Yongding & Nanjing Counties

Day Two

Woke up early in the morning at 6.30 am for a quick breakfast. Reason for this was the "Day Tour" pickup time set at 7 am at the hotel lobby.

One day tour to Fujian Tulou

While browsing the internet months prior to the trip, I was attracted by an aerial photo in Klook which illustrated the massive earthen building, also known as 'tulou' (left photo below). Thus, booked this tour package online without much hesitations. The actual name for this tour was "1-day tour from Xiamen to Nanjing Yunshuiyao + Yongding Gaobei Tulou King". Paid a total of SGD 74.59 which included sight admissions, lunch and tea-break, coach bus ride and guided tour. It may seem rather pricey but once the cost was broken down, the price was definitely reasonable.

The day trip consisted of two locations:

• Gaobei Tulou Cluster (高北土楼群) in Yongding County (永定县)


• Yunshuiyao Tulou Cluster (云水谣土楼群) in Nanjing County (南靖县)

One day before the trip, the tour guide even messaged the group to remind on the assemble information and things to take note (right photo below).


The coach bus had a seat capability of 37 passengers with strong air-condition (left photo below). Its seats were clean and comfortable, and most important each seat came with an USB power supply (right photo below).
Gaobei Tulou Cluster

The Gaobei Tulou Cluster is located in Gaobei Village of Gaotou Town in Yongding District and is 47-km from the county town. The village was first constructed during the Yongle reign of the Ming Dynasty. Comprising of Chengqi Lou, Wuyun Lou, Shize Lou, and Qiaofu Lou, the cluster serves as a settlement for the Jiang clan.

Our tour group was first brought to a Gaobei Visitor Center after disembarked from the coach bus (left photo below). After the toilet break, our tour guide then gotten our admission tickets from the visitor center and distributed to us (right photo below).
Qiaofu Lou (侨福楼)

Youngest among the four tulou, Qiaofu Lou was built in 1962 by three brothers of the Jiang family who had previously lived in Myanmar and the United States (left photo below). Its construction spanned over three years. Because the building has produced eleven PhDs, it is known as the "PhD Building", though most of the original residents have since relocated overseas.

The main building features a single main entrance leading to a private courtyard (right photo below). The most famous and defining couplet of Qiaofu Lou embedded at its main entrance stone frame is a name-hidden couplet (嵌名联) that starts with the characters "侨" (Qiao) and "福" (Fu). The couplet reads "侨资兴建光闾里; 福泽覃敷利国家" which literally translate as "Built with funds from overseas Chinese to bring honor to the local hometown and neighborhood; Spread abundant blessings and benefits to the country and the nation".
Qiaofu Lou is a three-storey single-ring circular earthen building with a diameter of 45-meters and comprises 30 rooms arranged around an internal corridor on each floor (photo below). It covers an area of approximately 2,300-square meters.
The ancestral hall blends Chinese and Western architectural styles, featuring four Western-style stone columns at the rear and granite paving in the inner courtyard (left photo below). Unlike fenced-off historical monuments, Fujian Tulou are not static museum pieces but are a "living museum" because hundreds of Hakka families still inhabit these ancient multi-storey rammed-earth fortresses (right photo below).

Chengqi Lou (承启楼)

Construction of Chengqi Lou began in 1628 during the late Ming Dynasty and was completed in 1709 during the early Qing Dynasty. Built by the Jiang clan, the building once housed over 600 people at its peak, but now only slightly more than 300 residents still live there today (left photo below).

On the outer left and right sides of the stone door frame, a couplet is inscribed that reads "承前祖德勤和俭; 启后孙谋读与耕" which translate to "Inheriting the ancestral virtues of diligence and frugality; Inspiring descendants' plans through reading and farming" (right photo below).
Facing south, the building occupied an area of 5,376.17-square meters and has a diameter of 73-meters and 16.4-meters high. Chengqi Lou consists of four concentric ring-shaped structures:



• the outer ring has four stories with 72 rooms per floor (left photo below);
• the second ring has two stories with 40 rooms per floor (right photo below);
  
• the third ring is a single story with 32 rooms (left photo below) and the center houses an ancestral hall (right photo below).
  
