CHINA | Saturday, 8 November 2008 | Views [587]
We spent the day (and night) on Gulangyu Island, which is a small (one squared km) tourist island just off the coast of Xiamen Island.
The island became a foreign enclave in 1842 after the signing of The Treaty of Nanking (which marked the end of the first Opium War between Britain and China) and remained so until 1949 when the Chinese Communist party took power. The island was abandoned and thus left to it's original inhabitants, buildings intact. Most of the buildings are in a state of disrepair, but some are in the process of being restored.
Its home to a lot of very unique architecture (a mixture of Victorian and Qing Dynasty Chinese) and welcomes many thousands of tourists every year.
