On my way Jackie, my host texted me how to get to Xiahe village where the accommodation was located. Because it sounded easy and my train was quite early, I had no reason to panic. On the other hand as I got off in Xiamen, even the distance wasn't enormous towards south, "just" 814km, the heat quickly pushed me over my comfort limits, and I took some time off to sit down by the nearest steps.

I barely just lighted a fag when some girl approached me. First she tried to sell me a SIM card, but after I google translated her that I already have one from the same company she represents, she just stuck around to talk. Just because I have never seen anyone in China to do so and she was cool I wanted to increase the "foreign experience", and I gave her hug leaving her somewhat astonished before I went to find my bus. Outside of the train station there were palm trees. It was a bit surprising because I have never made any research about the climate of the city and I expected it to be less tropical.

Maybe because the city is built on multiple little islands or for other reasons but subway isn't really a thing in Xiamen, BRT was the name of the game however. It is a bus service that has it's own roads - usually on bridges above the city - separated from the traffic.

BRT had it's own security gate. The security picked a lady just front of me and they wanted her to leave her deodorant behind as it isn't allowed to carry on the bus. She wasn't gonna waste it so sprayed the whole thing on herself. Probably half Xiamen was coughing. They also stopped me. Since that instance I know how it works; if I have any drink I have to drink front of the security and I'm good to go. But back than I didn't know so I just kept saying it's okey no worries waving with my hand. And at some point they gave up on the language barriers and I just had my drinks on the bus.

BRT dropped me off about 3,5km from the accomodation. On my way I picked up some watermelon and just walked it.

For £120/months I didn't really expect anything luxurious, but I still got stunned by the way of living in Xiahe village. I don't think that any of the buildings have ever had a construction permit or any sort of approval. A chicken crossing a road or a man hitting some metal with hammer on an anvil by the roadside was quite normal. Most building's ground floors were small shops or Chinese fast food restaurants. And there were always people just hanging out in the street. The streets were more crowded than in Europe, but the flow was significantly slower. Xiahe village didn't have categorised streets it was the whole living area and by some order every building just had a number. 340 was after 339 so there was some sort of order but it was still not 100% predictable.

In China strong passwords aren't really a thing. Locker codes or WiFi passwords are often just "1111" or "1234". They are mostly just functioning as a sign that shows it is someone's property so leave it alone. It wasn't different in my case either. While I was waiting for my host just discovered that front of my room's window there was a temple. It also had an open air theatre and cinema. Mostly families from the village were socializing there. (When I say village I mean Xiahe village it was still surrounded by the rest of the city.)

During the first few days I didn't fully understand the functional diversity of Xiahe village, and I was naive enough to think that I can manage to use the mall's sitting toilet for 25 days. So I spent most of my time around the mall. It had one fully children stair and at the bottom stair there were always some event for children. There was a roller skate competition. Some hip-hop dance event. The next day some children show. English and music school for children and all sort of things. China really invests into children. A quick fun fact that Chinese parents spend the same percentage of their incomes on children's out of school education (private teachers etc.) as Americans spend on new cars.

After a few days I couldn't avoid the encounter with the "traditional Chinese bathroom" and find some place in the village where fried chiken and burgers were served, so the mall lost it's magic and I stuck in my room a bit.

For that time I had also realized that I have no real chance to find any relatives in Xiamen. So I just redirected myself to experience the city and locals. And through the Airbnb app texted Jackie if he wanna have a drink or maybe a dinner. He shown up in a few minutes and took me to a close restaurant where he introduced me to a friend and we had a proper Chinese BBQ on sticks.

Because I had my fair share of struggling to pronounce and remember Chinese names and also remembered that my mom used to give European names to Chinese people I initiated an agreement if I could just call Jackie's friend Nick (seemly he liked his English name). After the dinner they rented a bike for me and we went to the beach where we had some Chinese ice lolly made of water and sugar and I also tried a game. The main objective of the game was quite simple; handwrite numbers from 1-400. The price was a bracelet that I had to pay for cus I fucked it up around 143.

Two days later Jackie invited me for a breakfast. After he shown me that breakfast place - what was a street market - I kept going back every morning having the same stuff. I really liked it. It was vegetables in pasta made of the same stuff as rice noodles.

At the same weekend Jackie had new tenants who during the summer were working for the same company what he co-owned. And other work related friends were visiting so it became quite crowded and busy. Phone rings, it was Jackie:

 - We are here.

As I got down Jackie, a guy and a girl was getting rid of their rented bike - In China renting a bike is dirt cheap. It's one yuan/hour(11p). - We started to walk towards the "meeting point". The girl already had an English name, Jennifer so on the way we only had to find a name to the guy. I called him Charlie and later when he saw my notebook he started to call me Ben Zou or something like that what means notes.

