Shapowei Route

What Shapowei is

Shapowei is a small cove on the southern shore of Xiamen island, the last surviving of the many "boat basins" the island once had. Its name comes from a beach that curved like a trailing tail. Long a base of Xiamen's fishing trade, an inner harbour crowded with colourful boats, it lost its role as a port amid land reclamation and urbanisation; now only the water-filled basin and the old settlement around it remain. Since the 2010s, cafes, craft shops and art spaces set in those old buildings and warehouses have gathered, so a harbour's memory and a creative street air share one place — a corner unusual even for Xiamen. Right next door are Xiamen University and Nanputuo Temple, and students and young travellers are much in evidence.

Plates from the sea, and the street's coffee

Shapowei's food is built of two layers. One is the sea. Seafood stalls line the basin, where you point to the day's catch on ice — blood clams, razor clams, mantis shrimp, mud crab — and ask for it steamed, fried or grilled. At night the tables spill into the street and the scent of charcoal oysters with garlic drifts. Coastal delicacies like tusundong are easiest to meet in this quarter too. The other layer is the sweetness and bitterness of a young district: hand-drip coffee from a converted cafe, cold seaweed jelly made from the sea's own weed, and warming ginger duck. Between a run of salty seafood, a sweet or a cup of coffee resets mouth and body alike. The richness of the sea, the lightness of the street — that change of pace is how you walk Shapowei.

How to walk this route

Start at the Shapowei boat basin. First gather round a table at a seafood stall like Zuiyihao and order a few of the day's catch to fix the street's lead. Then walk along Daxue Road, try tusundong for a coastal delicacy, and a little further warm up with a clay pot of ginger duck. When the salt piles up, step into a cafe like 32HOW for coffee, or cool the mouth with seaweed jelly. At dusk return to the basin for charcoal oysters with garlic, one at a time. It is about an hour and a half on foot, but with cafe sitting it becomes a half-day. Seafood and coffee by day, charcoal by night — the street changes face with the hour, so build across the evening and you taste Shapowei in a single day.