the beach

Since Xiamen is a coastal city, it has a long beach along the east (south east?) side. Liz had spent the day at the beach to celebrate a friend's birthday. This beach is a short walk from our church and her friends also attend the church. We asked for a driver for the evening pick-up and he waited for us while we went to find Liz. Like most parks around here, the "playground equipment" is meant more for real exercise for adults and children, rather than children's leisure play (or thinly veiled large-motor skill enhancement tools!). We watched in awe as this very fit, gray-haired man did numerous large sweeping push-ups, for lack of a better term. He had to have been a gymnast in his younger days, but clearly still had much strength and stamina. And I was sweating just standing still!
Amanda took her turn on a structure that is meant for leg-lifts, as far as we could tell. Perhaps Michigan should integrate some of these "machines" into our state and county beach parks instead of the greasy food stands. Might do us all some good, if only we'd use them!
There is a long a lovely boardwalk (we've read that it is incredibly long and rivals boardwalks around the world in length and possibly beauty) along the beach that we will explore further once the weather cools a bit. We would've liked to walk along the sand bare-footed to look for Liz and her friends but the sand was not so clean and we did not want to risk stepping on glass, sharp can tabs, cigarettes or anything else. Never know what you might see on the beach, especially since there seemed to be quite a few naked children of various ages running around. Apparently, you either just go naked if you're under the age of 12 or swim in regular clothing--bathing suits are optional. I've seen this swim-in-your-clothing thing happen in Michigan, too, usually by very young children who've escaped their parents or people speaking a foreign language.
Along with the exercisers and naked swimmers, there were brides and grooms. Of course I wanted to get a closer look and watched as the photographers helped adjust the dresses and pose the brides, and the grooms stood around waiting to be told what to do; a familiar scene.
I was amazed that many of the brides sat right in the dirty and wet sand in their wedding gowns! Was this before or after the actual wedding, what is happening to their shoes, how will they ever get all that sand and dirt out...the questions flooded my mind. We were told later that these are rented gowns, but some questions still lingered. I have to think that these are just staged photos and the actual wedding was some other time, but that's just a guess. Interesting that the grooms also wore white. This is a recent, Western-influenced trend since white is traditionally for funerals and mourning in China. So, this whole bride thing captured my attention and seemed a bit idyllic until I started counting the brides...
I counted more than twenty! It was hard to keep up since six or seven piled out of a van as we left the beach to cross back over the road! I can't imagine what that place must look like on a sunny day! I'm very curious how the pictures turned out since it was so overcast and hazy.

When we finally found Liz and her friends, in a little drink and ice cream shop across the street, we found out that they had moved further down the beach to a cleaner swimming spot. It's nice to have friends who know the lay of the land, otherwise we would not have wanted her to swim! She had a nice time and the water must not be too bad since she didn't get sick or develop a rash. We all lived to see another day in Xiamen.