| Description | Kinmen｜Live GuesthouseEasy listening every day at Kinmen Live GuesthouseAfter a flight across a stretch of ocean, you follow your map into the alleys and laneways of Kinmen. In contrast to the other large settlements in Kinmen, Oucuo Village is a simple, tranquil place, allowing you the time and space for romantic wandering. Turning down that unassuming little road, the sea breeze carries the sound of a guitar to your ear. Lively and spontaneous, the melody carries you into the daily life at Live Guesthouse.Blank space for your imagination to unfoldLow walls constructed of irregularly sized bricks with old, darkly colored wooden doors open inwards to a courtyard decorated with a few large potted trees. The faded paint of the old wooden chairs create a pleasant vacation atmosphere. The main hall connected to the courtyard serves as a common living room for travelling guests. The simple furnishings add luster to the old building. An artistic painting and two acoustic guitars hung high on the walls speak about the daily lives of the hosts. The afternoon sun slants into the enclosed courtyard of this traditional Minnan house, while clothing hung high in the breeze to dry sways as if to the rhythm of the Live Guesthouse beat. “Why not come this way, your room is over here.” The male half of your couple of hosts, Xu-Ran, is from Beijing. With his special accent and style of speaking, he leads you inside with a smile. Live Guesthouse has one double room, and two loft-style four-person rooms. The small room is perfect for visiting with a friend or to enjoy the the freedom of travelling alone. The interior paint appears new and original - a large swath of white wall intersected by a stripe of aquamarine creates just the right contrast with the other red brick floor, creating an atmosphere of harmony and vitality. In your room, there is a poem in simplified Chinese, and a different poem, expressing the emotions of Chinese poets, has been left in each room, corresponding with the customs and style of Kinmen. The charm implicit in the poem’s simplicity corresponds precisely to the impression that hosts Xu-Ran and Wang-Ling leave you with.A guitar’s melody like a slow, dreamy eveningLive Guesthouse invites you to arrive without a plan. Wang-Ling and her older sister established “Local Methodology”, providing an ideal opportunity for exploration. Even a short conversation with Wang-Ling opens the cultural landscape of Kinmen up before you. Even though she has married, she chooses to remain in Kinmen to follow her dreams. Fortunately, her husband Xu-Ran also prefers the pace of Kinmen to the big city of Beijing. As such, he was willing to pack a bag, grab his guitar and follow his wife back to Kinmen to put down roots. Some afternoon, you may also get the chance to explore Xu-Ran’s secret music collection with him. He is himself a guitarist who performs in the band Momo Sky, and has insisted that each room be equipped with a CD player so that he can share his collection with travelers. Perusing the lyrics in the CD booklet, you feel a warmth lacking in today’s online music world. It matches beautifully with the slow rhythm of life in Kinmen.Other than compact disk music, if you are lucky, you may get to see a live performance, acoustic guitar music lingering in the courtyard. Xu-Ran’s focused and easy music merges into the old courtyard home. You might take a book and sit quietly on the sofa, or grab another guitar and play in harmony. In this sunset composition, you smile as you strum one final chord and the sound echoes leisurely into the night and into your dreams. Stroll along the beach and explore Kinmen daily cultureEarly in the morning, before the town has really woken up, the music from the night before still echoes in your ears. Your step is particularly light after a sound night’s sleep, you carry the light snacks prepared by Live Guesthouse down towards the beach. Less than ten minutes from the guesthouse, you can see Oucuo Beach, where people, searching the island for traces of war, come to marvel at the scenery a tank stranded in the sand. You slip out of your shoes and step onto the fine, white sand, the slow sound of the Kinmen wind resembling the resonance of plucked guitar strings. The calm surface of the ocean is just like a poem - perhaps, if you slow down and simplify your life, you can truly appreciate the moment in which you live! |