Nanjing

We met a scientologist in Shanghai. He was talking about the fact he'd come over to China to 'open gates' - we suspect this was a euphemism for 'convert people'. Even listening to his crap (allegedly ;) ) didn't prepare me for the awfulness of the new Indiana Jones movie, which someone put on in the hostel last night. No plot structure, awful acting, awful filming and a god awful (unstructured) plot. However, I assume no one reads this blog for film reviews. Probably sorely disappointed if you do, but frankly thats your own stupid fault.

Place reviews I can sort of offer. I've now spent 3 nights in Nanjing. An old city and regional capital I'd decided to cut down how long I spent here...and then was forced to change that plan - nae mind. Having arrived from Suzhou in 2 hours (70 yuan for fast train - it should take 3.5 hours) I set about immediately booking the next leg of my journey as I was concerned I'd not get transport otherwise as it's national holiday this week. Fortunately the people at this hostel (Sunflower YH Nanjing, I can't recommend it enough) were kind enough to take me to the ticket office and help me book. I got a hard sleeper top bunk leaving yesterday. It was to arrive at midnight in Tai'an (where there is a mountain - Taishan - to climb). Fine and dandy, but as you may have gathered from it leaving yesterday this was not to be. Accommodation prices can triple in holiday season, and indeed they did, while availability - particularly of the cheap kind - plummeted. I've no doubt that if I'd got there and looked I would have found somewhere for under $30 a night (already way over budget), but arriving at midnight this was not something I wanted to do, nor did I want to climb the mountain at that time (although people do, and it's lit all the way up by lanterns). So, next day I booked a ticket to Quingdao on a bus. For this journey I will have a bed (yes, on a bus) which should be interesting. Going to the train station to get a refund on the ticket was interesting, but after 30 minutes in the 'refund' queue someone looked at my ticket and bought it off me for face value (saving me the 20% the office would have charged) - not bad, 2 extra beers right there :).

Nanjing itself is a nice enough big city. The walls are very attractive, and quite impressive. The parts overlooking the lake and mountain on the east side are particularly pleasant to stroll down, and up on to. The area around the hostel is also quite nice to walk around, although now absolutely heaving with chinese tourists which makes it less pleasant. Certainly there is much more of a 'big city' feeling here than there was at Suzhou, and the place is less attractive, but for a city of its size it is still not a bad place to be. Yesterday saw a trip to the Purple Mountain here. Planning to catch the cable car up and down the mountain, I set off on the bus in my flipflops. Finding the bus depositing people near a mausoleum was slightly annoying. More so when I saw the price was 80 yuan (outrageous price, and I'd been told not worth it). Some time was spent looking for the path up the mountain, which was eventually found in the form of a large number of steps winding up one side. This was (as you can imagine) not a particularly pleasant walk up steps in flip flops, and lacking in views as the area is wooded. However, the summit did offer some expansive if hazy views over Nanjing and the lake. The chair lift down (30 minutes on a chair lift...not something for a windy day) offered some fantastic views of the same scenes and because you could see more even fairly near the base of the mountain you got some nice views of the old wall.

My plan for today is to go check out some street sellers near the hostel. Grab these nice pita like lamb sandwich things and some other food and sit in the hostel reading my 21 yuan Crime and Punishment (Peter Carey was 120 yuan...Dostoevsky 21. I love copyright law), and hope like hell the hostel stops playing this classical Christmas music (an experience I've had to endure in a fair few places here). No doubt some english teachers will come in at some point (they're all on national holiday too), and then I'm off to Quingdao later on the night bus, for beer (Tsing Tao is brewed there), beer festival, beaches, and BBQ - excellent.