Touchdown: Amoy

The Odyssey began in the holding room at Changi Airport for departing passengers. Seated in the room were passengers bound for Xiamen (Amoy), over half of which were elderly Singaporeans making to their ancestral villages in Southern China, underpinning the close cultural and people-to-people ties between Singapore and Xiamen. A large majority of the overseas Chinese that migrated to Southeast Asia during the l9th and early 20th centuries came from Fujian (of which Xiamen is a part) and nearby Guandong. Fujian being a very mountainous province with poor land infrastucture back then, it was easier for its residents to hop on a boat to seek opportunities in Nanyang then to relocate by land to other parts of China.

Touching down in Amoy, Jeremiah was pleasantly surprised by how efficient the airport was. Within 10 minutes of landing, he had cleared immigration and customs, and was waiting in line for a taxi. The taxi queue was long but moved fast. Another 20 minutes later, Jeremiah was at the nice CDL-owned Millenium Harbourview Hotel. The roads were largely empty as residents had cleared out of town for the 3-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday while tourists avoided Xiamen because of Typhoon Fanapi which struck Fujian earlier in the week and was currently wrecking havoc in the adjacent province of Guandong.

A good start to the vacation for Jeremiah abhorred crowds.

Taxi queue at the Xiamen airport...yes, people waited in line

View from Jeremiah's hotel room

Chinese tea set in the hotel room.  The Iron Buddha tea was actually very very good.  Beats the Iron Buddha tea in Singapore hands down.

Xiamen is the city closest to Taiwan and one of the first four Special Economic Zones in China.  Xiamen Island is actually very developed and is a much more livable and developed city than many cities in Southeast Asia.