Cruise day 5 - Xiamen

Got up early to watch us sailing into the channel at Xiamen. We decided just to walk around the port, but quickly spotted Huwei Mountain (Foxtail Mountain Park) with a radar on top and walked up it. At the top is a planetarium, the meteorological station, a tv station, and all sorts of 'forests' (although there were lots of eucalyptus and casuarina trees planted). We spoke with a local, El, who gave us directions. A group were playing a sport where they kicked a shuttlecock over a net.

One of the kicking shuttlecock players spoke very good English and was keen to talk to us. When we asked about the eucalyptus he explained they were from Australia, planted about 11 years earlier on what was once a quarry, and believed they dropped their branches due to a deficiency in the soil. Took us a while to convince him otherwise.

Gum trees

Asian dog is similar to our dingo

Afterwards, we walked up a road and spoke with a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses from Canada who were walking past. Since the ship was departing at 1:30 we decided to go back on board for lunch. Darryl played his sports while I sat up on a deck-chair watching us sail away. Eventually I was pretty thirsty so went for a cup of lemon tea before going back to the cabin and continuing my book. 

At dinner it was Terry and Shirley's Silver wedding anniversary, so we shared some wine with them, then went to the show, but Darryl was pretty tired so we left early.