June 6th – 20th 2016: Part 2
How We Missed Our Train And The Curse of The Bag
(Ps: just a correction I wrote that the ladies groups we saw in Lu’an were called ‘The Ladies Dancing’ I am wrong it should be ‘The Aunties Dancing”.)
Off to Nanjing for a day and a half:
Xinxin booked all our train tickets through to Shanghai the day before, and warned us to allow plenty of time to pick them up from the ticket office. So we packed up early and had a quick breakfast before heading down to reception and asking for a taxi, we thought we’d started the day well. She said come with me, we grabbed our luggage, and The Bag included, and followed her out of the hotel. Is the taxi rank directly outside, if so I hadn’t noticed before! Into the middle of the road she summons us, we are perched on the white line between scooter lane, and the middle of the road and she is peering down the oncoming traffic with her arm outstretched. I have to admit a taxi was forthcoming within 5 min so you could say the taxis were close byish.
And then there we were successfully at the station 40 minutes before our booked departure. Unfortunately 5 queues of people were building and were already almost stretched to the back of the hall. Perhaps we should have picked a less busy time of day to travel, but there were automatic ticket machines too, so Renee decided we’d best at least try those first. Of course they needed an ID which we didn’t have, and the queues are getting longer. So pick a queue, any queue. Actually people were very helpful and tried to give us a hand and in the process we tried two more times to work the machines to no avail. Of course we also suffered with bad choice of queue syndrome, the one next to us seemed to be reducing, even if it was at a trickle, but ours had all the problem travellers in it obviously!
So we missed our train.
The long wait in the queue gave us plenty of opportunity to use the app on Renee’s phone, which when used holding it over the foreign word translated it. It was here we found out that there were 2 queues for tickets, 1 for changing tickets and 1 for refunds. We had by sheer fluke joined the correct one, but of course now we needed to both collect tickets and change ones, seeing as by now we’d missed today’s. So just to be sure Renee held her position and I joined the other queue. When finally we’d collected all our tickets and changed today’s to the next train we found we didn’t have too long to wait. Although I wasn’t impressed when I realised that our seats were not only not together, but in completely different carriages. I know this shouldn’t be a problem and I’m not sure why getting on a train fills one with visions of missing your stop. In fact when we finally got on the train I found it was very well signed with an electronic board at the front of the carriage letting you know well in advance the coming station (in English too). But I was sandwiched between an elderly man who held all his things in a hessian sack and black ladies handbag and a young man with a continuing need to spit. Well he didn’t but I know he came close occasionally, I saw him eyeing up the sick bag in the pocket of the seat in front, and as he was window side it made it difficult to look out at the view.
The Cursed Bag:
Finally we arrived in Nanjing; I think it had only been about 1½ hrs on the train. This is where it became considerably more obvious what a great inconvenience carrying my green bag was, it having no wheels and no long strap. It was also rather too full, heavy and round and to carry it comfortably was impossible with the handles. It was a long way to go from the train, along the platform through the station to the street, and then to the hotel, even if the last bit was by taxi. This was likewise for each place we stayed. Although here in Nanjing to our amusement if we’d exited at another exit point we would have found ourselves about 40mtrs from our hotel, instead we were far enough away to need a taxi! Yes my green bag was an embarrassment. Everywhere you looked all these travellers and not one with a bag like mine. I noticed lots of flash suitcases, all had their own wheels I was out of date, in more ways than one!
Nanjing:
Anyhow we arrived at our hotel in Nanjing and after due deliberation with the town map we realised there were really far too many interesting places to visit and we had less than a day and a half, 2 half days more like. I think we fitted so much into this day and a half that I hope I can remember everything and in the right order. We’d drawn circles round a few places and had decided to head out first to see Sun Yat Sens Mausoleum, The Ming Temple and the lovely grounds they were both set in. These were within ‘short’ distances of each other and were only going to be a few stops away on the Metro. I think this is when we found a pizza place to eat lunch on the way to catch the train, we drew the line at McDonalds and afterwards I had difficulty with finding a toilet in a shopping centre! Well Renee waited outside with my bag while I went to find a toilet. However finding my way back down and out to the same entrance proved a trial, escalators up but not down in the same place, and on finally exiting I found myself in a very same, identical looking entrance and forecourt but no Renee. And no handbag with phone in it to call her, where had she ### gone! It took me a quite few minutes to realise that actually I was outside the wrong entrance, rounded the corner and there she was, another ½ hr wasted (by me, I know!)
After that we felt the need to really get our visit rolling and were finally relieved to be at last walking up the path into the grounds. This is where it became more apparent just how big an area this was. Luckily and with good timing we came to a bus station where town buses dropped off and tourist buses were parked ready to take visitors round to the various destinations in the park.
What a good idea, for 10 Yuan each we got to ride in a carriage behind a faux ‘Train’ all the way up and round to the mausoleum. Or so we thought, as we thought we’d got off at the right stop but found ourselves in a row of tourist shops which was interesting but not what we came for. Mind you we did stop for an ice cream. This is a very popular place to visit it was certainly filled with so many sightseers, and we even saw a few foreigners too! I was impressed with a local who came to chat asking Renee where we came from in very good English, but one of the lens’ to his glasses was held on with sticky tape! And I found it hazardous too leaving Renee outside ‘waiting’ every time I’d head for the loo, she’d always disappeared by the time I’d come out! (Although these events were probably after we’d visited the Mausoleum.)
