Hi, Sam F. & class!
I have been on a long journey, from Iowa to Alaska and now to a city called Xiamen (厦门) in China. Sorry I haven’t posted much!
Xiamen, China
A map of Xiamen Island. I’m sitting on it, right where Cat Street is. I should get to see a lot more in the next few days!
Tall palm trees in Xiamen
This city is an island with about 4 million people (they tell me this is a small city for China) and a lot of palm trees. I’m excited to see more! And hopefully make it to the Great Wall. The real one is far north of here, but someone told me there is something nearby that maybe I can see.
Boxes that can be used for anyone – Delivery people put the package inside, then you can get your package out with a code or by scanning a QR code. This was Ducky’s first stop in China.
Things are very modern here! When I got here, the package I traveled in wouldn’t fit in the slot for mail (everyone lives in tall apartment buildings, so there are many mailboxes together). So, the delivery person put me in this thing and sent a text message to Kat with a code to get me out.
My host here is Kat. She lives with her cat on a street lots of tourists visit when they come to Xiamen. It is called Cat Street (猫街 mao jie). I visited it too, before going back to Kat’s apartment to sleep. I’m tired after traveling so far! And now I have jet lag, because I got here at 11:00 am on Friday, Nov. 1, but in Iowa, it was still Halloween!
That is all I get to see today. I’ll share more tomorrow!
Pictures from Cat Street
There are paintings of cats all over Cat Street. I posed next to some of them, like this floating cat.
I like this cat bee! But the bike I sat on to take the photo was a little bit dusty.
I even found pirate cats!
When I found this cute window with a mouse in it, there were tourists from Dalian (大连), China taking photos too. I posed with this doll, who was visiting and taking photos with the cats. The doll likes how warm it is here – she said Dalian is cold, kind of like Iowa.
I really liked these cat lanterns hanging above cat street, but couldn’t get up to them.
I found this little shop you can eat at. I think they need some of you Riceville 2nd graders to help them with English though.
I was worried about what are Cat Street Balls. They are a special fish ball, kind of like a meat ball but with fish. At lunch & dinner time, they told me there is usually a long line of people waiting to buy them to eat, so they must be yummy!
I saw this ice cream and wanted to buy some, but I didn’t because Kat told me Oolong is a kind of tea, so this is tea-flavored ice cream. She said it tastes delicious & she is glad the shop is near her apartment, but I thought that sounded gross.
In this shop for the tourists, there were many of these little Chinese guardians for sale. They say things like “I love Xiamen,” “Good luck!,” “Prosperity,” and “Monkey Thunder.”
I thought there was a real cat on Cat Street! Then I felt bad it was stuck in a cage, but when I got close, I realized it is only a stuffed animal.
I found a real kitten on Cat Street! It was sleepy and didn’t want to play though.
Life in Xiamen
Because there are so many people on an island (2 million on the island, 2 million in parts of Xiamen off the island), Kat says there are taxis everywhere! There are also buses, a special BRT (Bus Rapid Transit), a subway, and share bikes. This was the first taxi I saw.
Because there are so many people in a small place, Kat said the city is taking trash and recycling very seriously. You have to sort your trash right and people help check it, to make sure food waste can go be used well, recycling gets reused, hazardous stuff is taken care of safely, and other trash can go to landfills or be burned.
At Kat’s house, I met her cat, Bashira. Bashira and I are good friends already, and we played together. Then we both took a nap.