我早就听说泉州有些有名的用蚵壳建造的房子（至少有的房子表面用蚵壳覆盖），但直道最近我还没有抽空去看看。既然周六是我每个星期唯一一整天都休息的日子，而我最近又有一个周六没有别的计划，于是我就决定骑着我的自行车去寻找这些独特的建筑。
我通过Google很快地找到了这条村庄的名字和所在地：名为蟳埔村，位于泉州东海区，离我家十多公里。
离开大路转上蟳埔的主要街道，犹如走进离泉州很远的另一个地方。虽然离繁华的大路不到一百米，但是景象突然变得全然不一样：四周的人不再说普通话；穿着很特别的服装；老太太的头发都绑起来戴着彩色花似的头饰（蟳埔村的人口看起来差不多都是老人家）；建筑物的风格很不一样，而街道旁边堆叠了许多蚵壳。
我花了点时间寻找我想找的蚵壳厝。我在几条小街道漫步好几分钟后，终于在迷宫似的小巷里，找到了几打矮小的、闽南式的、外壁被蚵壳覆盖的平房。
I'd heard many times of the famous local houses built using oyster shells (or at least clad in them) but until recently had completely neglected to go and take a look. With Saturday being my one full day off a week and having no other plans one recent Saturday I decided again to take my bike out and go looking for yet more of Quanzhou's idiosyncratic buildings.
A brief search on Google revealed the name of the village famous for this unique construction style and it's location; Xunpu village is part of the Donghai area of Quanzhou and lies just over 10km away from my home.
Turning off the main road and onto the "high-street" in Xunpu is a little like stepping into a completely different part of China, although less than a hundred meters from the busy road nearby everything suddenly changes: people are no longer speaking Mandarin; they are wearing a completely different style of clothing; old women (and there are few young women to be seen) all have their hair tied up and held in place by colourful, floral headdresses; the buildings are different and the streets are lined with piles of oyster shells.
It took me a while to find what I was looking for but after wandering around I eventually stumbled across them, tucked away in the maze-like back alleys off the high-street: a few dozen small, bungalow style houses, mostly built in the classic Minnan fashion, with their exterior walls plastered in oyster shells.
