Xiamen

Jackson. Toni and I on top the island off Xiamen
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Day 8 – Xiamen

Well after having our first sleep in (Awesome) we packed up our stuff and headed off to the airport for our flight to Jacko. Jacko warned us that there could be delays up to 6 hours and sure enough when we arrived the first flight to be delayed was MF8569 (Shanghai to Xiamen) Lucky us! It turned out that we were only delayed about an hour in the terminal and 40 minutes on the tarmac. Apparently every take off space for planes are booked days in advance and you have to sit and wait for a spot on the run way to come free….Jeez!

Jackson and Sam - Getting down
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So we arrived to Jacko, and may I say this place in not like any other part we have seen of China. It is honestly a bit more like Spain… Jacko lives across the road from a massive golden sand beach and not far from lots of bars and restaurants. Xiamen (Which I found out on arrival) is actually an island off the mainland that truly is what I would describe as a spot of paradise. Palm trees, beach, bars, sun and heat….What ingredients, no wonder the little git won’t come home yet?!

Jacko then took us for a walk to show us around his home. We went out for about 2 hours and then ate at a local Mexican restaurant which was really nice. May I just add that Jacko kept saying that we were only going for a 30-40 minute walk and then decided that he would add on an hour and a half so that we can eat at an Icelandic restaurant. He kept saying “it’s just up here” & “only another 10 minutes”, when we got there the place was closed so we caught a taxi to the other place. (Vintage Jacko, but the walk was awesome so no regrets!)

Us at the beautiful beach
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From there we headed to a bar where we tasted some of the local cocktails and beer. (“Very nice – said in a Borat voice)

Day 9 – Xiamen

This morning has been fantastic for the wrong reasons….We could do some washing, get on the internet and pretty much just do nothing for a few hours, brilliant!

Then it was time for more relaxing. After about 2pm we jumped into a taxi and Jackson talked some more gibberish to the driver and off we set, to a place called Riyuegu. It is a hotsprings area about 40 minutes away. This place was exactly what we needed (Believe it or not, but the tour was real hard with no time for stopping so even though it’s a holiday, you get real tired!) Anyway this hotsprings placed had everything we could have wanted, we first sat in water about 35 degrees, moved through a few different pools which involved different scents and additives, then we came across the ALCOHOL POOLS. These pools had different additives such as red wine, beer, rive wine etc… AWESOME! Anyway, after a bit of lunch and some more relaxing we headed to the unusual part of the day, the fish pool. This probably doesn’t sound so unusual, however this pool had thousands of fish the size of your normal household goldfish, and they all liked to eat human skin! So we sat in that pool for about 20-30 minutes trying to cleanse ourselves of dead skin, however I must say Jacko and Toni could sit still for anything over a minute…It was so funny watching them panic around the pool shrieking like 5 year old girls at a Britney Spears concert! (Maybe they weren’t that bad, but they were funny) After that and a cheeky massage we were done. 5 + hours of sensational pampering! Oh yeah!

Jacko then took us to a little restaurant in the middle of the town known for its classic and local Chinese bbq cooking. We had all kinds of food on a stick which tasted sensational, another good decision from our host. Bed was next, an early night after all that relaxing was needed???!!!

Day 10 – Xiamen

Today was our day in Xiamen for tourism stuff….

The first stop was Gu Lung Yu, this is an island off Xiamen that has some lovely beaches, views and little alleys. The first stop was a feed and then a venture around about a quarter of the island. This place is awesome as it doesn’t allow any vehicles on the island. Not even bicycles, such a change from the bustling cities! We also headed up to the lookout where we could see the complete island as well as a great view of Xiamen. This little jaunt across to here on the ferry was a fantastic adventure as the views were awesome. (We also had a feed of Maccas which was awesome too!)

After visiting this place we headed to the main island to have a look around the shops. Jackson took us to some hidden little shops and some very busy and fast streets. A neat shopping area which catered for everyone!

It was middle of the afternoon by now and time to head back to Jackos for some RnR, we arrived back and did some more mucking around on the net etc…

It then turned about 5.30, or in our words ‘Beer O’clock’. Jacko and I sat down to a cheeky Becks, and then a Black Russia or three. When the time hit about 7 we jumped into a taxi and headed off to ‘The little Chilly’ – Great, here we go again! After a fantastic feed of hot and spicy food (And a few ‘Sum Bays’ (Bottoms up)) we headed off to a night club. We arrived to have a live band playing and a few people around having a bit of fun. One of Jackos mates (Jenny) knows the bar manager and she was lovely enough to provide us with a couple of beers on arrival too! So Jacko and I had a couple more drinks, and after dropping off Jenny about 10 minutes away from Jackos house we sung our way through the streets of Xiamen back to his place. (I would now like to take this opportunity to apologise to all the locals for the singing at about 1am that morning…Opps!)