I can afford to sustain myself without. The only thing is finding some other purpose, but I guess before as a data-entry minion my purpose was also quite small. Tomorrow we are going to Sanming 三明 to meet with Shawna's grandparents. Around there are some caves we intend to explore, so we may be in that area for a few days before returning to Xiamen. After that it won't be long before we go to Fuzhou 福州, and then not long after that I will need to make some sort of plans to leave the country. I'm not sure if going to Taiwan counts as leaving the country per se, so I'm still thinking Mongolia might be a nice adventure.
Yesterday we saw some of the beach, which was nice by China standards. The weather was perfect; we got there and wandered the shoreline a bit, then fell asleep in the sand. The sun was out and a nice breeze was going and I was able to shut out thoughts like some true form of meditation. There were rickity old boats right off-shore fishing out oysters from the water. I've felt more inspired here to write. And so I'm working on that slowly. My Mandarin is also something I'm working away at.
This city is great though. It has a unique way about it. Now that I've been to several other Chinese cities, they all seem to blend together mostly. Xiamen stands out on its own somewhat. There are palm trees all over, winding streets, interesting architecture, small mountains, and like most Chinese cities, buildings being torn down and other being put up. In general it seems people here get at least a 2 hour lunch break and the pace of life is rather relaxed. In contrast, the traffic tells another story; everyone is frantic on the roads and impatient. Peppered throughout the city are free public parks where you actually can get away from a lot of the noise and filth of the streets. Needless to say you don't really get away from the numbers of people in these places...