The good, the not-so-good, and the interesting

More good memories from China. Enjoying a few cups of hot Starbucks coffee in my room first-thing each morning.My friend Zining was thoughtful enough to give me a package of Starbucks Via before I left. She explained that the hotel room would lilkely have a hot water kettle, but that I would probably prefer American-style coffee over the instant that might be in the room. I hadn't tried Via before, but it is really good! It was so nice to have warm coffee to enjoy while working or reading first thing in the morning. I brought the sweetener, and the creamer was in the room next to the kettle.

The food! I was only brave enough to use my iphone to take photos while in the buffet restaurant of the hotel because I didn't know if foreigners would think taking photos of food was weird. Therefore I only have a few to remember the food. Pretty much everything I ate was excellent and I really enjoyed trying so many different dishes. I was fortunate to get to enjoy buffet-style service at nearly every mealtime due to the hotel's excellent breakfast and dinner buffets, the lunch buffet provided by the university at the conference, and the family-style serving method of the formal dinners provided by the conference hosts. I normally don't care for buffets but in China they allowed me to sample many different things, which was great.

Breakfast usually consisted of fruit:

and a hot plate. Yes, dinner food for breakfast! This is normally not my style at all. And while I enjoyed pastries and cereal a few days, since I enjoyed the Chinese-style food so much I opted for it at breakfast as well. The picture below features cold tomato and cucumber, warm potatoes, some kind of bok choy, noodles, and a spring roll-style fried pocket.

Below is a dinner plate from the restaurant at the hotel. Sushi, seaweed and onions (in the black dish), mushroom fritters, spicy shrimp, noodles with calamari, sauteed leafy greens, fried rice, and poached fish. Awesome. Also notice the chopsticks (black) resting on the side of the plate while the fork is untouched at left. I tried to use chopsticks for nearly everything.

Other good things include the hospitality and friendliness of the people. They were kind and welcoming to our group or accounting academics from around the world. Also the beautiful scenery that I have posted photos of already, plus another good thing was that I always felt very safe in Xiamen. Everything I read about Xiamen mentioned that the city was one of the best in China in terms of being accommodating to visitors, and I felt good while I was there.

Now for the not-so-good. Let's just say these are things I could have done without while in Xiamen. One, the tendency of men to lift their shirts and expose their midriffs due to the intense heat. Ewwww. Be glad this guy is pictured from the back.

Two, squatty pottys. No picture (look on google images if you really want a visual). Luckily I was prepared for these in advance, and I encountered more Western-style toilets than squatty ones while abroad. But still I was not a fan. Especially when dressed in business attire for the conference. Though I always complied and never ducked out to find an alternative, so I am at least proud of that.

Three, some of the smells (I admit that I have an aversion to smells in general, so other people may not have been bothered so much about this). For some reason the hallways in my hotel smelled weird all the time, like a combination of body odor, cooking oils, and mustiness. The hallways were not air conditioned so perhaps the flow of air was just not good. Also I noticed strong odors in certain places on the street but never knew why. And the bus we rode on to the conference reeked of plastic, or burnt plastic, or something that was just chemical-ish. Probably again bad air flow or ventilation. However, the smell thing was always temporary so it was not a big deal overall.

Four, the poor living conditions I saw (or at least I think I saw) out in a few areas of the city. I tried not to stare too hard into people's homes, but some of them opened up directly on the street and didn't seem clean or size-appropriate for the number of people inside. Like I already stated, there were plenty of first-rate buildings all over and in general the city was more modern than not, but I still felt sympathetic (and then I felt guilty for feeling sympathetic) for some of what I saw.

Last, computer issues. I learned that all blogs with blogspot.com in the URL are inaccessible from China, as is Facebook. And every now and then when trying to access a website like CNN.com or the Wall Street Journal, my computer would show images like this error message. I could usually access main-stream media and my email account though.

And now for a few photos of some of the interesting things I encountered. First, the tanks of seafood outside of resturants. Since Xiamen is on the coast many of the restaurants specialize in seafood, and the idea behind the tanks in front is to show how fresh the seafood is.

My understanding is that a restaurant patron would place their order by going out front and pointing out the specific fish or crab or other sea creature that he or she wanted to consume. Thank goodness that all of my meal choices were made for me and I didn't have to do this. I probably wouldn't have been able to communicate anyway as I only came in contact with one (!!) person outside of the hotel who could understand and speak English.

Doesn't this guy look delicious? (Nope - not to me)

Next, check out the gas mask and breathing supplies in the closet of my hotel room! The photo on the front is quite terrifying.

