Adventures on Jinmen Island

My bravery skills got tested last week when I ventured off to Jinmen, a little Taiwanese island off the coast of Xiamen, all by myself. My Chinese visa stipulates that I can only stay in China for 60 days, then I must exit and re-enter, and so on day 55, off I went to Taiwan!


Jinmen Island (also known as Quemoy) is only a 30 minute boat ride from Xiamen, and conveniently allows you to leave the country, get your visa stamped, do some sight seeing, and return in the same day. I invited my Chinese student friend Mandy to make the trip with me. She was very enthusiastic about coming, but the next day she realized she didn't have the visa she needed to go to Taiwan, and it would take her a month to get it. I couldn't wait a month, and I knew the visa wait would be the same for all my Chinese friends and acquaintances, so off I went on my own, on a wing and lots of prayers! In morning prayers, I reminded myself that I wasn't going alone, Jesus was going with me. And to my delight, He kept showing up and caring for me throughout the day.

My face, my hair (even with my new Chinese cut), my clothes, my stature, not to mention what happens when I open my mouth certainly make me stand out from the crowd here! Often I see one person after the other stare at me, to the point that I look down to see if I'm still in my pajamas. The nice thing is, especially when I'm alone, these sweet staring people tend to try to take care of me. That was certainly the case on my island venture! It started when I got to the wharf and thought I was standing in line to get my ticket, but actually I was standing in the middle of a big tour group waiting to get on the boat. The tour guide used a few hand signals to get me out of his group and into the right line. From there it was smooth sailing.

Arrived at Jinmen Island, I managed to get my passport stamped and even find a tourist information booth that had a map! A map is a big treasure around here, even if it's all in Chinese. I asked for advice on where to go to see the sights of the island in a day, and the agent marked out three places for me to visit. I had no idea what they were, but decided to just follow her advice.

So I jumped in a taxi, pointed to my first stop on the map, and off we went. The ride ended in an area with a mix of Buddhist temples, beautiful gates, shops and outdoor markets, and military buildings. I had a little map that showed a walking tour between eight sites of interest, and with a little help from the locals I managed to follow it. This beautiful gate was number 8 on the map, and it led right into the marketplace. (Well yes, I did the walk a bit backwards.)

I always love the outdoor markets, and especially loved this lady, decked in her pink helmet and mask to buy meat!

And another sweet lady sorting her onions.

Even though I rarely find anything interesting to buy in these shops, the layout is so inviting I can never resist going in!

Every street seemed to have a Buddhist temple. I'm sure some of them date way back, but I don't have any information about them. Many had food sacrifices and incense on the alter. The Protestant church across the road that dates back to 1924 seems strikingly understated.

Jinmen Island was a military reserve starting in the 50s, and was heavily shelled by the People's Liberation Army in those years. It only returned to civilian control in the 90s. The history marked out on the floor tiles of this military compound delineates the important turn of events for Taiwan in 1950.

Even though I was in a touristy part of town, there were no restaurants  and no really serious tourist shops. Even the beautiful historic buildings were often quite hidden down little narrow winding paths.

Just as I was readying to go on to my second destination, I saw this little dim sum setup in the street next to the motorbikes. The owner came out and invited me in, and I took him up on it... Was so glad, as I never saw another place to eat all day. And the dim sum was delish!
.
Encouraged by my lovely little lunch, I went to the main road and hailed a taxi for my next destination. Pointed to the spot on the map where the tourist office told me to go, and the driver took off. We had a winding 15 minute drive through lush green vegetation, and then the taxi stopped down a road that was a bit deserted except for tourist buses. The spot had an obvious military history... Before I got to the entrance I ran into this Warm Prompt: "Please stay on paths to avoid land mines."


What I discovered was this incredible underground tunnel build in 1960 for civil defense. It's an incredible structure that goes out to the sea, and allows boats to come into the tunnel and make U-turns. So I went down, down, down into the tunnel and along the water, listening to Pachelbel's Cannon! Lovely acoustics, and I guess sometimes they do concerts in the tunnel.

Came up and looked at some of the tanks and such. Some beautiful landscaping, and I followed a path until it was no longer totally clear where the path was...or where the land mines might be! Doesn't standing close to flower pots seem safe?

Was keeping my eye on the clock, and had plenty of time to visit my third site and get back to the port for the last boat of the day. But when I was ready to leave, there were about six big tour buses in the parking lot, but no taxis. I waited hopefully for awhile, and then decided to go up to one of the bus drivers and say "taxi" in hopes that he would get the idea that I wanted him to help me by calling a taxi. It worked! He called, but no taxi would come. Taxis here really only go where they want to go.  If you want to go somewhere that's not where they want to end up, they just say no, and you have to keep asking until a taxi says yes. The bus driver signaled me to sit on the bench, and I obeyed, not having many other options. I  really didn't know if he had a taxi coming or not, so I got out my map to show him where I wanted to go. Then he started doing sign language that I was pretty sure meant I could ride on his bus to get to my next stop. He kept making a time out sign which means "wait" in Chinese. He wanted me to wait for his busload of tourists to come back. They arrived shortly, and the Chinese tour guide said I was very brave to be touring all alone. So I hopped on the bus in the seat next to the driver, and off we went. I handed him the money that I would've paid for a taxi but he refused to take it.

My last stop was an ancient village, called Shuitou Village, that was very very quaint and full of doors and windows and examples of Chinese architecture dating back to the Ming Dynasty I think.


Hardly any people in the village.  So I wandered through narrow streets, took pictures and totally enjoyed the feeling of being in another world.

Your basic subdivision next to the basketball court??? It's kind of the garbage dump in the foreground, with the elaborate temple roof architecture behind.

Village transportation... Small village Buddhist temple

I managed to lose myself on the small village roads, and just as I decided I'd better start looking for the main road so that I could walk back to the port, I ran into this darling threesome drinking tea in their garden. They greeted me and asked me to sit down, so I thought it was a little tea shop with outside service. I was dying of thirst, so asked the lady if she had Coke. She laughed and said, "no Coke." Come to find out it was a B&B, but basically this lady's house! They kept asking me to have tea, and it looked so good to thirsty me that I said yes. And like everyone else on the island, they thought I was very brave to be there on  my own. They spoke just enough English to be fun which means a few words.

So the owner went in and came out with a cup of tea and also a coffee jelly drink if you can imagine what that is. She was trying to make up for the lack of Coke! It's  a cold coffee drink that you drink with a fat straw and it has little pieces of coffee Jell-O in it that come up through the straw. I made a pretty good stab at drinking it, although I definitely didn't like the feel of jello lumps in my drink! We ended up taking pictures of each other and chatting about Taiwan. Then the owner took my arm and walked me back to the main road and got me headed toward the port. Such a lovely ending to my adventurous day!