Charlie and Jackie were childhood friends and were living in the same building. Many times I thought they were fighting, but then Charlie always put his hand on Jackie's shoulder like he was explaining the misunderstanding and they both bursted out laughing.

Our way to the restaurant lead through the narrow alleyways of Xiahe village. At that point I think Jennifer had the best English of the three so I mostly talked to her. As we arrived to the restaurant Jackie's new tenants were already in the restaurant. Tom was implying every new things he learnt probably he was the first start swearing. Luois on the other hand was the type of introvert everyone in Europe wants to be. 

It was a traditional Chinese dinner. Big round table - it means equality between the people sitting around it - with a smaller round in the middle and it was rotating. Everyone had rice and at the middle everything else was shared. If one dish was too far we just turned the smaller table. Not much later an other girl joined us. She had already had an English name too, Chelsea. She was mostly chewing her own snails brought in a plastic takeaway box. After we ate we played some dice game. When someone lost they had to drink 50 ml beer. We played a lot so we got quite pissed. Especially Charlie who took many risks to make others lose and drank even when he won. I also underestimated the effect of 50ml beer so played similar to Charlie and because Jennifer sat next to Charlie and I next to her then Jackie, the game often stuck between us and we drank multiple bottle of beers before Chelsea, Tom and Louis could take part. The dices were in some sealed cups, but after we accidentally opened one I taught Jennifer and Jackie how to play bash. I think Jennifer was a little bit competitive, so everytime when someone else lost a point she went crazy. Was a funny night, enjoyed it a lot, "chill and play".

Unfortunately the next day I got sick so I spent the next 12 hours cursing NHS and the fucking administration bullshit, why they denied my typhus and hepatitis vaccination just because I had no idea where my last GP was. When someone is healthy all the time it is easy to over react. I didn't have typhus but I only got better for the time when the girl's left (two days later). After that incident I got more confident with the local food - what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger. I thought if I can get away with only one day upset stomach it is still worth it.

The next event was with Charlie, Louis, Tom and Jackie on the rooftop of their building. Having a few beers talking about east, west, sports, girls, future and computer games. Proper boyhood feeling just like when I was ten before we moved to a village from Budapest.

We also went to an internet coffee to play League of Legends, where even it wasn't allowed Charlie was smoking like a chimney. It was an other example of people mindig their own business. The place was well ventilated and he was the only one smoking so it didn't really bothered anyone. With no snatches and self-designated law enforcement officers; I dare to say that people have more freedom under a so called communist dictatorship in China than people in the "democratic west". A country can have the best government(that western countries obviously doesn't have) but if live and let to live isn't practiced that place sucks.

Only ten days were left of my stay in China. As none of us had kitchen and restaurants were quite affordable we had most of the dinners together with the guys. Usually just went to the place at the same time and they shown up. Played LoL once again.

Jackie also took a day off to take me to see the world's 14th longest cable bridge in Xiamen and an other campus of Xiamen University. He originally wanted to take only a half day off but it took more than that and for that time he already learned the more expressive part of English so when I asked if it's not a problem to his boss, he just said "fuck the boss".

For the last weekend the guys left. So only with Jackie we visited Jennifer in Fuzhou. For that time Jackie's English caught up and he translated if it was needed. Jennifer brought her best friend, who was the first person ever negotiated her English name. After 3 names she was happy with 'Serena' and wanted to take a picture with me. She wasn't much taller than my waist. We four went to visit some tourist place where we had some really weird Chinese milk tea, than green tea and finally I found a post office where I could send some postcards from. In China even that works different. Stamps are not sticky but have to be glued. I had a good time there, but also felt a bit uncomfortable, because after our Xiahe village the places where the girls took us were a bit too fancy. I wanted to get back a bit earlier as we planned, but wasn't gonna take Jackie as he seemly had better time in Fuzhou than me, but he came back and even convinced me like it was better to him too.

After Fuzhou we went to an electronic market where we still couldn't find a Xiaomi action camera, but negotiated the price of a used GoPro 5. It is still working so was kinda purchase of my life. It was calculated. However in Fuzhou none of us were too gentle to our wallets so I didn't have a hard time to convince Jackie to cycle back from the BRT station instead of taking a taxi. We went to our local everyday restaurant. Where I had some surprise as Tom and Louis came back to town.(I thought they weren't gonna come back). Not much later Charlie also shown up. Xiahe village and their presence were really comforting and I was just about to leave again... Somewhat later we had an other last dinner and we went to the sea. The next day all four of the guys took me to the airport.

I don't know why I bought into Cebu Pacific bs and shown up 4 hours early, but I did, so Louis and Tom had to take the rented car back earlier and only Charlie and Jackie stayed for a longer goodbye. It felt like leaving Budapest for the village.