Since this will be my last post about my experiences in Xiamen, I want to conclude by saying that I am so grateful that I got the chance to visit China. The conference venue was the perfect way to blend a good business purpose with some free time, and I know my experience was enriched due to the arrangements made for us by the conference organizers. I am also blessed to have my good friend Zining, who gave me lots of tips and guidance for a first-time visitor to China. This trip was certainly a wonderful experience.

More images of Xiamen

The accounting conference concluded on Thursday and I didn't depart Xiamen until Saturday morning, which left Friday for another day of exploring the local area. The organizers of the conference had kindly organized a tourist excursion for interested conference participants, but since the itinerary was to go to Gulong Island for the day (which I had visited on my own a few days earlier), I decided to skip the organized activities and spend the day in the city on my own.

My first destination - Nanputuo Temple, a buddhist temple located near the campus of the university in Xiamen. I was told that this is a well-known temple that is considered a major tourist attraction in the region. I didn't quite know what to expect, but what I found was a peaceful and beautiful place.

The temple grounds were covered with the temple buildings (more shots below) as well as lots of grassy areas and lily ponds and manicured gardens. Families were enjoying a beautiful (hot!) day at the temple, and I loved watching the little children chasing the birds on the grass next to the temple entrance.The entrance to the temple is below. Outside of the temple were special areas for worshippers to light incense sticks, place them in designated areas, and pray to the buddha statues on display. As a foreigner unfamiliar with this religion I didn't quite understand what was involved with a visit to the temple, but I felt comfortable observing as an outsider.

Below is the main courtyard of the temple. I enjoyed watching this group of visitors as they were bouncing coins off the ground trying to get them into the holes in the tall statue pictured below. I don't know if this was a religious activity or just a game.

After spending a few hours at the temple I decided to walk back towards the direction of my hotel. There were several reasons behind this idea: 1) Even though I had the name of my hotel written in Chinese characters on a piece of paper, I found that communicating with locals outside of the hotel so difficult that I didn't feel like dealing with the hassle of hiring a taxi, 2) I wanted to get a better feel for the atmosphere of the city, 3) I wanted to burn more calories to walk off the large breakfast that I had enjoyed at the hotel that morning, 4) the distance was only about 3 miles and therefore was easily walkable, and 5) I wanted to enjoy the cleanliness of the bathroom in my hotel room before exploring the rest of the city (note: I haven't yet discussed the public bathrooms in China yet, but let's just say that the option of using the one in my hotel made walking the extra distance worth it in a certain sense).

The walk from the temple to the hotel was interesting and gave me a different feel for the city besides the one that I had previously observed from the air-conditioned busses that transported us from the hotel to the conference venue every day. I found the contrast between the modern apartment building hi-rises and the more run-down apartment buildings to be striking. Below is what appears to be a more run-down type of building, with shops in the first floors below. Laundry was hanging out on nearly every balcony, which I image is just a lifestyle factor of living in China. The women below are walking with parasols, which was a common sight as the locals used them to keep the direct sun away.

But below is the juxtaposition of the modern-looking apartment building in the back with the more run down place in the front. These buildings seemingly co-existed adjacent to each other throughout the city. Also, notice how this guy is walking on the side of the road. In some places there were sidewalks, but in others I just walked on the side of the road next to a bustling street.

After cooling off in my hotel for 15 minutes and using the restroom, I grabbed another bottle of water and ventured out again for a few more hours of exploring the city. I came across this street fair, where vendors of all types were cooking food and serving them to the masses of people lining one of the main tourist streets. I didn't sample any of the street food, as I was unsure of the sanitation and because the intense heat had largely suppressed my appetite.

Below is a sanitation worker. Poor guy - he had to ride his bicycle to collect trash bags from each vendor in the hot weather.

Many items for sale in the local shops had images of cartoon characters that are familiar to Americans. I purchased souvenirs for Amelia and John with Angry Birds on them. These Sponge Bob shoes made me smile and I immediately thought that Amelia and John would like them.

Pastries lined up in a shop window. Most of the chinese pastries that I sampled were more savory than sweet.

After tiring of the window-shopping on the crowded pedestrian street, I walked along the harbor one last time before calling it a day. The wide boulevard and park areas along the water made this one of the prettiest areas of Xiamen.

There were dozens of small grouops of older men playing Chinese board games in the park.

Overall this was a fun day of exploring the city. I enjoyed seeing different areas of Xiamen, had fun exploring a Wal-Mart in China along with dozens of local shops, baked in the sun and sweated like crazy, and walked miles and miles. I returned to my room late in the afternoon, very tired and content. I then spent a couple of hours packing my bags, I finished up some work I had to do, and then enjoyed some refreshing Tsing Tao (purchased from a local street vendor while out in town earlier that day) before going to dinner.

