Xiamen Retirement Village and/or Holiday Home

On 18 July 2007, I flew to Xiamen to check on the construction progress of my studio apartment. The updated picture on the left shows a completed exterior facade. Interior work is ongoing and I expect completion to be achieved no later than end of this year barring unforseen circumstances.

Holiday home and/or retirement home in Xiamen, China

I flew to Xiamen on 15 July 2007 as planned.

I had the opportunity to visit the YongDing Hakka Tulou settlement, which is slated to be included into UNESCO cultural relic sight this year as well as to check out the building progress of my studio apartment.

Visit to Hakka Tulou Settlement

I spent 3 days in YongDing, visiting the Hakka Tulou (Earth Houses) Villages. There are more than 20,000 or more of these earthern houses in YongDing, Fujian are about a 4 hour drive from Xiamen airport. Many of these 'tulou' are well preserved and collectively, form the Hakka Tulou community which is currently under consideration to be included into the UNESCO cultural relic presevration plans. Please visit my travel blog for more information about the Hakka Tulou.

Visiting the apartment

I returned to Xiamen on 18th July and took the shuttle bus to check out construction progress the next day.

There are now a lot of road construction work going on enroute to our destination. What I understand is that road work is continually improving and in the near future, we can expect a 25 min drive instead of the current 40 min drive. This is certainly a large improvement as it will cut travelling time by 40% or more.

Another thing I noticed are the signboards announcing a few other luxurious residential development and a 5-star hotel cum spa near our development. This certainly bodes well and it signal that other developers are taking notice of the ideal residential value of our current location.

Progress of the development

Exterior work of my studio apartment is almost complete. We were able to take a lift to my empty unit. It was very windy at my unit and the view from the balcony was nothing short of fabulous!

It looks like everything is going fine and I should be able to collect the keys to my unit at the end of this yeat or beginning of next year.

I understand from the developer that the fourth of such a similar building has been launched and is almost all taken up. Prices of studio apartments in the latest building is now being sold at about RMB1000 per square metre above my initial purchase price. Let's hope sales remains good!