Dinner in Nanjing

On Saturday night in Nanjing we were trying to decide what we wanted to eat, and then what we were going to do afterward. We talked about maybe heading over to the 1912 area that's a lot of western bars similar to Xintiandi area in Shanghai, or maybe trying the college area and their bar street.

Tough choices, so we took it to the internet to see if there were any reviews for good things to do at night, dinner and then drinks or so, and guess what we found? A well reviewed wine bar and restaurant. That settles that, we write down the address and phone number and head down to grab a taxi.

We had the hotel concierge flag down a taxi for us, the first one didn't know the area and couldn't help us but the second seemed sure and off we went. About ten minutes into the drive he starts asking a taxi next to us at a light for directions, and soon we're driving done some narrow streets that don't seem like the location for a wine bar. We call up the restaurant and hand the phone to the driver, that usually works. A few minutes later he's at an intersection of one-way streets and he's telling us to walk down this narrow road and that we will find it there...

Off we go down this narrow road when my phone rings - it sounds like our friend Siew Yih - "Where are you?" She should know this, "We're still in Nanjing." "Where?" "Nanjing." Then, "Do you want to come to my place?" This is when I realize that it's not Siew, and start wondering who would call and ask such a question, "What?" is my only reply. "You are looking for the restaurant My Place, right?" Ah, yes. That's right the restaurant name, what ever was I thinking. So she tells us she will meet us and show us the place, as we walk down the street we see a girl that ask us, being the only laowais on the street, "You're looking for my place right?"

Perfect. She walks us back down the narrow one-way street, up a driveway past parked cars to a tiny walkway and finally do a small door in that walkway. Yeah, we never would have found the place...And then there we were, in My Place, a great little home turned into a wine bar and restaurant.

our guide to the restaurant

The owner JT, and the waitress

The food was excellent, and the wine was even better. JT is from Singapore and felt that Nanjing was deserving of a great wine bar, maybe he is like we were before we found Temptations and was going crazy without good wine. He has his own house wine that he imports from Spain and sells at a price we couldn't believe, it was great. We enjoyed a full dinner and then moved to the bar where we ended the night by drinking him out of his house wine. It's alright, he was expecting a shipment in the next day, but it did prevent us from purchasing a few bottles to bring back with us to Xiamen.
I don't think that we could recommend this place enough, it was that good, but you will need to call them and have them send out a guide - there's no way that you would be able to find this on your own.

Sunday in Nanjing

Sunday we awoke fresh and early, around 10:30, with another full list of things that we needed to get accomplished in order to feel like we took in enough of the sights that comprise Nanjing.

We started with Burger King, and then hopped into a taxi for a quick ride over to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum, one of the sights that we wanted to make sure that we saw. It was quite a sight, amazingly well put together and organized and far more information than you could ever absorb in a quick sightseeing trip. As we mentioned earlier Ben wrote about it in his blog post on Nanjing, and we will agree most everything he said about it - and his photos are better, he took a few in the designated "no photos" area, as did just about every Chinese person that was touring when we were there. The only difference we took is that we read his post first and went in expecting to be bombarded with propaganda, but to us it seems perfectly normal - in fact nothing compared to the way museums seemed to skew facts (again, in our minds) in places like Vietnam. Okay, enough of that talk - enjoy photos of the museum outside:
After close to 3 hours of reading about death, bravery, and other sorts of barbaric stupidness that is generally associated with war we finished up and decided we needed something a little lighter. Two bad strawberry shakes and a long taxi ride later we walked through another gate at the city wall and to Nanjing's large lake and park.
The weather was hazy and it was hot. It wasn't anything that spectacular and as soon as we found another hole in the wall we crossed out of the park and grabbed a taxi back to near the hotel.

A few hours of wandering by the temple and buying a lot of junk in the markets and then we were off to the airport. By junk I mean phone covers and mah jongg sets.

Overall a good trip, we saw most of the highlights and walked far too much. There would be more to see if we went back, but we covered enough to feel good if we never get that chance...