Gulang Island (Piano Island)

I arrived in Xiamen on Sunday evening around midnight. The conference didn't start until Tuesday morning so Monday was a free day. I planned my trip this way so that I would have one day to try and get acclimated to the time zone difference, plus I wanted a buffer in case any of my flights were delayed or cancelled on the way to China.

I slept decently on Sunday evening and woke around 7:30 a.m. China time. This is a late wake-up time for me, but given that I had been awake for so many hours travelling half-way around the world for two days prior, I was happy with 7 solid hours of sleep. I enjoyed a great breakfast in my hotel (more on the food in China in a later post) and set off for a solo adventure in the city.

My destination was Gulang Island, which is also known as Piano Island, and which I learned is a well-known (in China) tourist destination just a short distance off the coast. The island gets its name because the first piano brought to China over a hundred years ago was located on this island, and many of the homes on the island place a high priority on music. Because no vehicles, motorcyles, or bicycles are permitted on the island, rumor has it that it is a quiet place where you can hear piano music coming out of the windows.

The photo below was taken as we were getting off the ferry over to the island. It was very crowded, hot, and humid in Xiamen and on the ferry, which I later learned would be the typical weather of the week. My shirt was soaked with sweat in under an hour from leaving my hotel.

A view of the coastline of the island. Notice the Chinese-style boat on the sand and the orange flower-topped trees (similar to the trees on Xiamen University's campus).

Once we disembarked from the ferry the pathways wandered through a shopping area.

Wouldn't you know it that within a short distance I experienced my first McDonald's sighting in China. We don't have Ronald McDonald figurines at our local McDs in Dallas, but I sighted many around Xiamen!One of the primary tourist attractions on the island is Sunlight Rock, a giant boulder perched on a hill in the center of the island. This is the view from below the rock, after I had walked through the shopping area of the island.As you can see from the photo above, you can walk up to the top of the rock, where you are rewarded with panoramic views of the harbor and of Xiamen city. The photo below was taken shortly after I purchased my ticket to enter the park, and depicts the gates to the entrance to a buddhist temple on the way up to the top of the rock.

Many of the passageways were narrow and wound steeply up the rock. The roots on this tree are typical of what I saw on the journey up.

Once at the top of the rock, I was rewarded with beautiful views of the island and the surrounding area.

It was also steaming hot, and buckets and buckets of sweat poured off my body. Seriously, I am from Florida and I live in Texas so you would think that I would be used to heat and humidity. But honestly, this heat was intense and it caught me off guard. I started using the tissues that I had brought for the bathrooms (more on that later) as handkerchiefs to keep the sweat from forming pools on my body. Below is the view from the rock looking towards Xiamen.

After coming off the rock, the next step was to take the cable car over to the aviary on the other side of the island. The cable car ride over was peaceful, and I particularly enjoyed watching the Chinese people laugh at one another as they stumbled or banged their head (or suffered other unfortunate mishaps) while entering the cable cars at the end point.

I attended the first five minutes of the bird show at the aviary. I should have realized this before entering the show area, but after a short time I grew very tired of not understanding a word of what the lady entertainer was trying to get the bird to say. She said something and then tried to get the bird to repeat it, which the bird would never do on the first try. Then the entertainer and the bird repeated this game several times before the bird finally squeaked something into the microphone, at which point everyone in the audience laughed and I figured that the bird had said what she had wanted the bird to say. Fun once, but not repeatedly.

Once I knew that I would not be able to understand anything at the show, I realized that this would really annoy me. Therefore, I backed out and explored the rest of the aviary, where peacocks were in abundance over the property. And yes, mom and dad, they squawked just as loudly in China as they did at the Fort Wayne Zoo in Indiana!

This is a shot of the beach taken from the viewpoint on top of the rock.

And this is a view of the beach once I made my way down off the rock and through the aviary. No one was swimming in the water (I think because of rough currents and unsanitary conditions) , but many people were enjoying boat rides around the island. Notice the huge tanker boats in the background. This is a major shipping channel so large boats are a common sight off the coast. And last but not least, the view of Xiamen from the ferry as we crossed back over to mainland China.

This was an enjoyable excursion for me and it was relatively easy for a western tourist that doesn't speak any Chinese. Mainly I didn't talk to anyone and just observed, followed the masses, and took a ton of photos to document the experience.

And the shower I took about 30 seconds after arriving back at my hotel, to get all the pooled sweat and salt off of my body, was AWESOME!

Accounting conference in Xiamen

I had the opportunity to travel to China last week for work-related business. I attended an accounting conference that was co-sponsored by a U.S.-based accounting organization and Xiamen University, a university that is located on the eastern coast of China. During the conference I attended several research sessions and I also made a presentation to the conference participants, where I discussed an academic paper that examined the effect of dominant shareholder ownership in European firms on corporate performance. Enthralling stuff, this accounting research that we do.

