Talk:Xiamen Voyage Tips and guide

Contents

We already have one district article, Xiamen/Gulang Yu, and overlapping/should-be-merged stuff at Gulangyu. Jimei is a quite distinct district, almost a separate city, but its article is currently just a redirect to X. There's another large suburb across the big suspension bridge, on the highway toward Zhangzhou and Guangdong. I do not know its name; it looks like it is growing very fast. Xiamen itself could be split up. Downtown, the university district and the newer business district near Marco Polo are some possible divisions.

I do not think Xiamen needs districts yet; it is not that big an article. However, it seemed worth noting the current state here. (WT-en) Pashley 06:51, 2 January 2010 (EST)

See [1] for administrative divisions. Turns out the other suburb I mentioned is Haicang. (WT-en) Pashley 07:42, 2 January 2010 (EST)

There is now more discussion of this at Talk:Gulang Yu. Pashley (talk) 22:08, 16 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

We now have articles at Gulangyu (Gulang Yu and Xiamen/Gulang Yu are now redirects to that) and Jimei and Haicang, though the last is just a stub. This can be revisited later if need be, but for now, it works. Pashley (talk) 19:08, 17 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

I added a "districts" section, with a map from Commons and some links, into the article. I think we are done, unless the article later becomes large enough to consider splitting it. Pashley (talk) 17:33, 19 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

A related question: where should the IsPartOf links in the district articles point? Currently the one for Gulangyu points to Xiamen, but the other three — Jimei, Haicang and Xiang'an — all point to South Coast (Fujian). I think that is OK, but are there other opinions? Pashley (talk) 19:40, 23 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

There's mention of ferry travel from Xiamen to Taiwan, but no links on where to get more information, by tickets, which ferry to use or how to find the harbor. Any of this information would improve this article. User:(WT-en) Anon16:58 June, 21 2010 (CST)

This is now dealt with; see Xiamen#Go_next. Pashley (talk) 13:43, 17 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

Moved to Xiamen#By_ferry. Pashley (talk) 17:03, 16 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Ok, people stop reverting the erroneous introduction to Xiamen. "Xiamen (厦门; Xiàmén) is a coastal city in Fujian Province in China. Generally not considered a "must see" destination in China, it does have a number of attractions, an interesting history and is tourist friendly." Although I can't say that Xiamen is the biggest tourist destination in China, having a header like that detters travelers on going there. I know Xiamen to be more tourism oriented than most other cities listed here, and yet they dont have that header.

With the new intro, the city appears less attractive than with the old one, --(WT-en) ClausHansen 02:42, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

I changed it. OK now? Pashley (talk) 14:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

I think this is now close to guide status & then a DotM nomination. What do others think & what does it need to get the rest of the way? Note that although Gulangyu is a separate article, it is also Xiamen's most important tourist area, so the two need some sort of joint evaluation. Pashley (talk) 01:01, 21 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

Parts of it are, I think, now very good but other parts need cleanup/re-organising/de-touting, ... I've gone about as far as I can. Any volunteers to continue? Pashley (talk) 14:20, 8 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

I did some of that. It still needs both cleanup & expansion. Pashley (talk) 02:24, 28 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

By now, I think it needs only some added listings. Other opinions? Pashley (talk) 00:17, 28 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

No comment in a while, so I'll plunge forward. I bumped both this article & Gulangyu to guide and am about to add a DotM nomination. Pashley (talk) 13:29, 12 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Did that. See Wikivoyage:Destination_of_the_month_candidates#Xiamen. Pashley (talk) 18:07, 16 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

There were criticisms and suggestions there & I made some changes as a result.

What would it need to reach star? The only thing I see is a broader range of listings. Pashley (talk)

A few years back a South African friend tried to take the boat from Mawei (near Fuzhou) to Matsu, a Taiwan-controlled island like Kinmen. He was not allowed to board; officials said there was a list of 15 acceptable passports and SA was not on it. Our Quanzhou article says the ferry from there to Kinmen allows only Chinese & Taiwanese.

