Nanjing – Ian Louis Harris

Janie really got the hang of the early morning tai chi…

…whereas I look somewhat “other”, compared with the regulars

This is what I wrote:

19th – Nanjing -> Wuxi – early morning tai chi after breakfast. Mausoleum of Dr Sun Yat-sen…

I recall being quite taken with the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. Good exercise climbing all those steps too. So much so, Janie and I both wanted photographic evidence that we made the climb:

…then on to museum (real) and art gallery (shop).

A real museum exhibit being observed by a real Janie

I was starting to get a little vexed by the fact that so many items on our itinerary sounded like sites of touring interest but actually were shopping visits. Some people in our group seemed far more interested in shopping than in actually seeing China, so not only were those shopping legs dull, they also tended to be protracted.

I especially remember one woman, Heather, who was a shopaholic and was almost always last back on the coach after a shopping stop. She bought a huge consignment of tacky-looking laughing Buddhas to take home as gifts, so I honoured her with:

The Dali Lama Award for laughing Buddhas.

To be fair, though, Janie actually really liked that “art gallery” stop as there were some interesting artists with their own art works on show. She bought this small work there, which still has pride of place in the bedroom.

Late lunch in Nanjing, followed by Yangtse River Bridge & then on to railway station for train (shop) to Wuxi.

“Not only will this train take you to Wuxi, Sir, but you’ll have all manner of shopping opportunities on board…”

The number of vendors and the extent of goods – or to be more specific, gimcrack – tendered to the captive audience that was the rail passenger community – had to be seen to be believed.

…Straight to hotel for dinner followed by karaoke.

I remember the visit to a karaoke bar in Wuxi well. Chris, one of our tour guides, arranged the evening and only a few of us (mostly the younger folks from the tour) went. The locals clearly took their karaoke very seriously and mostly sang ballads and love songs – some Chinese pop, some western pop in extraordinary accents.

In keeping with the musical style that seemed popular there, I decided to deliver The Ultimate Love Song, which is one of my early parodies which works to the tune of Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You:

The Ultimate Love Song, Whoops Vicar, NewsRevue, Ben Murphy…, 29 February 1992

The subtlety of the piece was probably wasted on most of the audience, but karaoke is surely more about the karaoker than the karaokees.

Janie and I both remember our little group having quite a lot to drink. I recall Janie doing a duet with Chris the guide, but neither of us can remember exactly which song they sang. I think it was something along the lines of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”, sung melodramatically and very badly indeed.

For sure we had lots of fun that evening.

All the photos we took on that day – by which I mean all 29 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:

We did a little bit more sightseeing in Beijing before dashing to the airport for an internal flight to Nanjing.

18th – Beijing to Nanjing – went to Lama Temple & briefly Confuzi Temple. Then on to airport for flight to Nanjing*…

*amazing business moving us from Gate 16 to Gate 19 & then back across the tarmac

I think this is the Confuzi Temple but this photo was not labelled at the time, so I might be getting “confuzied”

I remember the business at the airport, because we were solemnly told we needed to relocate to another gate in order to be in close proximity to our plane, then ended up wandering rather haphazardly across the tarmac to our plane, which was close to the original gate. Frankly that was one of my lesser health and safety concerns about the internal flights back then – more on that topic anon.

…straight on to coaches for trip to amazing bird market and then on to hotel – 5-star Jinling Hotel.

As yes, the bird market.

Janie and I found it fascinating and I’m sure these days Janie would have taken dozens and dozens of photographs there. Still, enough above to give you an idea. Some of our fellow tourists found the place unsettling; it certainly didn’t smell like a place where you’d want to try the street food. It’s probably highly regulated and much safer hygeine-wise now.

As for the 5-star Jinling Hotel – so famous and having had so many high-falutin’ guests it gets a Wikipedia entry – it was a strange sort of 5-star. My guess is that there were different grades of room and our tour group was in last grade:

Dig the rabbit-skin hat and rattan slippers. I still have that short- sleeved shirt in my “holiday collection” 25 years later.

My memory had Janie’s hairdryer debacle happening in this hotel, but my notes have now sent me to the Holiday Inn Beijing for the electrical debacle and I now recall that the incident occurred before our peking duck dinner, not before the music concert, so I have moved that anecdote to the previous day’s write up – click here or below:

Squeezing A Heck Of A Lot Into One Day In Beijing – Including Making The Holiday Inn Beijing Go Pop, 17 November 1993

What the “awards” notes do remind me is that the elevators in the Jinling Hotel were somewhat below five star standard. I awarded that hotel:

The London Regional Transport Efficient Elevator Service Award

On reflection, I think our departures from that hotel were always delayed by people unable to lifts get down from their rooms.

Dinner in town – not bad meal – good ribs. Music concert at which we didn’t fall asleep (but almost everyone else did).

So that will have been our very first encounter with Chinese traditional instruments, including the pipa – an instrument that has fascinated us since and which Janie has subsequently likened to a theorbo with predictably hilarious results in the early music world:

William Carter, Theorbist Extraordinaire’s Mystery Punter Outed, 24 September 2010

But I digress.

All the photos we took on that day – by which I mean all 18 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:

Tag: Nanjing

China Trip – From Nanjing On To Wuxi, 19 November 1993

China Trip – From Beijing On To Nanjing, 18 November 1993

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