Nanjing, the capital of Kuomintang. Famous for its city walls which are about 600 years old. This city is a mix of the old and the new. On one side you can see part of the old city wall while on another side of the wall, there are rows of apartment blocks.
Some of the places that I went to was Nanjing Museum, Ghost-Face City, The Emperor's Summer Xanadu, ZhongShanLing and Confucius Temple. I shall rate the attractions according to my preferences.
No.1 : ZhongShanLing
China Rated : 5 A scenic attraction
What is it : This is a large reserved area of green aka the lungs of Nanjing. Here, you will find the tomb of Dr. Sun Yat Sen in the shape of a bell. Apparently, the architect that designed the tomb suicided after building this place because he was heavily indebted because of the high cost of building this place. A long time ago, this was 'the' place of all places. Song Mei Ling also lived here
once a upon a time. Her mansion is still standing and open for visits. Next to Dr. Sun's tomb is the royal tomb of the First Ming Emperor aka MingXiaoLing. Here, the emperor was buried together with all his wives and concubines as accompaniment. However, the exact location of where the emperor was buried is unknown to prevent enemies from digging up his grave.
MingXiaoLing, The Tomb of The Ming Emperor
This is the other realm (After you crossover the gate). Apparently the emperor ordered the designs to be built as if he was still living after his death.
ZhongShanLing. The design is such that from the bottom looking up, you can only see steps although there are 8 planes separating each flight of steps and from the top looking down, you can only see the planes and no steps in sight.
No. 2 : Emperor's Summer Xanadu
China rated : I'm not sure but it is one the most well conserved historical place in Nanjing
What is it: The emperor used this place as a holiday villa (if I remember correctly what the tour guide explained). The buildings and materials used were all according to fengshui and myths, i.e. the pathways are designed with coins and butterflies because coins=wealth and butterflies=beauty. Only the emperor himself can step on these pathways.
No. 3: Confucius Temple.
China rated: unknown
What is it: This is the altar of education and knowledge. Here, they display all the tools i.e. books, brushes and biographies of all the famous scholars from the past including a bronze statue of the famous Tong Pak Fu. They also showed how ppl used to cheat in the exams in the past and how small and crampy the exam squatters were.
No.4 : Ghost-face City
This is a city wall. How the ghost face came about, I have no idea. Maybe the wall became lopsided through time and eventually formed the face. There's a lake in front of the wall which makes it look as if the ghost was looking in the mirror at itself.
This is XuanWu lake. I didn't rate this place because I felt that the scenery was already tampered with all the renovations works taking place around it. Apparently, nanjing in undergoing a huge makeover in preparations for Winter Olympics in 2014.
This is just another typical city wall. They are all over the city, usually near their parks. Parks are actually a common occurrence all over China because of the culture of strolling and hanging out in parks especially the old generations whereby they pass their time away playing chess and poker and singing chinese operas.
PS. For more pictures, go see my facebook. I uploaded most of my pics there
A whole BBQ lamb. One of the famous dishes in Ningxia
