Nanjing Part 2 - the City Wall and tea shop.

Nanjing has a beautify city wall  Wikipedia. designed by the Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang after he founded the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) and establishing Nanjing as the Capital 600 years ago. It took 28years to complete and used one million labourers to move 7million cubic metres of earth. It is among the largest city walls in China and when completed enclosed a city of some 55 square kilometres. Today its remaining 26km is the longest city wall in the world.

According to the material all the brick makers had to put their mark on each brick they made. One can only imagine the fate of suppliers of substandard bricks.

What I noticed was that once outside a 200m distance of the access points we pretty much had the wall to ourselves. This is because most visitors are part of tours which simple do not allow for people to wander far form the bus and the schedule. Views from the wall are spectacular and we wandered for many kilometres along a fairly even surface.

Above and below one of the access points.

Looking towards Xuanwu Lake and Xuanwuhu Park (below) 

One of the gates in the wall, this one at the entrance to Xuanwuhu Park 

At one point we came across a stairway leading down from the wall and found one of the most tastefully decorated tea houses I've ever seen. It was constructed in one of the former storage areas  for ammunition used in the defence of the city.  Sadly given what must have been a massive undertaking to build this shop we were the only ones there on a normal week day.

Nanjing Part 1

Nanjing is a six hour fast train ride from Guangzhou (with quite a few stops). It would probably be at least a three hour drive from Shanghai.

Still probably not on the western tourist route but somewhere I wanted to visit for its history some of which is not especially savoury. There is a really good article here on the Wikipedia.

First the unsavoury part. In 1937 the Japanese (detailed account Wikipedia) invaded Nanjing as the then Capital of China as part of the second Sino-Japanese.

" The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanjing. During this period, soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army murdered Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants who numbered an estimated 40,000 to over 300,000,^[7][8] and perpetrated widespread rape and looting.

Since most Japanese military records on the killings were kept secret or destroyed shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945, historians have been unable to accurately estimate the death toll of the massacre. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo estimated in 1946 that over 200,000 Chinese were killed in the incident. China's official estimate is more than 300,000 dead based on the evaluation of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal in 1947." 

Perhaps the most scary part is that this episode is completely absent from history teaching in Japanese schools. 

There is a very large, informative and tasteful memorial museum recording this event.

I found the whole museum / memorial really moving and for the most part quiet and treated with respect and silence by locals - the exception being the occasional tour group rushing through the place chattering away at the tops of their voices.

Jiangmen

Jiangmen is a large city to the west of Zhongshan and between Macau and Guangzhou, as far as western tourists go I would suggest off the beaten track.

Like the other Chinese cities I've seen they are a stark mix of the old and new, a contrast of the haves and have-nots and as if two completely different generations somehow co-exist.

We were visiting school friends who were living in this area and were taken to a number of places of interest but first ....eating.

The "Cafe"below  was epic and the food to die for. Brilliantly laid out, stylish, comfortable with some AC (this is a hot part of China) . Service also excellent, if this was in Auckland it would be packed.

Of course as a westerner with tired not very bendy knees it's these places of the western tourist route that bring the horror of the floor rather than pedestal toilets - apart from that very enjoyable. If I knew the name I would have given it a 4star on TripAdvisor !!

We also went to one of our friends pizza places, in its employment a chef ex one of the big international hotels, very passable pasta and pizza dishes.

Above a curious collection of items.

Funky little booths dotted around  

Most modern city commercial buildings are lit up like Christmas trees and Jiangmen is no exception.

The photos above and below do not do justice to the scale of this animated lighting.

We were staying at the  Wanda Realm Jiangmen Hotel (my Trip Advisor review) which was almost new at the time. Very reasonable by New Zealand pricing standards) and defiantly the best slippers in the business.

We went on a one day road trip  down the road towards the coast along the way we were shown one of the big industries of the region - dried Mandarin  skins with prices based on quality and age. The smell in these shops was beautifully citrus.

Not the most expensive in the shop (above) but that 6800yuan  a kg or NZ$1400 - about nine times the price we pay for our local delicacy West Coast WhiteBait.

There is a lot of history along the route to the coast including remains of ancient forts designed to protect the river - from rival Chinese groups.

There is an interesting museum / memorial to a particular brutal river battle - in English I think it is call the Songyuan Yamen (below)

And of course because the road although looking like a motorway and at some point having a decent surface is like a lot of out-of-town roads in China - zero maintenance - so we smashed into an invisible pot hole and blew a tire. Just as well us western lads know how to change one and it never bothers us just to get stuck in and help.