Xiamen

After landing in Hong Kong, we spent a couple of days in the city of Xiamen on the south east coast with our friends Rhian, Simon and their 3 children. We stayed in the Golden Swan hotel and were upgraded to a flashy suite on the 28th floor.

The most famous place to visit in the area is Gulang Yu which the the guide books rave about, a small island with lots of colonial buildings only accessible by a 5 minute ferry ride. It was quite a pretty place, but nowhere near as nice as the guide books indicate. Maybe we were still a bit jetlagged, but I didn't really see what all the fuss was about.

The following day we went around the park near the hotel, where we walked around a food fair and played at the kids playground which was great. Big highlight was the kids winning prizes on the fair which made them very happy.

We also met up with other friends, Simon and Doris with their 2 children, who were all also planning to visit the orphange the next day. There were now 3 families with 6 adults and 7 kids. Quite a gang.