Nanjing

Nanjing is the ancient capital of China and is only 1.5 hours away from Wuhu. I had been meaning to go there for a while, mainly because the city boasts a number of historically interesting places and beauty spots, but also (I am not ashamed to admit) because we were told that western foods and wine are available in abundance. By western, I do not mean KFC but food that I eat at home, such as bread that isn't sweet or a chicken dish served without the bird's feet.

Last week, we both had two of the same days off, so Joe and I took a mini trip there. On the Wednesday morning we went to Kindergarten as usual (my lessons were on animals that day so, naturally, I sang a song about a elephant with a very long nose - hours of fun). Early that afternoon, we boarded the bus, allowing plenty of time to get to the station, unlike the mad rush of the last mini-trip I took. It felt a little bit like the start of the summer holidays for me because I hadn't been out of Wuhu since early October.

After our experience of Hang Zhou, when we were pretty disorganised, Joe and I had decided on a few places to go before we left and had even equipped ourselves with both Chinese- and English-language maps. Of course, we were not so naïve as to expect that a bit of forward-planning is enough to avoid all tourist-related problems in this country. Indeed, just finding the way out of the bus station proved to be a fairly difficult process.

Nevertheless, we remained confident that we could get ourselves to the museum of Nanjing - a must-see, according to Tony. The museum was opened to commemorate the atrocities of The Rape of Nanjing, the English name for when the Japanese attacked Nanjing in the 1940s. Our confidence was not unfounded because we did indeed find our way there. Unfortunately, the whole thing was closed for refurbishment, so the first stop on ‘Joe and Sarah's Day Of Fun' was a flop, and we were unable to learn more about why the Japanese are, to this day, very unwelcome in the city.

Undeterred, we made our way to the Fuzi Miao, the downtown area, which is pictured above. We got there at about 5pm so just had a look around and browsed the wares of the tourist shops. There is an ancient canal that runs through the city and, if we had had time, I would have like to take a pedalo in order to explore. However, it was getting dark and I think we both had dinner on our minds, so we soon set off to find the restaurant we'd chosen from the Lonely Planet Guide, a place run by English-speaking Germans.

The city was far bigger than we had I envisaged so finding it, like everything on the trip, it wasn't exactly easy. After walking for an hour and nearly giving up, we finally reached it. Unlike in Wuhu, the 'natives' didn't stare at us because they are used to the presence of foreigners. It was odd and quite refreshing to walk down the street and forget that you are an ethnic minority. However, it was just plain bizarre to walk into a restaurant when the only Chinese people are waiters, and even they served us like English waiters (i.e they gave us more than 10 seconds to decide what we wanted to eat).

I was so happy when I sipped on, or rather glugged down, my first glass of pinot grigio in months. The second glass helped my bruscetta and mussels go down nicely (a very welcome change from Chinese fare, as much as I like the food here). I could have gone on drinking there, but we decided to go onto a bar. The evening was really lovely, mainly because wine and chatting with a friend in one of my favourite pastimes [Below is a photo that sums up my utter delight, after rediscovering drinkable wine].


Once again, though, finding our way to the hotel was a challenge. The taxi driver dropped us off really nearby but sent us walking in the wrong direction, as did every other person we met. Consequently, we walked around for about half an a hour in the rain before we realised it should have taken us only 3 minutes. Maybe it was just the wine, but we found it really rather amusing.

The next day, we planned to go up Purple Mountain, after picking up our return train tickets from the station. I was genuinely delighted to be understood by the ticket lady first time, when I asked for the tickets - I must be improving if Nanjing-dialect-speaking Chinese ladies understand me! Somehow, we managed to work out how the subway works in Nanjing and also used the public buses to navigate around the city. The subway is very new and sparkly clean - it puts London to shame, it really does. By travelling this way, we saved a load of money - wherever you want to go in one direction cost 1 kuai - less than 10p!!! - and also, we felt a little less like clueless tourists.

To cut a long story short, our plans and hopes were once again dashed because the cable car (more like a ski-lift chair), that takes people up to the very top of the mountain, was not working when we eventually arrived at the summit. We saw two westerners who had literally just got off it, both complaining that they'd nearly been both scared and frozen to death, so our bad luck with the timing of our visit was just rubbed in further. I was genuinely gutted not to be able to go up, so we decided to walk up as far as we could on the path.

As it turned out, it was a great walk. The air was fresh and there were relatively few people around - something I particularly treasure in China. The photo above is of me, the intrepid explorer that I am with my backpack and handbag, fearlessly resting my foot on a stone amongst the bamboo trees. Below, Joe is standing at the very top of the observation tower from which we could see the city far below. I think he was trying to work out the direction of the wind (?!). It was quite interesting going up the tower because there were ancient Chinese instruments adorned with fiercesome dragons, once used to measure astrological stuff (I've forgotten the exact word). However, the sky was really cloudy that day, so we didn't miss out on a great view from the cable-car, just th chance to be very high and very cold.

Being tourists in a foreign city, it took us quite a long time to do everything, so we were unable to fit anything more in before we had head back to the train station for our 5pm train. I had never taken the train here before but, because it was only 8 kuai for the trip back, we thought it was worth trying. Despite being surrounded by Chinese people eating seeds and spitting the outsides on the carriage floor, the journey was fine - travelling by train is definitely something I would do again here because it is so crazily cheap.

It was good to get out of Wuhu and I had a lot of fun, but I want to return to Nanjing at some point, in order to do more of the things we couldn't the first time. There is an ancient wall that still runs around parts of the city (we saw parts of it) and a beautiful lake, both of which I want to see properly. Plus there are meant to be some bars that play good English-language music and have a real atmosphere (unlike anything in Wuhu). I have agreed with one of my teachers, Eva, to go together at some point - she is lovely and it might be a more successful trip if I go with a native speaker.