In total, the complex comprises 402 rooms. A popular saying describes it as: "Four stories high, four rings of buildings, four hundred rooms from top to bottom; circles within circles, rings nested in rings, having weathered the vicissitudes of three hundred years".

The outer walls are made of rammed earth, measuring 1.5-meters thick at the base and 1-meter at the top (left photo below), with eaves extending nearly 4-meters outward (right photo below).


Like most tourist attractions, any spaces would be made into souvenir shops such as the tea shops located at the ground floor (photos below). This not only make use of the empty ground floor but also provides extra income to the locals.
Visitors can pay a reasonable amount of CNY 20 to have a photo taken in front of the entrance door to the second ring (photo below). A laminated picture or a softcopy sent to WeChat can be requested after the photo shot.


🎡 Fun Facts: Representative of all Fujian Tulou

While there are over 30,000 earthen buildings scattered across the region, Chengqi Lou is universally recognized as the prime representative and the ultimate icon of all Fujian Tulou. Known officially as the "King of Tulou," this massive fortress in Gaobei Village encapsulates the absolute peak of Hakka communal architecture, engineering, and cultural philosophy. One good cultural example was the selection to represent Fujian civilian dwelling on a postage stamp series in 1986 (left photo below). Another pop culture example was the "ancestral home" of Mulan in the Disney's live-action movie 'Mulan' released in 2020 (right photo below).


There are over 20,000 to 35,000 traditional tulou scattered across the mountainous regions of Fujian Province, China. However, only 46 specific structures located in the southwestern part of the province are officially inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.



Chengqi Lou, together with other 45 tulou, was inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.

🧭 Wanderlore "我在XX很想你" or literally translate as "I miss you so much in XX" is a viral slogan often displayed on street signs that has become popular at tourist attractions and along streets across China in recent years. First appeared on May 2022 at Eling Factory No. 2 in Chongqing, it subsequently spread rapidly to over 200 cities across the country. Despite its popularity, there are many controversies surrounding it. Most of these street signs were installed privately or in violation of regulations, contravening the "Regulations on the Administration of Geographical Names". Consequently, urban management authorities in various locations, including Shanghai and Nanning, have removed them in accordance with the law. Due to excessive replication and proliferation, these slogans have triggered "aesthetic fatigue" and aversion among some internet users and the general public, and its related topics have frequently trended on social media.

Shize Lou (世泽楼)

Constructed in 1565 during Ming Dynasty, but was destroyed by a fire during wartime in 1929. Shize Lou was rebuilt to its original form in 1931. It is a rectangular earthen building, oriented north-to-south, covering an area of approximately 5,100-square meters with a total of 152 rooms.

The stone-carved couplet at the building entrance reads "世传勿替家声远; 泽本遗风椒衍长" which translate as "May the family's noble reputation be passed down through the ages; May its enduring legacy flourish and multiply like the abundant seeds of a pepper plant" (left photo below). Shize Lou features four stories high with no windows on the first or second floors. The first and fourth floors consist of internal corridors, while on the second and third floors, two rooms on each side extend outward beyond the gallery, with no access between them (right photo below).
The central hall is no longer in use and flanking it are single-story auxiliary rooms constructed of stone and timber or rammed earth and timber (left photo below). The rear hall serves as an ancestral hall, with a plaque hanging above it that reads "邦家之光" which translate to "Glory to the Nation and Family" (right photo below).