I am describing all of this to make a legitimate case for the business purpose of the trip (because there really was one), and because I suspect that some of my family members think that the abundance of international work-related travel this year lacks merit in a certain sense.

See below - proof of the work-related purpose for this trip! This was the main stage for the primary conference sessions and where I made my presentation.

The campus of Xiamen University was very pretty. Below is a photo of the main conference hall where the opening and closing ceremonies of the conference were held (and where the picture above was taken). This building was much larger and fancier than the classroom buildings where some of the other sessions were held. There were trees like this with the bright orange flowers all over Xiamen, and I later learned that this is the city's official flower.This is the opposite view of campus, looking across from the building pctured above. You can see some of the classroom buildings in the background, as well as a lake that was situated in the heart of the campus. There was a lot of greenery between buildings and the campus was clean and well-maintained.
The conference hotel was located in town about 2 miles from the university. Private bus transportation was for us each morning and afternoon by the local conference organizers, though one day I walked back to the hotel from the conference to get a feel for the environment between the two locations. This is a photo of the hotel that I took from the hotel's website.

This is a view from my hotel room window looking one direction towards the sea. You can see several small islands in the distance that are situated on the Taiwan Strait that runs between mainland China and Taiwan. This is the view from the opposite direction, looking into town.

Xiamen is a medium-sized city with about 2.5 million residents (according to Wikipedia). The city seemed sprawling to me, as the high-rise apartment buildings were visible to the horizon on the taxi ride between the airport and the hotel, though I am sure this is common in China. Xiamen is located between Hong Kong and Shanghai, with the plane flight from Hong Kong lasting about an hour. I was told my a friend of mine who is from China that Xiamen is known for being one of China's most beautiful cities. The city has several tourist attractions that are popular vacation destinations for Chinese people, so the city is kept clean and is welcoming to visitors and foreigners. With its coastal location, the air pollution is very low, also contributing to this being one of China's cleanest cities.

So there's the introduction to my trip to China. Now with the business stuff fully described, I can focus on the tourist exploring I did on my days off from the conference. Stay tuned!

Asparagus Tart

A week after the dinner took place as I am writing this, I honestly don't remember why I was inspired to make the Asparagus and Gruyere Tart that I am describing in this post. I faintly remember seeing a photo of a pretty vegetable tart last Saturday morning as I was engaging in my customary pre-long-run coffee-drinking website surfing hour (tip: it helps to pass the time while outside running for an hour or more to think about and recreate the recipe and ingredient lists in your mind of all the yummy things you are planning to cook over the weekend in your spare time). And I barely remember thinking that yes, asparagus is in season and that we haven't taken advantage of it much this spring, so why not try to bake this delicous tart?

http://www.closetcooking.com/2009/05/asparagus-and-gruyere-tart.html

So last Saturday night Scott grilled some delicious steaks. He prepared ribeyes that we had purchased (and subsequently frozen and thawed later) at the farmer's market the week before. Therefore, the meat was the tender, grass-fed, organic, locally-raised in Texas variety of meat. I can easily enjoy a few ounces of this type of steak, especially when it is expertly grilled by Scott. I made a side dish of sauteed spinach and cremini mushrooms, seasoned with fresh onion, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a sprinking of parmesan. And I also made the tart. A word of warning: my tart is small because I wasn't sure how much Paleo boy would eat and I wasn't sure how leftovers would fare with this being a baked pastry tart. Plus, those puff pastry sheets you can purchase frozen from the grocery store are rather large!

First the before picture. Can you see the flecks of Gruyere mounted on top of the fresh asparagus? Delicious!

The "after" picture is rather unglamorous because I forgot to take a post-picture until we were about to dig in to the meal. I raced to get my camera as Scott and I were about to take bites of our already cut asparagus tarts, not at all doing this tart the justice it deserved.

Needless to say, this dish was very good, nice and light, and a nice complement to the heavier steak and spinach dishes. My only remoreseful thought about this dish is that I didn't think the cheese contributed a sufficiently strong flavor. When I take a sliver off the block of Gruyere it is flavorful and robust. On this tart, not so much. I have prepared one other savory tart in my lifetime using puff pastry, which involved roasted tomatoes and goat cheese, and with that one I remember that the cheese flavor was much stronger, almost dominating the pastry. With this dish, as I prepared it (remember that I modified the recipe to serve two, one of whom is Paleo-friendly) the cheese was second-fiddle to the asparagus and pastry.

Still super-yummy, and a dish that I would recreate again. I must remember to make more savory dishes like this in the future.