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Our bathroom
As you can see, it is a squeeze between toilet & shower. Once showered, the floor has to be mopped.That was exciting, our first trip to Nanjing, the Jiangsu Province capital. We had heard a lot of people talking of Nanjing - how great it was, the history, better for shopping and so on. Many of our students from this Province haven’t yet visited Nanjing and they seemed pleased that we were going there, after only being in their country for such a short time.
Well, what a shock! We must have been on the worse bus in the fleet. For a three hour trip, we were traveling for nearly 4 1/2. The driver seemed to take all the back roads, drifting on and off the expressway. He was an impatient driver and just about flattened the battery with his hand on the horn so often. Next time, we wear earplugs. Mind you, on our return trip, it was a comfortable bus, the air-conditioning actually worked, the seats layed-back, the driver was good, he stuck to the expressway and we only had a three hour trip. We only heard him blow the horn on several occasions for the whole trip. Wow.
When we got off the bus in Nanjing, we were at the back of a run-down bus
Nanjing Skyline
A view towards the city from our hotel room. Note the air pollution and this was a good day. depot. The other passengers took off, and we weren’t sure where to get out. We did see some taxis near the driveway where the bus entered, so we walked back to there. There were the “pseudo” taxi drivers who wanted our fare, and none of the real taxi drivers seemed interested. No-one knew where our hotel was and we caused a bit of a scene with locals arguing with each other. We presumed on where the hotel actually was. There was a hotel across the road, so it was suggested we go there to have them “interpret” where our hotel was, to give instructions to the driver. That didn’t help either, as the staff started arguing amongst themselves too.
In the end, we walked back out to the waiting throng of drivers, and they started bartering on the price - started at RMB50 and came down to 30, but none were taxis. We had been warned off on these “pseudo” drivers, so were not interested. We grabbed our bags and walked down the entry lane to a heavily trafficked street. Waived down a taxi and jumped in. We asked if he knew the hotel, which he didn’t have a
Early Gown
This is an example of early weaving using large looms clue. We got the bright idea of telling him the street name - he immediately nodded his head, repeated the street name and took off. Ten minutes later and RMB11 lighter, we were at our hotel. Not a great start to our few days off.
Once we checked-in, we headed for our room and the air-conditioning. It was pleasant to see a bathroom with a bath, separate toilet and a separate shower (see photo of our apartment) where we knew we wouldn’t have to mop the floor after a shower so we could use the toilet or basins without water all over the floor and seat.
What we were really looking forward to though, apart from the history and sightseeing around the city, was breakfast the next day, as we knew a five star hotel would have a toaster - ahhh, the little things in life you miss. They may make millions of toasters in China, but they don’t use them or sell them. They probably don’t even know what they are making for export. That, and vacuum cleaners. You know when you are deprived of something, when it is important enough to take a photo of it
Weaving loom
An early example of a Ming Dynasty weaving loom (see toaster photo). We thought we would show the other foreigners the photo on our return, just to show them that we actually ate toast! This photo will take pride of place in our album.
Anyway, back to Nanjing. What a shock to the system after having lived in Yancheng for five weeks. We were faced with crowded, narrow streets, a bus system where we didn’t have a clue on routes, people who (like all large cities) looked past you, not at you, no friendly “hello’s” or “nihao’s”, really busy intersections where you either had to go under or over, traffic chaos and packed footpaths, with people, bikes and scooters. The pollution in Nanjing was very bad for most of the time we were there, too. The population dressed more formally than in Yancheng, and we found that the prices in the shops and stores was far higher than Yancheng. Even the items on sale in Nanjing were still twice the normal price. For example, a business shirt on sale in Nanjing was around RMB99, where in Yancheng, we bought a similar shirt for RMB39. We didn’t do any shopping on this trip.
