Nanjing - Ming City Walls (second day)

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Met up with the people I hung out with the night before, and we all went to a local restaurant for lunch to sample some traditional Nanjing food. Fortunately, one of the party speaks fluent Mandarin, so ordering was so simple - we just left it to him. And he did us proud - I tried duck's blood, which is a Nanjing delicacy, but was disappointed: it didn't taste very strong, certainly not as strong as black pudding. The pumpkin soup, though, was amazing.

After lunch, I said goodbye to my companions, who were heading back to Yangzhou by bus, and strode forth to find the remains of the famous Ming City Walls. You can't go to Nanjing without hearing about the walls. Nanjing is quite unusual for having its original (or near as dammit) walls still up - most Chinese cities had all vestiges of relics like that destroyed and sometimes rebuilt. In Xi'an, for example, the city wall as it stands now is a (much smaller) replica.

In Nanjing, however, much of the original walls still stand, and you can walk along it. Which is precisely what I did. My chosen path gave me amazing views over Nanjing city to the West and to Zhongshan mountain national park and a gorgeous lake park to the East.

Finding the wall was easy, I discovered. More tricky was finding the place to climb up onto it. In my meanderings, however, I did come across a series of modern bas-relief sculpture, cut into the base of the wall at one part, which told the story of how the walls were built and the human cost of that. It was quite humbling to see.

I trundled alongside the base of the walls for a bit, until I eventually stumbled upon the entrance and climbed onto the walls to enjoy the views. Sadly, it is not possible to do a loop around the remaining walls - so I walked out as far as I could, then back, then out again. By the end of it all, I was quite footsore, and so pleased to climb the stairs back down to ground level and go and rest in the lake park for a bit.

Once my legs had started to complain less, I headed back to the hostel and to the same street food area I'd eaten at the day before. There I met a charming Chinese girl who spoke excellent English, having studied it, and was more than eager to practise on me. Her parents, who were with her, didn't speak a word of English, that I could see but, delighted to see me talking with their daughter, they proceeded to buy dinner for us all - an amazing gesture of hospitality and generosity. What's more, they chose dishes from all over China, so I not only ate well, but I ate widely.

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Photos

Ming City walls
In the distance is the pagoda I climbed the day before.

Jiming temple
A still active Buddhist temple, nestled right against the city walls

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Ming City walls

Xuanwu Lake Park
There were a whole series of soldiers jogging round. I have no idea why. Some were taking it very seriously. Others had got out portable radios and were clearly walking...