What are the rules for the Xiamen-Kinmen ferry? Pashley (talk) 23:13, 24 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

My experience (February 2012) was that the ferry from Shijing (south of Quanzhou) would only carry passengers with PRC or ROC travel documents. The ferry between Xiamen (Dongdu terminal, near downtown) to Kinmen seemed to offer no problems to third-country nationals, at least not to one with a Canadian passport. The staff seemed pretty relaxed. If there was any list of "acceptable passports", I did not see it posted anywhere there. Naturally, any passengers going from PRC to ROC or back must satisfy general entry rules for the jurisdiction in question, i.e. either have a passport to allow enter the destination country without a visa, or have an appropriate entry visa. Besides Dongdu, Xiamen has enother ferry terminal for Kinmen boats (located somewhere near the NE corner of Xiamen island), and about their rules I know nothing. -- Vmenkov (talk) 22:14, 7 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

My info above (South African turned away) is from about 2010 and for all I know it was just a question of him not having a Taiwan visa; according to Taiwan#Get_in he'd need one. What he told me, though, was that there was a list & SA was not on it. He also said the officials made a point of assuring him this was a Taiwan requirement, not their fault & not something they could fix.

It would be good if we could discover & document the exact rules, but I do not think that would be easy. Pashley (talk) 23:01, 7 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I lived in the region & knew Americans, Canadians & Brits who made the Xiamen-Kinmen trip with no problem; the only person I heard of who had difficulty was a South African on the Fuzhou-Matsu route. Still, that leaves some open questions & my info is all 2012 or earlier. Pashley (talk) 04:21, 24 October 2016 (UTC)Reply

I changed this section from the WV-standard Budget/Mid-range/Splurge setup to put a whole neighborhood under Xiamen#Big clump of bars and restaurants. This seemed logical to me. Other opinions? Pashley (talk) 21:09, 27 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

I undid that. Most of those places are upmarket, so I moved them all to the otherwise empty "Splurge" section. This is not ideal, since some places in the area are fairly cheap, but it works.

I'd still like to hear opinions or suggestions. Pashley (talk) 04:57, 28 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Re-arranged again. I'm now happy with it, but comment is still invited.

Additional listings would also be good. Pashley (talk) 15:18, 24 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

This is written up on Bill Brown's site [2] and sounds interesting. Would anyone care to describe it here? Can you give clearer directions than Brown manages? Pashley (talk) 21:38, 7 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I added it, but further contributions would be nice. Pashley (talk) 18:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Which is the correct name? "Xiamen Yundang Lake" gives 10,000-odd Google hits; with Yuandang 450-odd thousand. Both names occur on the Xiamen government site linked at the top of the article, and on Amoymagic.com (a guide by a long-term expat), though Yuandang is about twice as frequent on both. The Wikipedia article has only Yundang.

Which is actually correct? Or are they alternate romanisations of the same Chinese character so either could be used? Pashley (talk) 21:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

• The Marco Polo hotel is on the lake. Their downloadable brochure shows "Yuandang". Google maps has "Yundang". I'm confused! Pashley (talk) 22:04, 7 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'll go with Yundang Lake. 筼 can be romanised to yuan or yun, but watching a Xiamen news report on promoting water sports [3] indicate that it's pronounced as Yundang Hu (Lake). - Torty3 (talk) 01:06, 8 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

A Xiamen-dwelling Chinese I know finally answered my email question; she says Yundang. With the above, we have a consensus so I have made the change. Pashley (talk) 11:55, 19 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I removed this listing:

• Miss Cafe (不见咖啡馆), 思明区环岛路溪头下村23号, ☏ 0592 5963 777. An extremely relaxing cafe with excellent design. 

That listing is almost content free and web search turned up nothing about the place except several more sites giving WT as their source or listings on other sites for places like Miss Zhao's Cake & Tea Shop or Miss Cherry's Cafe.

It should be restored if anyone knows enough to do a decent listing. Pashley (talk) 20:55, 14 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

There is now a link to a map at the top right of the article — great idea, well done to whoever is responsible. However, the map it points to to has an oddity; the marker for Xiamen is in the wrong position by many miles, outside Xiamen municipality.

