Xiamen Things to Do

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I love visiting Universities: checking out the campus, meeting students, and finding out about events happening in the area. Xiamen University is said to have one of the most beautiful campuses in China, with beautiful architecture, a small lake, many trees and trails. There are also two small museums here: Lu Xun Bowuguan (Writer) and Renlei Bowuguan (Anthropology). Go to see this campus -- You'll love it, too!

Xiamen University, founded by overseas chinese Mr Tan Kah Kee, is another famous university in Xiamen. We visited it after our Nan Pu Tuo temple visit since they are just next to each other. We walked around the campuses and enjoy the greenery and beautiful view of the school.

The students' hostels are those old historical buildings, looked worn but enchanting.

The university has this big pond area where we saw many people lazing on the grass around the pond. As it's winter time when we went, the sky was blue, the breeze was cool. What a pleasant experience.

We went to this temple where many famous monks around the world seemed to come from. The place is big with many buddha statues. There are alot of explanations on each buddha but they were only in Chinese.

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This garden is divided into two part: "Canghai" that facing the sea, and "Bushan" that against the hill. In the garden there is Piano Museum for China and world's first class treasure pianos.

The garden also possesses another characteristic - the combining of movements. Its unique arrangement joins a rockwork that includes a maze of connected caves with fine pavilions on the side of the slope. Lovely children chasing and gamboling among the caves represent movement and activity, while people resting in the pavilions give a feeling of tranquility and harmonious contemplation.

Beside the Piano Museum, there is one pavilion that open as a small chinese culture museum.

Entrance fee 30 yuan. Ticket is a post card.

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This is the main tourist area for Xiamen. In the island there are several places that can be visited. All is a walking distance, or you can used a tourist car that facilited there (50 yuan ??).

Most buidings are western style, now function as souvenir shops, seafood restaurants, or others. There is a tourist information center too. At the tourist ticket office, you can take small picture for free with map behind the picture. You can select the place to be visited, price is depend on the place (price vary from 10-50 yuan).

This island famous as a musical island, so there are some music scholls here, beside the piano museum.

Gulangyu island open from 06:00 to 17:50.
This place can be easily reached by ferry (cost 8 yuan, pay at back way).

The university just next to Nanputuo Temple.
I heard that this university is one of the beautiful campuses in China. I think, it is good too. With warm weather, you can just sit down beside the lake to have a rest and watching how hard chinese students study here (it was really impressed me!!).

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This beautiful Buddhist temple is worthy to be visited. Have several halls and pavilions, included park behind the temple. The Nanputuo temple covers really big area, about 30,000 square meters. If have a lot of energy, you can walk up to the top place (from park behind the temple) to see the view of Xiamen city.

Entrance fee 3 yuan, 5.40-18.00.

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Nobody goes to Xiamen without visting Gulang Yu. Translated literally, it means Drum Wave Island. Take a boat from the harbour at mainland which will take you to the island, which has no cars at all. It used to be a foreign enclave and one of the best things to do is to walk around the island to see all the old colonial buildings, gardens and beaches. The nice thing about the island is that it is not just for tourists, local are still living , working and going to school there. There are plenty of local guides hanging around the ferry jetty who will be happy to show you around for a small fee. Like everything in China, the price is negotiable.