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.