The town itself was completely unimpressive, but we wanted to see the tulous in the surrounding countryside. "Tulou" literally means "earth building." They are 50 - 500 years old, and these round buildings were placed across the Fujian countryside so that multiple families could ward off attacks. One in particular survived both an earthquake and a fire set by Chiang Kai Shek's men in the 1940s!
Although people still live in these Tulous, they're in the middle of nowhere. After a few hours of seeing several similar round buildings, we took a bus to Xiamen, a large seaside city.
We stayed on the island, Gulang Yu. The island doesn't have any cars, but it has old European style buildings, huge rocks to climb, and swarms of Chinese tour groups. The island itself is one big tourist trap, but we enjoyed eating, walking, climbing, and buying more fake LeSportsac bags! We looked like a picture in a college catalog, and Chinese tourists constantly took photos of us!
Oh my gosh, the food. Cheeseburgers, pancakes, Shepard's pie, pumpkin soup! Western food is one reason why I love China's tourist spots.
We also had our share of Chinese seafood meals and some local peanut soup. I want to make the peanut soup at home - it's just a snack of boiled peanuts and sugar.
Finally, after 4 days of some culture and lazing about, we took the noisy, swerving sleeper bus home. At least I didn't fall out of my bed, like I did on the way to Yangshuo...
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