32 degree Celsius: Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China (28

PART 4: NANJING (JIANGSU)

Honestly, honestly, this was my favourite place throughout the entire visit to China. Nanjing excited all my senses from the first time I stepped foot in the area, despite it being a little less classy as compared to Shanghai and Suzhou. But the charm of Nanjing which makes up for all this is difficult to explain unless you visit the place for yourself. It is one of the earliest established cities in China and was one of the main capitals even before Shanghai. Perhaps that explains why the facilities here are pretty satisfactory albeit a little worn.

Some places of interest here would include the Confucius Temple, Zhonghuamen, Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, and the Purple Mountain area (the Ming Tombs, Dr Sun Yat Sen's Mausoleum, Linggu Temple.)

I managed to visit all the places I wanted to go except for Zhonghuamen because of time restraint. But I did get a fleeting glance of Zhonghuamen on the train leaving from Nanjing and it is an impressive castle-like wall structure.

Anyways, our first visit was to the Confucius Temple. There is plenty to see around this area, including Jiangnan Gongyuan (Imperial Examination Hall), Qinhuai River and pedestrian streets.

Before we visited the Confucius Temple, we had dinner around the area as it was already quite late when we arrived in Nanjing. If you walk around the streets, you will notice that many shops sell ducks or duck-related products. Yanshuiya 盐水鸭 (salted duck) is supposed to be one of Nanjing's popular dishes. We had that for dinner, but for me, I felt that it was nothing too great. It reminded me a lot of salted steamed chicken (pak zham kai).

Clockwise from right: CL, YK and PL

Duck products ie. duck balls (minced duck meat) hahahaha..

Confucius Temple

Inside the Confucius Temple. There were even guides to take us around the place when we entered.

Jiangnan Gongyuan is also another place worth visiting around the area because it gives us an idea of how the imperial examinations were conducted in the past. For those who are not aware, during the dynasties' rulings, emperors will conduct imperial examinations in hiring palace officials and citizens will try their luck in these examinations with the hope of being selected and becoming officers to the Emperors. But not everyone succeeds and very often, many suffer hardship in their attempts.

Next day's breakfast of McD Pork burger with egg and cheese, with soy bean milk to go with it.

After breakfast, we went to Zijin Shan (Purple Mountain area). Basically Zhijin Shan has many attractions including the Ming Tombs, Linggu Temple, Dr Sun Yat Sen's Mausoleum, and cabbies are provided for tourists to travel from one place to another. We took the Metro to the closest station to Zhijin Shan (cant remember which one) and hiked our way up.

This is just one of the many beautiful pictures I snappeed along the way to Ming Tombs.

Dont forget to walk along the Path of the Stone Elephants and if you are here in Spring, visit the Plum blossom garden next to it!

The trees behind the signboard will bloom with plum blossoms in spring.

The Ming Tombs involved a lot of walking and climbing up stairs. Walking towards the tomb, the pathways smelled of a strong fragrance of jasmine. But what was the highlight of my day in Zhijin Shan was visiting Purple Glow Lake (Zixia Hu). We were initially quite undecided about looking for it as it was relatively unknown and the hike in search for the lake was a question mark, with none of us knowing the directions nor knowing how long it would take before we would reach our destination. We stopped a handful of times halfway to have a break before we finally reached the lake. But the hike up was definitely worth it because the first time I lay eyes on the lake, I fell in love with it. The lake really suited its name, with a green-purplish tint of colour in the water. The mountains too had a surreal pink-purple colour to it. The lake was calm and peaceful and from afar, we could see locals on the other side of the lake swimming in it and singing their lungs out. There was no rubbish nor pollutants around and everything felt so much like a dream. I doubt I would ever come here again (mostly because I come from another country), but the beauty and tranquility of this place is something I hope I will never forget.

Dr Sun Yat Sen's Mausoleum was our next stop. It was another long hike up, with 400+ steps to be conkered. But we made it! At the top, is a statue of Dr Sun Yat Sen. This mausoleum has relatively fewer people as compared to Chairman Mao's in Beijing which have people queuing each and every day just to enter and have a brief glance of the respected Chairman. But if you are within the Zhijin Shan area, this might be a fair place to visit.

Another good place to visit is Linggu Temple and Linggu Pagoda. My brother calls it "the Pagoda of Shattered Dreams" because we decided not to continue to it midway as most of us were exhausted and suffering from feet-pain. It was also close to evening by that time and we didnt want to be struggling to walk home in the dark considering it gets dark quickly during winter =.='

Our last stop in Nanjing (the next day) was the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. This was another of my favourite places to visit besides Purple Glow Lake. It was built in memory of the people killed in the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese army in and around the capital of china, Nanjing after it fell to the Japanese Army in 1937. Just like how the Japanese came to Malaya and tortured the civilians during the early years of Malaysia, the japanese did pretty much the same to the people in Nanjing in the year 1937. According to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, 300000 people were sacrificed during the Massacre. And if you walk through their exhibitions, you will learn of all the hardship and cruelties the people had to endure during the Massacre. My brother and I both agreed that the exhibits were so heart-wrenching that we almost cried.

Didnt take that many pictures once we entered, simply as a sign of respect towards the poor souls who died in Nanjing 1937. But if you are ever in Nanjing, this is a place you should drop by. There were two exhibition halls which contained the excavation sites of all those skeletons and in the first, the skeletons were systematically labelled (e.g. exhibit 6 is a six year-old with a nail in its skull). The second excavation site consisted of a mass of skeletons, all disjointed and mixed up. The atmosphere is a solemn one and the entire place consists of only black, white and grey. No entrance fee is imposed.