Satrday in Nanjing

I was excited to start exploring Nanjing as Mark has talked about this city on numerous occasions. It has been on our list since we moved to China and this weekend we finally had the opportunity to travel to the city that was once the capital of China. There is a lot of history here, so we had lots to cover in 2 days.

Saturday morning we started off wandering through the pedestrian walk where all the shops and restaurants are located. Local giving himself a pedicure!

Then after breakfast it was off to go to Purple Mountain, where Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s memorial was located. For those that don’t know, he is considered the father of modern China who led the revolution in 1911.

We decided to take the cable car up to the top of the mountain. This ride alone took about 40 minutes and it’s about 400 meters. Once at the top, we had a decent view of Nanjing.

The ride to the top of Purple Mountain

View from the top of Purple mountain. Remember this picture!

Mark decided that there should be a trail from the top of this mountain over to the mausoleum, however, the map made it unclear whether we could attempt such a hike. My beloved decided that yes, we can get over to the mausoleum and it will be a shorter walk. Where he comes up with this? We’re not sure, but somehow he’s convinced and this is where I should known better. Having traveled with Mark over the past few years, I should start listening to that little voice of mine that says, “You may want to reconsider this decision”. I had visions of Angkor Wat all over again.

We started going down the mountain and the steps make it easier than just a dirt path, so that was a good thing, except, there are about 2000 steps. About an hour into this little trek of ours, we see that there is a road which we believe may make it easier than going down the steps, so we opted to take the road down to the bottom of the mountain. About 10 minutes into that walk, we find that the road has been barricaded so we had to walk all the way back up the steep and winding road to get back to the steps that would eventually lead to the bottom of this mountain.

The picture above, was the mountain we walked down. A sampling of the 2000 steps we climbed

Once on the bottom, we actually thought (for a second) that we should walk over to the mausoleum, but nixed that idea quickly. It took the taxi about 20 minutes just to get us over there.

We then had another 1 km to go to get to the start of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s mausoleum.Entrance to the mausoleum, along with a bus load of Chinese tourists!

Mark tells me it’s 99 steps. Actually it’s 392 steps. Luckily we had cold beer to aid with our climbing. And yet, I keep believing him...
After our morning exercise, we then we decided to see the ruins that were listed on our map, only to find that the only thing left were some large boulders that were once part of a palace. You had to use your imagination on this one.
We found a little café, had lunch and then continued walking to one of the city gates that surround Nanjing. First though we happen to come across a small village within the big city of Nanjing that dated back to the Ming dynasty or so we thought. These were very old homes, and some were already labeled to be destroyed. Mark and I wandered down some of the little alley ways, snapping photos only to have the locals look at us, like we were nuts. The older people came out of their homes, while some of the younger people took pictures and videos of us, and yet others just followed us, asking questions. It was a nice reprieve from the hustle and bustle of Nanjing.We made it to the wall, where you could climb to the top of the Southern gate, considered one of the best preserved, in China. It is definitely worth a visit, even if it meant more steps to climb.

Did I mention we climbed more stairs?

By the end of the day, we figured we climbed roughly 4500 steps (give or take about a few hundred). Personally I figured it was close to 5000.

A glass of wine, never tasted better….

The old capital.

When our latest guests, Elaine and Emily, left China on Tuesday morning we didn't get a nice chance to sit back and relax. About three hours after they left we were off to the airport to fly up to Shanghai for a few days where I needed to do some work. All that's good and done, at some point Tina may write about some of the sights that she visited, and after a quick 3 hour train ride through some of the darkest storm weather we've seen in a while we've arrived in Nanjing.

Nanjing is one of those cities that we've been wanting to get up and visit almost since we moved here and we finally decided to just schedule it and have a quick weekend trip. Tina booked a great room and we have a beautiful view over the Confucius temple.
If the rain stops we'll get out and hopefully have some great photos and little stories to share. If we don't get anything good we'll point you over to Ben's Blog, and his recent post on Nanjing, especially since his China information is well above anything we could provide. We're lazy in that respect, and we know that most of our readers only want to hear about us going out for drinks....