Spring Festival 2015 - Day 4
Spring Festival 2015 - Day 4
Nanjing, Jiangsu 04.02.2015
Relaxing Lazy Walk
Since my train leaving Nanjing was early the next morning I saved all the things that were close to my hostel for the last day. So I went to the Taiping Rebellion Museum that was near where I went to the bank and I went to the Zhonghua gate.
The Taiping Rebellion is something that a lot of people forget about when it comes to Chinese history. I learned about it in Chinese history class. The Taiping Rebellion was a peasant uprising led by Hong Xiuquan that began in 1850 and ended in 1864 and established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1864) right in the middle of the Qing Dynasty. It started in Guangxi Province and their capital was in Nanjing. They got support from the peasants because they mainly ran on equalising the wealth between the poor and the wealthy and the equality of woman. The leader Hong Xiuquan said that he had a vision where he was the younger brother of Jesus (he was God’s son by his mother and his mother’s husband was his step-father, so he was Jesus’ much younger half sibling) and briefly converted China to his form of Christianity. So really I don’t know how people could forget China’s brief stint into ‘Christianity’ or running on the platform of Woman’s Equality.
They did do a lot of what they promised, or at least tried to. One of things that they said they would do in the beginning was redistribute the farming land so each person had an equal portion (or that the portion of land that you owned was directly correlated to the amount of people in your family).
The museum was hard to find, even though it should have been more obvious. I took the metro to SanShanJie (三山街), I left exit 4 and walked down JinShaJing (金沙井) to ZhongHuaLu (中华路) which was where the Bank of China was. I crossed to the Bank of China side of the street and walked right away from the intersection and then took a left on Zhanyuan Rd. The museum was supposed to be on the left about 56 metres later. On the walk I saw this little door that had a bonsai rock garden type thing inside of it. I didn’t know what the building was but there really wasn’t anything blocking access except a small sign in Chinese (which I believe says park Exit). I skipped it though and continued on.
I was getting worried about finding the museum when I came across what appeared to be a temple gate, but ended up being a gate for some gardens instead. I knew that there was supposed to be gardens attached to the museum but I couldn’t find the museum on their map. I asked about the museum and the man pointed to a building on the map that was labelled differently then what I had for the museum name. I bought a ticket and went in. According to the map the museum was sort of right centre of the complex, but the first building I came across was the museum.
The museum was good packed full of information. There was a lot of English, but then it would skip huge chunks in English when there were Chinese language labels. It was the first mention of the Opium Wars that I have seen in a museum in China (I’m not counting Hong Kong). There is apparently a museum dedicated to the Opium Wars in Shandong Province that I have to check out. But regular museums even when they include the Qing Dynasty usually skip the Opium Wars. But it is important to remember that Foreigners helped the Qing Dynasty to defeat the Taiping Rebellion in part for the trade agreements of things such as Opium for Tea.
The museum was jamb packed with information but still small so when I finished I figured that I should walk around the gardens. It was a typical Chinese garden: rocks, ponds, pavilions, stairs and trees mostly bonsai type trees. When I found a map of the garden it said that I was at the top left corner of the complex. Which was confusing because the museum was supposed to be mid-right and the gate that I came in was at the bottom of the complex towards the middle. There was a label for a Rising Moon Pavilion and I tried to find it-and failed.
I would walk in the direction that the map told me to go and then the next map would lead me in a new direction or back the way I had come. I came up eventually and walked in, around and over this outcropping and across a narrow stone path in a small lake. I saw a film crew filming a group of girls that were getting directions to chat together and then walk down one of the covered walks.
I must have made a large circle because I came out a side door right by the gate that I had come in. I decided to leave instead of attempting to find my way and see the whole garden. I realised that the small door I had seen before was going into the garden complex. When you stand in front of the Bank of China looking at JinShaJing (金沙井) as if to go back to the metro. On the corner is a Coco which sells bubble tea, there were also other food places in that strip and what looked like a large hotel that advertised foot messages and pedicures.
