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Past the beach, a right turn before a farther tunnel leads you into a maze of old mansions, but signs will direct you to the Xiamen Shi Bowuguan (City Museum) at Guxin Lu 43 (open 8:30am-5pm; ¥10/$1.25). The museum is located in possibly the grandest of all the mansions, the swaggering, three-story, cupola-topped Bagua Lou or Eight Trigrams Building of 1907, designed by an American for a Taiwanese businessman. The ground floor has early examples of the Min Nan region (Quanzhou/Zhengzhou/Xiamen) specialty ware, blanc de chine, mostly Qing. There's other material on the Opium War and the Japanese occupation, as well as on the Communist forces' drive to Xiamen, which forced the Nationalists to Taiwan. The small matter of Jinmen Island, which sits uncaptured less than 2km (1 1/4 miles) from the mainland (despite being the subject of two major offensives and the fact that the Chinese shelled the island nonstop for 44 days back in '58), receives no comment. The museum is dusty, echoing, forgotten, and rarely visited, but there are good views from upper balconies (hung with the attendants' washing) for a fraction of the cost of views from Sunlight Rock. A new building to one side has well-presented displays on fishing, local customs, and tea.
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