We’ve slept in very basic hotels in the past weeks, but this one was a bit different: The Xiamen Venice Hotel, an old 4-star romantic retreat hotel that had seen better days. A piano version of “Can you feel the love tonight?” was playing softly in the lobby on repeat, day and night. I would not be surprised if hadn’t paused even once in the last decade. The room didn’t have windows to the outside, only to a narrow corridor that was once filled with green plants to give the feeling of being in nature instead of a 20-story building. The lack of daylight put my roommate into hibernation mode and allowed him a record-breaking straight 15 hours of sleep. It was also the first time I had breakfast included with the hotel stay in China. No coffee though.
After seeing so many temples in such a short time, I was a bit tired of seeing even more Buddhas. The small temple we saw here was different though, it had the nicest interior and most beautiful Buddha statues I’ve seen in China. Too bad you’re not allowed to take photos, because it sucks the souls out of statues of Buddha. They were taking this rule very seriously here.
Being a fan of checking out local mass products and brands at grocery stores, I went to an enormous “Sam’s Place,” a subsidiary of Walmart, with a few tour mates. Everything was sold in bulk here, so we ended up buying nothing. We were able to taste a few things at promo booths though. At least I know now that avocado banana smoothies are sublime. 😍
In the Western world, crotchless pants would be regarded as an adult thing. In China you see kids wearing them everywhere. I don’t mean underwear. Not crotchless panties. I’m talking about wearing crotchless pants without any underwear. It just seems practical not having to pull down your pants when using a restroom. Especially at the more common squatting toilets where you want to avoid your pants touching the floor at any cost.
The other day, when I entered a local shop, the clerk came up to me, welcoming me with a smile on her face and walking towards me with her infant in her arm, holding him in the back of his knees so that his spread butt cheeks were pointed directly at my face. Weird. I also saw a guy holding up his naked kid over a trash can in the middle of a very crowded street… Kind of reminded me of my bag-less vacuum cleaner back at home when I’m holding the appliance’s dust container over a trash can and pull a lever to release the collected dirt. No photos for any of this, obviously. Have a look at some Chenglish instead!
To get a short break from China, we all went to see the second Ant-Man movie in a modern cinema. Such a great movie! Seriously, no sarcasm or anything. And it’s all entangled in the Marvel Universe. When I realized that I had missed a few of the currently eighteen Marvel movies, I just downloaded them, because nobody cares about copyrights in China. Going to watch them in chronological order in a more relaxed phase.
At the university campus
