Luggage (Me) is Still in Hongqiao

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Jian Shuo Wang

My Spring Airlines 9C8807 to Xiamen is further delayed to 18:20. I am still at Hongqiao Airport waiting to get on board at a restaurant. Yesterday, I just read Feld’s suggestion: Pretending You are Luggage when you are traveling by air. I agree. Luggage never complain and is never in a hurry. The reception at the outdoor grassland of YLF will start soon, and this big luggage is still in Shanghai. Hmm…. Don’t complain. Drink some water, and continue to pretend I am a luggage.

Update November 04, 2009

I finally sit in my nice sea view room at Seaview Hotel. The flight was delayed by 3 hours, so I was stuck in the airport for 5 hours today. When I arrived in Xiamen, it was already 9 o’clock.

It was so nice to my old friend, Jan, Jon, June, Matt, Stacy, Rose, Jennifer, Biao, Reihan, and new YLFer there. Will go to bed now, and expecting the great session tomorrow.

Gulangyu Photos by Wendy

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Jian Shuo Wang

Wendy gets back from Gulangyu with some nice photos. It compliment to my journey record about one month ago. I didn’t take too many photos the last time.

Photograph by Wendy Fan

How my Fake Boarding Pass was Made

Posted on April 25, 2009 by Jian Shuo Wang

I showed a fake, hand-drawn boarding pass in my previous post: Three Interesting Photos. Here is the complete story:

Dengjia got a blank Spring Airline boarding pass. He draw the pass according to his.

Photograph by York

and it turned out to be this:

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

and finally, everyone saw it and was very happy about it.

Photograph by York

Back from Xiamen (and Why OOB)

Posted on April 19, 2009 by Jian Shuo Wang

This is the last day of my four day trip in Xiamen. I was OOB in the last few days (since April 13, 2009). The four day trip was too intensive that I didn’t find time to sit down to update a blog – I hope I should have posted something like OOB before hand.

The special thing about this photo is, the islands in this picture is Jinmen, and it is under governence of Taiwan.

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Xiamen is an amazing city, and I especially love the Asia Gulf Hotel – the villa near the sea. It is very like the hotels in Sanya, but on the cost side, it is much cheaper. It is said a standard room is 400 RMB or something, and the best suite near the sea in the villa is 800 RMB – comparing to the hotels in Yalong Bay in Sanya, it is still reasonable.

Had a lot of fun in Xiamen.

Dinner beside sea is great. Especially when you have white tablecloth, and wine glasses.
Gulangyu Island is nice – just need to go there from late afternoon to night, not at day time – too many tourists, and too many people – the same observation from my trip to Tongli.
Xiamen is definitely a city that I should visit again and again and again – just like Sanya, and Qingdao. If there is no where to go, just pack and get a plane ticket to Xiamen
Offsite meeting is a great idea. Combine meeting and outing is a good idea.

Back from Xiamen

Posted on April 22, 2007 by Jian Shuo Wang

I am back from the 3rd China Webmaster Forum. It was intensive two days, and we have a wonderful, wonderful Kijiji night at the event. There are too many friends and interesting people to talk with, so we always sleep at 2:00 PM (with many people still hang around and talking), and wake up early in the morning. Let me make up some sleep and then post some pictures of the trip. (I didn’t bring my camera, and will post others’ photos)

How to Get to Xiamen

Posted on April 19, 2007 by Jian Shuo Wang

I need you help to provide me some info because we are planning to do back packing there. We will depart from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok and then to Xiamen. My question is how much is the airlines/train/bus cost from Xiamen to Beijing or Shanghai? Which one is nearer from Xiamen; Beijing or Shanghai?

If we want to go to Great Wall, is it advisable if we go by ourselves or better we take tour package. Hope you can help because we are girls and this is our first time traveling to China by ourselves.

What a co-incident! I am packing for my trip to Xiamen tomorrow morning (early flight again in Hong Qiao Airport), and let me answer this Xiamen related question.

Price

It is highly suggested that you take flight instead of bus or train. Xiamen is in the mountain area, and bus or train takes too long time (correct me if I am wrong here).

Air ticket from Xiamen to Shanghai is 960 RMB (standard price), and usually you can get lower price like 380 RMB, or lower. On CTRIP.COM, the lowest price they offer is 290 RMB.

From Xiamen to Beijing by air is 1710 RMB and the cheapest flights I saw on ctrip.com is 940 RMB.

Xiamen to Beijing?

Definitely Beijing is farther than Shanghai to Xiamen.