The bus system was unusual,
Lantern Festival
Nanjing is known for its annual Lantern Festival. Here are some examples of early hand-made lanterns at least to us. The busses ran constantly from 6 am to 11 pm, whereas in Yancheng they stop at 6.30 pm. There were so many different route numbers following each other, and at times, was like the Melbourne trams, where they hung around in bunches. You would get two or three of the same route number following each other. Yet the first bus would be so crowded that you barely got onto the entry step, yet the following buses were quite empty by comparison. Only took one trip to work this out, not like the locals, so we waited for the second or third bus - playing bus passenger sardines isn’t fun! Oh, and each trip cost RMB2, which was double to what we pay in Yancheng.
After this trip, our city of only six million seems like a small country town, compared to Nanjing. We were actually pleased to get back to the slower pace, wider streets and normal road chaos, which is more controlled than you realize. It is the gentle nature of the people, who are generally tolerant and allow everyone their turn, even if they do blow their horn to say they should have
Jiming Pagoda
This Pagoda is one where people can still worship Buddah or his Bodhavistas. Located on the eastern perimeter wall. right-of-way.
We did meet the bus driver from hell, on one trip in Nanjing. This fellow was a younger driver, and he must have thought he had exclusive use of the roads. He was pushy, rude and a totally bad driver. This was the first occasions we have seen “road rage” in China, and he was driving a bus. He swerved around a slightly slower vehicle, cursing the driver, then deliberately swerved his bus back to cut the car off. He stopped and opened his door to abuse a scooter driver. When he pulled up at a set of lights, he opened his door to talk to the bus driver next to him, and they “dragged” off from the lights. He would swerve around other busses and cut in front of them at the stops. In the end, Graeme had had enough. When the driver started abusing a bike rider, Graeme had a shot at the driver. Luckily it was time for us to get off anyway, and we are sure that he didn’t stop at the proper stop, which meant about 800 metre walk back to our intersection, but regardless, when Graeme yelled at him, he was a
Bike workshop
Set up on a street corner with a few tools and you have a bicycle workshop. bit put-out. This foreigner yelling at him in front of locals. He might not have understood what was said, but certainly understood the tone. The other passengers looked like they wished they had said something too, as they were hanging on during the trip.
After all that, we did enjoy our stay in Nanjing, once we got used to the busses, people and traffic. Our hotel was near Hunan Rd, which is an up-market shopping precinct. Off this road is a food street, and the range of foods was great. At night, it was just so colourfull.
As Australians with such a short recorded history, it was awe inspiring to see history in the flesh. To see the ancient stone carvings, jade carvings and lacquer work. Nanjing, according to what we read, is the birth place of printing, brocade weaving, lantern making, and gold-leaf work. The weaving quality, detail and designs, is amazing for their time. To walk over walls that were built in the Ming Dynasty was inspiring. To touch ancient stone carvings thousands of years old, incredible. To run your fingers over the name of the maker of the brick in the wall was connecting with
Gold Leaf works
Early examples of Gold Leaf work from the Qing Dynasty another person, only he lived some seven hundred years ago.
One item on Betty-Anne’s list, we did get to see - that was a session of their Kun Opera. The Beijing Opera is said to be good, but the Nanjing version of this ancient theatre has been preserved and is reported as being the best version of Kun Opera. Our hotel staff arranged for tickets for us, which are normally only available over the internet. On our visit, we saw three short stories, which all had us caught up in the story, and either laughing or crying. They had screens on the side walls which had the words in both Chinese characters and in English, so we could follow the words, but the acting and humour of the dialogue was such that most times, we were following their story without even bothering to read. The actors were great, the makeup extraordinary and the sense of humour of the writers excellently portrayed. We were told that this performance was a charity night and there was no payment. We now don’t believe that to be so, but it shows that the Chinese are really trying to please the foreign visitors, particularly
Jade necklace
This is a carved Jade neclace from about 3000 BC if you take an interest in their country and culture. We had a fantastic night and enjoyed the performances immensely. Another “tick” off the long list. Sorry, no photos allowed.
We didn’t get to do or see all we had on our list, so we will return to Nanjing. We hope you enjoy some of the photos from our trip.
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