And so there we were doing more walking, walking, walking and finally the Mausoleum. This was a large building at the end of a long avenue; this seemed to be a common theme with a few of the places we visited, a long avenue passing through 1 or 2 gatehouses.
But this stood atop an impressive amount of steps. We were surprised there was no warning for the elderly or those with heart conditions! But we travelled up, up. There was a fantastic view over Nanjing from the top. I think the actual building had an enormous statue of a dragon in it (could be wrong, but a statue of something and we weren’t allowed to take any photo’s inside) but where was bloody Sun Yat Sen?
After that even after all those steps but down this time, we had plenty of time to walk back to the Metro, instead of finding our little train. We could visit and look through anything else on the way, trying to make a bee line for The Ming Temple which we found on the map but in the gardens itself a very different matter. 
But yes we did eventually find our way to the entrance of the Ming Temple gardens. There was a ticket office here but it wasn’t manned and the gates were open so we wandered through. However by this time it was about 5pm; even so quite a few people like us were still inside, this was like the botanical gardens with lots of pools and pagodas.
Lovely avenues took you between huge statues of camels, elephants and all sorts of animals made out of stone. However when we finally came to the Ming Temple itself it was in its own fenced off area and shut, so we were too late. I’d like to point out here that there were many signs on the pathways we travelled down directing us to the Ming Temple but it was our experience they were all wrong, really really fundamentally incorrect!!
So on dusk 2 weary tourists found their way back to the Metro. We passed a rather busy Chinese restaurant at this point and decided it would be nice to eat. So this is where we stopped to rather over order and over fill ourselves, probably ordering rice wine wasn’t the best idea, well for a sensible experience at least. But the food was delicious even if it was unidentifiable.
And trying to eat a small whole leg of chicken with chop sticks, well interesting but perhaps that was another meal elsewhere! Although I should add that after eating a large round thing which had the appearance of being fried with sesame seeds all over and maybe sweet, Renee said she was beginning to feel as though she was having an allergic reaction. Luckily she had antihistamines in her bag. But this ball did appear to enclose what may have been fish roe, who knows we don’t! I felt very sorry to be leaving so much food behind; I didn’t want to make them think we didn’t like their food. But without a fridge in the hotel room it was impossible to take it back in a doggy bag for tomorrow.
So we were quite utterly exhausted, and did debate how far we walked that day, Renee’s pedometer app on her phone gave us about 8km for the following day, we reckon it must have been 20km!
On the balance of things I think we did very well, and were determined with our last morning there to make it out to The Ming Temple. We knew we had to be back at the hotel by about 11:30 I think, so we could catch our train to the Nanjing South station, and make our connection onto the train for Suzhou.
We left our hotel early caught the train and found our way to the little ‘train’ buses and paid the fare to The Ming Temple. When we alighted at the bus stop we found the signage pointing in completely the opposite and wrong direction to our expectations, but followed it anyway. Here we asked a woman manning a security gate and she confirmed our direction. But when we walked down further we just thought this was wrong so we turned round and walked back out. Goodness knows what the woman thought, two weird foreigners! 
However
when we crossed the road ‘in the right direction‘ and went further we saw buildings we’d walked through yesterday and finally realised that the whole area was actually fenced off from the road here. The exit was closed, and yes we had to turn round and head back past the woman, down and up the road signed to the Ticket Office! This of course put time pressure on us, and we were getting a bit fraught. Of course there was a charge to enter this area unlike Sun Yat Sens Mausoleum, as we should have realised from seeing a ticket office on the other side of the gardens yesterday. It was still quite early really and a lot of people were already here but obviously exercising, jogging too, probably a lovely place to head for regularly. Anyway we hurried across at quite a pace, passing through and between all the lovely gardens and stone animals and finally to the Temple itself. Yes it was open.
Here was another wide and long avenue to walk up and we found ourselves climbing more steps. But we’d done the mausoleum yesterday so this was a breeze comparatively. Still, it had a nice view from the top too. Inside the building was empty but around the walls large plaques told the story and timeline of the Ming Dynasty. This was very interesting and I tried to take as many legible photos as I could.
When we finished viewing this it was time to head back and our feet told us it was perhaps wise to find a taxi. We’d passed a taxi rank yesterday so knew it wasn’t horrendously far, not as far as walking back and maybe taking a chance a little ‘train’ might pass us going down. So we made it to the station and back to the hotel in perfect time, our morning without too many hitches. And in retrospect if we hadn’t done so much yesterday and hadn’t persevered on in search of the Ming Temple then, we would’ve never got to see so much of the gardens and buildings around it. We certainly couldn’t have given a good deal of it any time in just a morning.
Now it was time to head on to our next stop Suzhou, and meeting Rachel a friend of Thomas’, who’d offered to act as tour guide for us.
More Photos:
