XIAMEN

 Xiamen, pronounced shaa-men, is a beach side resort  as well as a university town located along the Chinese coast.    This is definitely a vacation spot, complete with bicycle rentals and a small amusement park on the beach. Although the weather was quite chilly many people were  gathered on the beach. We rented tandem bikes, visited Dr. Tea (a government owned tea store), strolled along the  boardwalk, watched a tai-chi demonstration and enjoyed watching a string of young people dance the Bunny Hop to western music on the local pedestrian mall. 
Tom's note:  Although the above makes Xiamen sound pretty much like a resort town (which it is in part) it is also a big, hustling port with lots of high rise buildings, not as high as those in Shanghai perhaps, but still plenty high.  Lots of traffic, herds of tourist groups (Asian, not Caucasian).  Strange thing:  On this whole cruise so far, we haven't seen another cruise ship since we left Sydney.  Perhaps we will in Hong Kong, where we are now headed.  In Shanghai we did see about five bus loads of Princess  Cruise people, but we didn't  actually see the ship.  Have no idea where it was stashed, but it was probably too big to moor where we were.

. 

Xiamen is positioning itself as an international marathon capital...these statues run along the boardwalk.