Quanzhou

Quanzhou was fun, but it's nice to be back "home" in Xiamen. I had a hard time believing that Xiamen is one of the cleanest cities in China until I left it. Motorcycles and honking your horn are also illegal here on the island, and it was definitely something I took for granted. Whew.
Our time there was pretty fun, though. Quanzhou is recognized by UNESCO as being a living world religious history museum. Since Quanzhou was the international port of choice back in the day, it became the springboard for the propagation of Islam, Nestorian Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, Manichaeism, and Judaism throughout China. It's also the birthplace of Filipino hero Jose Rizal. From Wednesday afternoon through Friday morning we visited a Daoist temple, a Buddhist temple, a giant Christian church, a mosque, a Confucian temple and museum, and a maritime history museum. We even rang in the Chinese New Year on the streets.
The past week or so have been frustrating because China pretty much shuts down completely during Spring Festival. Because most Chinese work six days a week for almost the whole year, Spring Festival is like all 1.3 billion people simultaneously hibernating for two or three weeks. It gets hard to find food, but we're surviving.

Attached are two of my favorite moments from our trip to Quanzhou- a bajillion fireworks going off at midnight to usher in the Year of the Rat, and the 8th Wonder of the World- a ginormous statue of Cheng Ch'eng-kung and his horse overlooking the city. That little speck by the horse's leg is me.