Quanzhou

Kristen is here! I am SO happy. We went to Quanzhou, about an 1.5 hour bus ride away. According to the tour book it is heavily influenced by the Muslim population. Somehow I interpreted this as vibrant painted doors with ornate decorations (I'm not sure how my imagination ran so wild) but instead got a smaller more chaotic Xiamen, except Xiamen is cooler.

Significant differences:
1. Cars are more than happy to honk their horns at just about anything, in Xiamen you could be fined.
2. Motor taxis are everywhere and even if you are 2 feet from them will lay on the horn. Motor taxis are not allowed to be in the area I live.
3. Shopping is not outrageously expensive.
4. Kids were smashed into tiny back carts of bikes, it reminded me of how I would think illegal immigrants get past the Mexican border.
5. The increased amount of homeless people.

Now a shortened version of the sites we saw throughout the day, with an added (but FREE) commentary.

1. The mosque reminded me of Roman ruins. It had a massive pillar and an area with smaller less impressive columns.
2. The temple. This place was huge and relatively uncrowded compared to the temple in Xiamen. I was partially disgusted by the extra flair that was added to the temple.
This included:
-the added flood lights to make the temple picture perfect for night.
-the hippie trippy looking buddah placard that had buddah on it and neon lights swirling behind
him.
- the fact that the chanting was mic-ed so that the entire temple could hear it.
- it cost 10 kuai to get in.

Besides that I rather liked the town, even though I wasn't so hot on it initially. Even the bus ride was an adventure. Especially since I couldn't remember how to get home exactly...