At the opposite end of the strip from Coco was a place that advertised waffle fries and various fried chicken product. So I got an order of waffle fries and this spicy thin fried chicken thing that the lady cut up into irregular bite sized pieces. There were no condiments that I could see so I was glad that I got it spicy. I went down and got bubble tea from Coco and ate at a table by the chicken place.
Afterwards I went to get a foot message. I had found that the reason my feet had hurt so much the previous day was due to blisters between my toes. And it was only the third day of my vacation I needed my feet for more adventures!
They did a good job, it was very professional, it was also a bit expensive and they didn’t have very good English. I spent just less than 200 RMB for a 45 minute or hour long foot message plus a cup of tea (which cost extra). I got the more popular package which came with a shoulder/back message or a thigh message while your feet soaked-just like the one in Shenzhen. But unlike in Shenzhen the feet soak/back message was shorter and if I called it a ‘back message’ the lady would say ‘no’ and that it was hitting the shoulders. The room had big comfy chairs (two so you can talk to a friend during a message) and a TV that I got the remote for but just left it on the infomercial station that it was on when I got there and listened to my audio book instead. My message therapist, didn’t speak any English but was nice and good at her job, and when my tea was running low she hit the pager for me to get more hot water added, when she realised that I didn’t know that more water was free (the tea leaves were in the cup and that is what I paid for). The infomercial tried to sell me a microwave (that had buttons in English) that cooked food (complicated things I wouldn’t use a microwave for), defrosted food, and sanitise dishes (because Chinese people don’t wash dishes properly even if you ignore the fact that the water is bad to begin with and put all the dishes in a sanitizer that pretty much cooks the dishes). It also showed the proper uses for different knives (Chinese people are fond of using a cleaver for everything).
The message was worth it my feet felt better and the blisters were gone or at least didn’t hurt. I was still thirsty so I got another bubble tea and took the metro back to ZhongHuaMen (中华门) station, and headed to the actual ZhongHuaMen (中华门 ZhongHua Gate also called the Central Gate of China). The directions for that said from the metro station cross the road, and go right and then take a left onto Yuhua Rd (雨花路) and walk until you get to the gate.
When I got to the gate I walked through on the right side and once you are through the wall it looks like you can get up on the wall directly to the right. You cannot get to the top from there. But I walked along the wall and came across an Ancient Village. It was either a new village fashioned to look old or old buildings that were re purposed or a combination of those. I didn’t spend too much time there since there was a lot of Spring Festival construction going on. So I walked back the way I came, and found what looked like a parking lot to the left of the road that I came in on and there I found the ticket booth.
The wall is thick but not completely solid all the way through at the gate. Instead it is a series of gates with nitches that are big enough to hide a troop of soldiers on either side of each gate to ambush attackers. It talked about how well it did against the Japanese, although I could have sworn that the Nanjing Massacre Museum said the gate was at least partially destroyed, but the gate didn’t mention any rebuilding. Some of these areas were set up with the costumed photo stands and there was also a mini archery range. Going up to the first part of the wall, you could walk around on top of the gates and look down into the spaces of the nitches. The bulk of the wall was up higher and under the top of the wall was these long corridors that were showing the history surrounding the gate or the building materials-showing the different bricks used and their maker’s seals.
I climbed to the top of the wall and right at the top was a gift stand, I glanced to see what they were selling quickly, and the sales woman became very enthusiastic. I decided to walk along the wall heading right as there was a display of old weapons and cannons. Then I kept walking, since I saw a sign that said that told me where the gates and passes were and the ones to the right were closer than the ones going left. And that was only shorter by about 1000 metres. In the end I never found any signs announcing that I made it to any of the passes that were on the sign. I did come across a set of steps that went down into what looked like a library before I turned around and went back. I walked back along the wall and then back to the hostel bust stopped to walk around the complex a bit and take a few pictures. I had wanted the day to be an early one as I needed to get up early and get on the metro to get to the train station and go to Hangzhou the next day. But had spent more time on the wall than I had expected.