View of a leisure hotel cafe on Gulangyu Island in Xiamen, East China's Fujian province, August 26, 2013. [Photo/IC]

A more than man-sized statue of the admiral now stands on a rock on Gulangyu, glaring out at sea towards Taiwan. The locals believe that typhoons often swerve by the Xiamen coast, intimidated by his fierce protection.

There are no cars on Gulangyu, just lots of eager day trippers who plod the historic routes looking at various landmarks left by the previous rulers, ranging from the foreign concessionaries to the old Kuomintang leaders.

There is also the world's only piano museum here, housing a collection of keyboards owned by an overseas Chinese tycoon who bought a huge tract of land on the island and proceeded to build on a grand scale.

The pianos are now housed in a building with rather kitschy black and white keys painted on the roof. Inside, look out for a triangular instrument that fits neatly into a wall corner.

Gulangyu is home to many famous musicians, especially pianists, and the museum pays tribute to both the living and dead.

Among the alleys and lanes, you may chance upon a lone busker on the saxophone playing Kenny G classics, or a violinist drawing out the strains of Dvorak's Goin' Home.

More often than not, you'll find people waiting in line to sample some of Xiamen's famous street food such as all sorts of barbecued seafood, wuxiang juan or five-spice rolls, and vegetarian dumplings using a gluten-free flour wrap with yam bean or jicama filling.

The five-spice rolls are fragrant minced meat rolls encased in bean curd skin. This is a signature Fujianese street snack that has been brought to many Fujian communities overseas, especially in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.

For the serious eater, however, the place to satisfy those culinary cravings is Zengcuo'an, a fishing village that is now a major tourist attraction filled with boutique hotels, quaint alley ways, souvenir shops, pubs, restaurants and a food center devoted to "Taiwanese Small Eats".

In fact, everything you can find in the average Taiwan night market can just about be found here, too, including the famous sausage within a sausage, and the oyster omelet. But any Xiamen native worth his salt, or seafood, will tell you it all originated here.