I have no idea how to fix this. One guess is that it is a rounding error; the geo co-ordinates in our article are less precise than what WP gives. Pashley (talk) 14:43, 21 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

What about this one? Danapit (talk) 14:31, 22 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Nice! I'll put it in. Pashley (talk) 14:58, 22 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I am not completely happy with the banner, but I didn't find any better. And I don't have the feeling for the place, as Ive never been there. Alternatively I cropped the original one, so it can be used. Or maybe somebody comes up with yet another suggestion. Danapit (talk) 06:20, 23 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Xiamen#By train says a couple of new services are due to start running in Sept. & Oct. 2013. It is November; does anyone know if they opened on schedule? In particular, the one to Shenzhen would make a huge difference in the accessibilty of Xiamen. Pashley (talk) 02:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

w:Xiamen–Shenzhen Railway says 26 December. Pashley (talk) 13:13, 23 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

SCMP (Hong Kong newspaper) says it went into service on 28th. I've updated this article, but not others that may need it.

I can find nothing to confirm if the Xiamen-Nanchang high-speed line is running. It was obviously well along in construction when I was last in the area (mid-2012) and at one point I saw a claim it would go into service autumn 2013. Anyone know? Pashley (talk) 17:28, 31 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

I personally haven't used it but I looked it up on various train schedule sites and there are connections from Xiamen North to Nanchang West in under 5 hours. The train number starts with a D, so it's a high speed train or so called bullet train. So to make an educated guess, I would say yes they are up and running. --Nalfion (talk) 03:25, 6 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Sounds right. I have updated the article. 04:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the w:Xiangtang–Putian Railway opened in September 2013, and it does carry a large number of high-speed (D-series) trains from Fujian's coastal cities (Fuzhou, Xiamen) to Nanchang, Wuhan, and other points inland. -- Vmenkov (talk) 22:17, 7 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I am trying an experiment on the Xiamen and Gulangyu articles to see how changes of headings affect search engine placement. The discussion that led to it was in the pub but has now been swept to Wikivoyage talk:Search Expedition#Article_subheadings.

This section will document changes and results. First, some baseline data, before any changes. Default search engine for me, google.ca

• "Xiamen" First 4 are WP, What's on Xiamen, Travelchinaguide, WT in that order. WV turns on 5th page, with Lonely Planet just ahead of us.
• "Xiamen tourism" puts a bunch of other guides up top, moves WT & WP down to bottom of 1st page. We go down to page 7.
• "Xiamen travel" has WT first, Lonely Planet middle of 1st page, WV at bottom
• "Xiamen travel guide" has WT 3rd, WV 4th, LP 9th
• "Xiamen accommodation" has lots of ads pop up, then pages of booking engines. LP turns up on page 6, WP on 8. Neither WT nor WV on 1st 10 pages.
• "Xiamen hotels" is similar
• "Gulangyu": WP #1, WT 7, WV 9

My first test will be to change Sleep to Accommodation, wait a week or two for engines to update indexes, and see if that changes rank for the last two. Pashley (talk) 15:43, 4 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

It seems to have had no effect on rank for either "Xiamen accommodation" or "Xiamen hotels".

We aren't the only ones with a problem. Lonely Planet and what is probably the best guide to X, Amoy Magic, are both way down the listings as well and the local tourist office does not rank high on most searches. 17:09, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Testing again, three years later:

• Xiamen: WP #1, Xiamen Airlines 2, then four other travel guides including LP, then WT 7th, WV 8th
• Xiamen tourism: LP & WT on first page, WV near top of 2nd
• Xiamen travel: WT #6, LP 8, WV 12
• Gulangyu: WP #1, WV 2, WT 6, so we are doing better there

In general, we still aren't getting the ranking we want. Pashley (talk) 21:18, 13 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

And again, after 5 more years:

• Xiamen: WP, Xiamen Airlines, Britannica, then WV is 4th. No sign of WT on first three pages
• Xiamen tourism: Tripadvisor #1, WT #2. WV is 9th
• Xiamen travel: top 3 in order are trip.com, WT, WV
• Gulangyu: WP #1, 2-6 various travel sites, WV 7th. No sign of WT on first three pages

Interesting. Not sure if anything might be done to improve rankings. Pashley (talk) 09:21, 21 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

I changed file:Xiamen banner Roof ornament.jpg to file:An overall view of Xiamen Island.jpg.I think it is better.This is a panoramic view of Xiamen Island. 악준동 (talk) 06:23, 21 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Current text has:

"Three more lines are under construction, and are scheduled to open 2020-2022."

Does anyone have more up-to-date info? Pashley (talk) 22:54, 18 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

I've updated this. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:33, 26 March 2024 (UTC)Reply