What’s Coming Up

Well, it’s that time of the year – fall, or autumn, which would (for us southern hemisphere types) normally be spring.  So instead of new life, flowers blooming and the inevitable change from cold to warmer days, we’re actually in reverse.  We’re leaving the hot days and entering eventually into the eventual cold and (perhaps) snowy weather.

Autumn has its merits though, the warm orange coloured leaves falling from trees, the waning temperatures producing beautiful days in the mid 20 degrees range, and the odd warm rain shower, so refreshing unlike those cold harsh winter rains.  Yes, its a nice time at any rate, and also a time of festivals in this part of the world.  We’ve back-to-back holidays from zhong chu jie (Mid-autumn festival) to the National day holiday (from the 1st of October).

On Monday, we’re off to Shanghai for a couple of days before greeting my parents at Pudong airport and spending a few more days in Shanghai leading up to National day.  Then we’ll head back to HangZhou with guests in tow and spend another week together before bidding them a fond farewell for their return to Australia.

It’s going to be an interesting time, and hopefully we’ll get to see and do many awesome things.  With luck, you’ll be able to see a good range of photos here on the TravelBlog(tm).

Anyways, that’s what you’ve to expect here on the blog, check back soon for more updates.

Finally, a more in depth review of our recent trip to Nanjing.  Enjoy.

Nanjing – capital to the south, an interesting place.  We left the safety of our nest in HangZhou and made our way via SuZhou and Shanghai to the former capital of the Republic of China.  Our train journey took a few hours, expedited by a connection from SuZhou to Nanjing on a new fast “G” train (doing a whopping 333+kms/hr) and bringing us into the city in the mid-afternoon.

We checked into the hotel (the Sheraton) where we admired views from the 40th and 21st floors respectively.  Our first adventures out were with some local business contacts who hooked us up with some good beers at a pub nearby, before a great dining experience at a German restaurant.

The next day we awoke around mid morning and made our way out to the Nanjing Massacre museum.  We originally undertook the trip on foot, but eventually (fooled by the inaccuracy of our travel map) found our way onto a bus, courtesy of helpful directions from a local traffic cop.

The museum is a sobering experience, and a dark reminder of the savage and brutal nature of war.  What we saw there were the uncovered remains of mass graves and a complete documentary of the various crimes committed by occupying Japanese armies (1936-37) prior to the official declaration of World War II.

It is hard to fathom how people could commit such heinous crimes against humanity, but it clearly did happen, and if people were forced to view  the results in person, perhaps we would have less armed conflict in the world.  It’s something I won’t forget in my lifetime and I would quite understand how the Chinese might have trouble too. 

Such acts are clearly unforgettable (and perhaps unforgivable), however peace is the real lesson to be learned here.  Peace, and a hope that such acts should never again be practiced on unarmed civilians and children(!).

Moving on from the memorial, we made our way to “Stone City” which is really a park on the outskirts of the former city wall.  It was quite nice, though we were rushed for time, and had to march fairly quickly through the area.  We then made it back to the metro for a trip east, out of the city.  We met the previous nights’ business contacts for an extended lunch before heading back into Nanjing.

In the evening we went to a popular tourist destination around a fabled Confucius temple.  The district held many older buildings, but also housed many retail outlets and restaurants.  We took photos and manoeuvred around the people before heading back to a large retail mall where we ate dinner in a food court.

The following day, we took a cab to the Purple Mountain where we ventured on foot to the shrine of a former Ming Dynasty emperor.  The surrounding area was simply beautiful with pristine parks and open areas.  The main draw was a paved avenue of stone animals in addition to the mausoleum itself.

The path to the tomb was quite amazing itself – a UNESCO Heritage listed site – which contained a number of walled entrances and long paved paths leading up into the hillside.  At the very end stood a very tall temple structure called the “Ming Tower”, which had a magnificent view.

Retracing our route back into the city we checked out of the hotel and then ventured back onto the Metro.  Our first stop was (by accident) the grounds of a Ming palace, now mostly just ruins – bits of marble, columns and stone moulded into a bit of an inner city park, with leafy trees and the remains of a palace wall to the north.

Having surveyed the ruins, we went back onto the metro and found our way to our intended destination, the former Presidential Palace of the Republic of China.  Now opened to the public, it is pretty much the same today as it was back when the Kuomintang occupied it back in the mid 1930s and 1940s.  What amounts to  the equivalent of a parliament or government house, complete with the offices of the President (Jiang Kai-Shek) and Vice President of the time.

The place had obviously seen better days and although much of the building remained in the same state it was before it was abandoned, there had been precious little done to the upkeep of the facility.  Many of the chairs were damaged, and not much had been done in the way of painting the walls etc.  I suppose that should be expected.

It was still very interesting to tour what was obviously a top level state facility (of the time), a destination for many of the power brokers of the age would have visited.  There were a lot of tourists (mainly domestic tourists) in the building, which made it somewhat hard to navigate and see everything.  The grounds are quite extensive and we were, as usual, a bit pressed for time.  Eventually we extracted ourselves and made for the coffee shop nearby.

We took the subway to the train station with time to spare and bid farewell to Nanjing.. for now.