A Glimpse of Culture: Kinmen Island (Day 1)

April 3, 2010, Saturday when my friend Sansan and I left Taipei Songshan Airport to Kinmen. It's about an hour flight via Mandarin Airlines. It's a nice flight, no delay or any hassle. The weather is fine, although it's forcasted that it will be raining that day. Since we're in a tour group, we waited the rest before we left Kinmen Airport and headed to a typical restaurant for lunch. We're 41 in all in a bus tour, mostly were from Taipei.

After lunch, the first visit was this natural resources museum where they showed and explained to us its natural features by the tour guide.(in chinese!)

Kinmen (Jinmén), known as "Golden Gate" is a small island outlying China, but controlled by Taiwan. It's 2km away from Xiamen (mainland China) and 25 km away from Taiwan. A place where China and Taiwan split. Kinmen or Quemoy (Spanish..) has 6 Townships: Jinning Towship(金寧鄉) know as Golden Tranquility was the first destination.

bicycle route map of Jin ning Township

Kuningtou War Museum

In 1949, Kinmen was attacked by the communist

that lasted for 3 days in this place "Kuningtow",

that's why this museum was built in 1984.

Juguang Tower - a symbol of Kinmen,

inside the tower are some documents and materials

about the history and current status of Kinmen.
Another is the common telephne booth...

Chiu Liang-kung's Mother Honorific Arch
It was established in 1812. Ms. Hsu was a wife of Chiu Chih-jen (a general in ching dynasty),
became widow in her late 20s, and raised her only son - Chiu.
Chiu had made a lot of contribution to this country.

Kwei-ge Tower

A place built in 1896to pay respect for Kwei - shing (faith of career).

A place where the students long time ago come and pray for passing the exam

and be admitted as government officials.

Below are some old buildings and typical narrow passage...

Another place we visited that day, "Kinmen Command Headquarters in Qing Dynasty" in Jincheng Township.There's an underground showing the life of the prisoners and how they beheaded.

Next is the famous 1925 built Mofan Street, a western house look that linked together based on Japanese Architecture...said to be that the foreigners put up their own business store here...

Our last destination was to visit the famous knives maker in Kinmen, made from the remains artillery shells fired by US in World War II, that would made a natural resource of steel for the locals.