Zhuhai

I went to this city on the border with Macao for a few days to visit Ling Ling. It's an 11 hour overnight bus ride, so not right next door, but still doable. I skipped three days of class to be able to do this, but it was totally worth it.
Zhuhai is also on the coast, but it doesn't have the nice beaches of Xiamen. There is a beach, but it's quite small. There is a long and scenic road all along the coast, but there is quite a bit of traffic, so a bit noisy. Just off the coast is a big rock with a large statue of a woman holding a ball above her head. It's supposed to be a pearl, but way too big to be a real pearl. I guess it had to be big enough for the tourists to see.
Like Xiamen, Zhuhai is graced with some nice hills dividing up the city in its different neighbourhoods. I stayed in Wan Zai Sha, in a very comfortable hotel selected by Ling Ling. She teaches English at a private language school nearby, and sometimes at home, but that's rather far away, not even in Zhuhai proper, but in neighbouring Tanzhou. I joined one of her home classes one evening. She transformed her bedroom into a classroom just by adding some folding school chairs and a whiteboard, and this way makes some extra cash in her spare time.

Zhuhai is in Guangdong province, where people speak Cantonese instead of Mandarin, although almost all people can also speak the official language of the People's Republic. The food is also quite different, not spicy like in the surrounding provinces. We had a nice Dim Sum lunch at the Bihai hotel, which must have been grand once, but nowadays looks slightly dilapidated. At lunch time it is crowded with mostly elderly people who have probably come here for lunch since they were young.
I also met an old friend from Nanning, a former student at Guangxi University whom I met last year in the first week after my arrival. He has graduated now, and after spending two months in Ürümqi this summer, in the remote North-West of China, he now works as a translator for a company in Zhuhai which exports Chinese medicine. Like many Chinese, he travels all across the country to find a job through relatives or acquaintances. He ended up here because he has a cousin who is a manager of this business. That's how things work in China, it's all about your network.
Although Macao is just a stone's throw away, I didn't bother to visit, since I've already been there two times in the past, and it's not that interesting, once you have seen the old Portuguese colonial-style centre, and have been to Lisbon too. Hong Kong is also nearby, and reachable by ferry in just an hour and half.
I contemplated hopping over on my last day, and take a bus back to Xiamen from there, but finally decided not to, basically for the same reason (I've been to Hong Kong three times) and also to save money. The trip has been expensive enough already, but then again: it was worth every Jiao.