A few days before heading to Wuhan for our teaching job we found out that our recruiter was basically scum and had lied to us, and that the city kind’ve sucked. Doh! Things came together, and we found an awesome city in China to go to instead of Wuhan – Xiaman. It’s a beautiful island city off the coast of south east China, where the temperature is tropical, the people are friendly, and the skies are clean…..mostly. We came here, and luckily we found two amazing websites (What’s on Xiamen and Amoy Magic) dedicated to the city that detailed everything form how to use the bus routes to where the best places to eat in town are. Also, it included an amazing resource – how to find an apartment.
Night view from our balcony overlooking Gulangyu Island and the ocean.
We found a realtor, Paul Ye from Xiamenapartment.com, who showed us around 10 apartments in two days. Paul is a great guy who speaks excellent English, and as a native of Xiaman, knows the town like the back of his hand. He also has an intimate knowledge of what expats expect and want out of apartments and is very familiar with the real estate in the area. He was great at his job and friendly, taking us around the apartments and pointing out where to shop, where to eat, and overall went way above and beyond the call of duty in making a couple of laowai (foreigners) feel at ease in his hometown.
We found an amazing 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment with a killer view of the ocean
Daytime view
and the nearby islet. Paul showed us where to get groceries, marked out places of interest on our map of the city, helped us get internet, and negotiated a better deal with the landlord. Needless to say we are utterly in his debt. We discovered that he likes big, fat, juicy steaks, and we intend to have him over to cook him one. We also intend on introducing him to a Texas favorite, chicken fried steak, which he hasn’t heard of. Anyone have a good recipe!??!
Guest Bedroom #1
Master bedroom
Living room
A kitchen at last!