Construction of a Tulou
Step 1: Excavating the foundation (开地基) Craftsmen established a building site's boundaries using lime powder before excavating to solid ground or reinforcing soft soil with rot-resistant pine piles. A grid of timber beams formed the base for the wall footings, which were sized based on the building's scale to distribute weight evenly and prevent uneven settling.	Step 2: Stone-cutting (打石脚) The tulou foundation, known as the "stone base", relies on a two-tier, trapezoidal dry-masonry construction for structural stability. It features a lower tier (dajiao) built from large, stacked stones backfilled with compacted earth, topped by a slightly thinner upper tier (xiaojiao) made of smaller stones.	Step 3: Rammed-earth wall (夯筑土墙) Constructing earth buildings (tulou) requires precise wall-ramming techniques: starting from specific orientations, tapering from base to top, and using staggered formwork with same-day surface compaction to ensure structural integrity.
Step 4: Erecting posts (立柱竖木) The inner wooden framework of a tulou is constructed by erecting vertical timber posts and horizontal beams alongside the heavy rammed-earth outer walls, with bamboo-pegged floorboards supported on joists that span between these central posts and either the surrounding earth walls or internal modular partitions.	Step 5: Laying tiles and topping out (铺瓦封顶) Large tulou are built at a rate of one storey per year, taking three to four years for three- or four-storey structures. The construction culminates in the roofing process, where channel and cover tiles are systematically laid and reinforced with lime mortar at the eaves to complete the structure.	Step 6: Decoration and Renovation (装饰装修) Following the drying of the structure, the interior and exterior finishing of a tulou takes about four to five years to complete, encompassing floorboard, door, and window installation, decorative painting, and plaque crafting. Once finished, residents select an auspicious day to build the stove and officially move in.

Wuyun Lou (五云楼)

Built during the Ming Dynasty from 1360 till 1424, the Wuyun Lou faces south and features a rectangular layout. Originally three stories high, it was expanded to four stories during the Qing Dynasty. It currently comprises 40 bays, and covers an area of approximately 3,600-square meters (photo below).
In 1908, an earthquake caused the building to tilt but did not collapse, thus earning it the name "The Unfallen Building". For safety reasons, Wuyun Lou is currently open for exterior viewing only and entry to its interior is not permitted.



Wuyun Lou, together with other 45 tulou, was inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.

🧭 Wanderlore Fujian Tulou look like geometric formations, massive mushrooms, or even cybernetic structures nestled in green valleys when viewed from above. During the Cold War, the distinctive circular and square shapes of these massive communal earthen buildings caused significant confusion for Western intelligence. U.S. spy satellites captured images of the clusters hidden in the mountains of Fujian, leading analysts to initially mistake them for active nuclear missile silos or reactors.

Sumptuous Lunch

After the Tulou tour at Gaobei Village, the group were then brought to a restaurant for lunch (left photo below). The tour guide arranged 10 to 11 persons, including young children, to be seated at a round table. To my surprise, a wooden tray with central pot surrounded by several triangular and wedge-shaped white ceramic dishes was served (right photo below).
The food had a good mix of meats, seafood, vegetables and small side dishes. Overall, it tasted good and fulfilling.

Yunshuiyao Tulou Cluster

The Yunshuiyao Tulou Cluster is located in Yunshuiyao Ancient Town in Nanjing County and about 54-kilometers from the county seat. Formerly it was known as "Changjiao Village" (长教村) but was renamed due to a romance film 《云水谣》"The Knot" shot on the location and released in 2006 (left photo below). The movie was starred by Chen Kun, Vivian Hsu, and Li Bingbing and had won the Best Film Award at the 2007 Golden Rooster Awards. A commemorative stone with the words "Yunshuiyao" written by the movie original screenwriter "Zhang Kehui" now stood along the river bank (right photo below).


Huaiyuan Lou (怀远楼)

Built during Qing Dynasty between 1905 till 1909 by the Jian clan, Huaiyuan Lou is a circular tulou with a diameter of 38-meters (left photo below). Above the gate is a large plaque inscribed with "Huaiyuan Lou". Flanking the plaque is a couplet with name-hidden characters "怀以德, 敦以仁, 藉此修齐遵祖训; 远而山, 近而水, 凭兹灵秀育人文" which translate to "With virtue and benevolence, we cultivate ourselves and follow ancestral teachings; With distant mountains and nearby waters, we nurture culture through this auspicious landscape".