I don’t have a suggestion for whether to take a tour or by yourself. If you are on a budget travel, try the buses near the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. They directly brings you to the Great Wall. Or you can join a tour for a better experience. (Well. Not necessarily better. It depends on which tour you roll in).

P.S. Want to know more about Xiamen, check out my previous trip to Xiamen:

Xiamen – Tiny Beautiful City

Posted on April 26, 2006 by Jian Shuo Wang

If you visit Shanghai, you may want to visit nearby city like Hangzhou 杭州. If you have more budget, you won’t want to miss Beijing 北京. Shanghai does not present China. Beijing does. If you want to relax, and really enjoy sea, Sanya 三亚 is the city to go. If you want combined experience of both seashore, and city life, Dalian 大连, Qingdao 青岛 and Xiamen 厦门 are good choices.

The second China Webmaster Conference was held in Xiamen, and I hosted a panel in the meeting. So I visited Xiamen for the third time (First, second)

Xiamen is warmer than Shanghai.

Xiamen is an island.

Near Xiamen is the Jinmen金门, part of Taiwan island. (Politically important places)

Xiamen is safe.

Xiamen has nice lakes and mountains.

Xiamen is a modern city.

Xiamen has more advanced economy than Fuzhou, the capital of the province, because it became the special development zone 20 years ago.

I love the sea of Xiamen – blue. The sea near Shanghai is yellow.

It is possible to swim in the sea, but not in April.

I like Xiamen.

Trip to Xiamen

Posted on August 4, 2003 by Jian Shuo Wang

The company kickoff meeting was held in Xiamen. So I attended the meeting.

The following are some notes from the trip.

The Voyage to Xiamen

This is the first time I realized that Xiamen is a small island – I didn’t noticed it in my last trip there. The Xiamen Island definitely looks like a garden on the sea.

screen-xiamen.map.gif

Credit: Xiamen Map

The distantages to travel by air is, the ignorance of the geographical relationships between the cities and the land. I didn’t realize it when I went by air. Regarding travel, if time and whether permit, I prefer to go by bike (I did before for my Taihu Lake trip) or even by foot (within the city), so the sense of the distance and directions is more clear. If I can drive (I am learning driving now), driving may also be a good choice. To take on a car driven by others will confuse me a lot, actually.

There are many flights to Xiamen everyday. Besides MU (Eastern Airlines) and FM (Shanghai Airlines), Xiamen Airlines offer most of the flights between Shanghai and Xiamen. Based in Xiamen, the MF (Xiamen Airlines) is a new airline and I never flew with them before. We were hosted in Jin Yan Hotel, an hotel setup by the Xiamen Airlines. It is interesting that airlines even operate hotels.

I read on this website about the ship M.V. Min Nam operating between Xiamen and Hongkong. I am very interested in it. I maybe will choose a route other than Xiamen to Hong Kong – maybe from Shanghai to Qingdao or Singapore….

The City

People in Xiamen is nice and all the services people were most gracious and hospitable. It may because of the beautiful scene and the comfort whether where they grow up. This is my second trip to Xiamen so I didn’t visit places like Gulang Yu for the second time.

Bicycle Friendly City

Xiamen is clear and clean, as island in the sea. The most impressive characteristic of Xiamen is, however, the bicycle friendly city. Most of the city in China are lack of the care for common residents in the city. We can see the inconvienience and unconsiderate for passengers, for buses…

In Xiamen, it is the first place I see to have special bicycle lane. It is built within the pedestrian. See the picture below. The red road is specially designed for bicycles, like a red carpet. The left side of the road is for walkers. As the effort to give more roads to cars, the original bicycle lane are marked as veichal lane. I think it is an innovative and good design.

xiamen-bicycle.lane.jpg

Xiamen International Exhibition and Conference Center

My meeting was hosted in the XIECC. It is a very nice place for large scale meetings. In my oppion, it is even better than the Shanghai International Exhibition Center. The center has very nice view, with sea shores just near by.

The nearby Yue Hua Hotel.

Xiamen at Night

The night of the exhibition center. It was very nice time for me to seat on the grass before the center and face the wind from the sea.

Below: If you are curious, this picture is taken by myself – the person on the picture. I held the camera toward myself and clicked on the shutter button. The lights were from the exhibition center, the building behind me.

This effect is attributed to the scene mode of my Sony P8. It offers portrait and scene at night mode. In this mode, the camera first flash to lighten the foregroud portrait and then open the shutter for about 1 second to allow enough exposure for the scene at the background. At this time, I just moved the camera to produce the lines of the lights.