Among the circular tulou in Nanjing, Huaiyuan Lou is one of the best-preserved examples, possessing significant cultural depth where its walls remain smooth and intact with no signs of deterioration (right photo below).
The structure stands four stories high, with 34 rooms per floor and totaling 136 rooms which can be accessed by four staircases (left photo below). It also consists of a single inner ring and a central ancestral hall (right photo below).
The inner circular ring and the ancestral hall create a wide crescent-shaped opening to allow daylight into the halls (left photo below). Across the ancestral hall hung a black and gold plaque that bears the four characters "助我義師" which means "Assist My Righteous Army" (right photo below). This was to commemorate the local Jian clan who supported the National Revolutionary Army's campaign in 1926.
Similar to most tourist attractions, there were many souvenir stalls setup within the tulou for visitors to purchase (photos below).
Visitors can pay CNY 5 to go up to the fourth floor to have a breathtaking view of Huaiyuan Lou (photo below).


Huaiyuan Lou, together with other 45 tulou, was inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.

"Light of Tulou" Cultural Park (土楼之光文化园)

Next, we visited a tulou museum named "Light of Tulou" that was opened in 2017 (left photo below). The main museum building is Zhongxing Lou (钟兴楼) which is a rectangular tulou of four storey high and occupied an area of 1386-square meters (right photo below).
This is the only tulou during our tour that do not require any fee to go up to high floors. Each level did offer a slightly different view of the Zhongxing Lou (photos below).
The surrounding historic tulou cluster structures could also be observed from this museum (photo below).
The museum houses over 1,700 historical artifacts and folk-culture items, including pottery, porcelain, ancient oil lamps, and even sewing machines (left photo below). If lucky, visitors can also watch a Minnan string puppet show (提线木偶戏) which is an UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (right photo below).

Key Features of Tulou Cluster Living

• Communal Architecture:   Built as large circular, square, or oval ring-like structures, a   single tulou can house anywhere from 100 to over 800 people,   often belonging to the same extended family or clan. • Functional Layout:  - First Floor: kitchens, dining areas, and livestock stalls.  - Second Floor: grain and food storage.  - Upper Floors (3rd to 5th): living quarters and bedrooms   for individual family units linked by continuous wooden   balconies. • Central Ancestral Hall:   At the heart of every tulou is a open-air courtyard and an   ancestral hall used for community gatherings, festivals,   ancestral worship, and local decision-making.

Sceneries along Changjiao River

Changjiao River (长教溪) flows through the heart of Yunshuiyao Ancient Town making it a scenic rural landscape. A large wooden waterwheel, originally built as a movie prop, sits in the river and has become a landmark symbol of the town (left photo below). The riverbanks are also famous for a spectacular cluster of 13 thousand-year-old banyan trees (right photo below).
The massive canopies of the banyan trees shaded the ancient paths making the scenery along both riverbanks even more rustic and idyllic (photos below).
One small challenge that visitors would face was to cross the stone-stepping bridge (left photo below). Each stepping stone is just about a foot's length and distance between each stone is also about a foot's length (right photo below). Once momentum builds up, any worries about falling off would vanish.



It could also be relaxing just looking at other visitors crossing the bridge (photos below).
Another challenge for the tour group was to walk about one kilometer of cobblestone path along the river (left photo below). Uneven path and some elders in our group made our tour guide had to stop for 10-mins to rest before crossing the wooden bridge (right photo below) to reach our final tulou building.

Hegui Lou (和贵楼)

Built during the Qing Dynasty in 1732, Hegui Lou is a massive, square-to-rectangular earthen building covering roughly 3,000-square meters with exactly 28 rooms on each floor (left photo below). Unique to its architecture is an enclosed front courtyard that extends outward from the main entrance, creating an integrated perimeter space for its residents (right photo below).
The main gate is inscribed with a couplet "和地献奇山川人物星斗画; 贵宗垂训衣冠礼乐圣贤书" which translates as "The land of harmony presents wondrous landscapes, figures, and stars; The noble lineage bestows its teachings, including rites, music, and the classics" (left photo below). Hegui lou has a massive height of about 21.5 to 22-meters high, with 5 stories tall, making it the tallest rectangular Fujian tulou (right photo below).
At the center of the building's interior courtyard lies a schoolhouse designed in the "three-room-and-a-hall" style that served as the communal schoolroom for the children of the resident Jian clan (photos below). This schoolhouse formed a "building-enclosing-a-dwelling" architectural configuration and a popular local saying reflects this layout: "厝包楼,子孙较贤; 楼包厝,子孙较富" which translate "When the outer single-story rooms wrap around the tall building, descendants are wiser/more scholarly; When the tall building wraps around the center houses, descendants are wealthier".
Hegui Building is renowned for three remarkable features:



• despite being constructed on a swampy site, it remains rock-solid, standing firm for over two centuries;
• the cobblestone floor of the central courtyard produces a ripple-like vibration when walked upon;
• two water wells, located about eighteen meters apart, contain water of entirely different qualities where one is clear and the other is murky.



Hegui Lou, together with other 45 tulou, was inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.

Late Afternoon Break

After all the tulou explorations, we were then drove to a small restaurant for our afternoon break (left photo below). A simple bowl of rice noodles with some seaweeds and minced meat was served (right photo below). Taste was light which was suitable in a warm and tired afternoon.
Night Sceneries of Xiamen

It was close to 7.30 pm when the coach bus reached Xiamen city. While droving over Haicang Bridge, beautiful night sceneries of illuminated and dynamic LED lights on skyscrapers and malls could be seen (photos below).
Gu Tian Dao Xiang (谷田稻香)

This is a popular fast-casual restaurant chain in China known for its individual clay pot rice sets, fresh farm rice, and savory side dishes such as braised beef, black pepper beef, and tomato fish. The restaurant features an aesthetic light-green as its main color theme (left photo below). Probably was too hungry, I immediately scanned the QR code on the table to start ordering (right photo below).


Got their signature beef brisket with rice (left photo below). As it would take quite a while for the restaurant to cook the rice, the staff proposed to change the claypot rice to purple rice instead. I gladly accepted as no waiting was needed and furthermore the purple rice cost slightly more than plain white rice (right photo below).

Total cost was CNY 36.80 and the beef brisket tasted great with savory sauce.

🍔 Gu Tian Dao Xiang • SM Wushipu brunch (谷田稻香 • 厦门SM乌石浦店)
Address:	Wushipu Station Underground Food Street (站前町网红美食圈)
Access:	Wushipu station (乌石浦站) of Line 1, Exit 3A or 3B
Operating Hours:	1000 hours to 2200 hours; daily

After dinner I decided to explore SM Lifestyle Center which was just steps away from the restaurant.

SM Lifestyle Center (厦门SM新生活广场)

Located just across the road from the SM Xiamen mall, the SM Lifestyle Center consists of three different theme buildings occupying a retail space of 216,000-square meters. (photos below).
What drew my attention was the POP Mart store located at its level one of Phase 2 building (left photo below). POP Mart is a Chinese designer toy and pop culture company that sells blind boxes with several signature characters such as Labubu, Molly, Skullpanda and many others (right photo below).

Another interesting shop was the Sisyphe Bookstore and Vector Coffee (left photo below). Founded in 1993, Sisyphus is a Chinese chain private bookstore that currently operates over 500 stores in China. Sisyphus has a comprehensive operational logic for store space planning through the use of a multi-sensory physical space and standardized store layout (right photo below).
It is rare now to find such refined and elegantly renovated bookstores in Singapore after the closure of Borders, Page One and Times Bookstores.

Bao's Pastry (鲍师傅糕点)

Happened to walk past this Bao's Pastry and immediately decided to get some pastries for my supper (left photo below). After some search within the store, I bought a "mini sponge cake with durian milk cream filling" at CNY 16 (right photo below).

Taste of the durian cream was fulfilling and was not too sweet or buttery.

🍔 Bao's Pastry • SM Lifestyle Center brunch (鲍师傅糕点 • SM新生活广场店)
Address:	No. 399-3 Jiahe Road, Siming District, Xiamen City (厦门市思明区嘉禾路399-3号)
Access:	Wushipu station (乌石浦站) of Line 1, Exit 3A or 3B
Operating Hours:	1000 hours to 2200 hours; daily

Reached hotel at about 9.30 pm. Afterwhich had a good rest for the island trip the next day.