1 September 2012
Twice as lost
I actually managed to get properly lost twice. The first time is fun, the second time (when hungry) is infuriating!
The first time I got lost, I came out of the metro and went in completely the wrong direction. So much for urban survival tips, but then the sun had dissapeared and I couldnt see any stars.
As it turns out theres a heap of roads called nearly the same thing, variations of Zhongguo which simply means China.
Normally getting lost is no problem, in most cities you find your way to another subway line and realise where you are. Not the case in Nanjing, it only has 2 lines, so heading away from a line means you wont hit another one.
I went for an excellent tour of scooter repair shops and random people welding in the street, all the time looking for the confuscius temple region. It was indeed confusing.
Eventually having walked a huge loop, I found the train line which was above ground at this point, and walked along it.
Now you would think, given that I have a map on my phone (but no GPS because blackberry cant make phones to save themselves and the GPS rarely works), and starting again from the same point after I caught the metro back to the same station, that I would do better the second time?
I mean I was looking for a huge temple area with a giant shopping centre and square kilometres of shops and restaurants in a giant pedestrian area.
No, wrong again, eventually I saw the tall buildings and recognised I was heading North back into the city centre, this is all I needed to get back on track.
I blame the tree lined streets actually, when you cant see landmarks its hard to find your way.
Its dusk, the light was good, this is a back street, but as you can see its still quite wide and comparitively nice to other parts of Asia.
Racist hardware store dog went absolutely crazy as soon as he saw me. He was spinning around barking his head off. His owner thought this was hilarious, he has trained him well.
I am not sure what this place is, as it was shut. Their collection of old tv's is great, they are above a door leading into a basement. A huge impressive door. Perhaps this is the secret communist party gentlemens club.
Old men with wizard length white beards sit around smoking opium discussing how they once saw Mao go past while concubines slowly comb their hair.
Ultra futuristic building looks especially special in the final light of the afternoon.
Part of the reason I got lost, I thought this was the confuscius temple, but I couldnt see the neon shops and restaurants which were promised. Still, I walked all the way around it before I discounted this theory entirely. Turns out it was the city gate.
Eventually I found this super modern mall and knew where I was (its on my map). The confuscius temple area is not really visible from the street as theres a lot of construction going on all around it of high rise apartments. You have to go behind a temporary wall to get to it.
The temple has become largely an area for selling the best of made in China plastic goods. The area is huge! I got lost again inside the complex but in comparison to the 10 or so kilometres I had walked to get here, this was not a problem.
Pretty much everything is covered in neon and theres people everywhere enjoying themselves.
If you value 'personal space' this isnt the place for you. I read a lot of website reviews of people complaining their personal space was invaded when they visited China. I think those people should probably stay home.
There is also more canals going around the area, with neon coated boats seemingly racing each other along them under all the old low bridges.
The line for a boat ride was long, so the captains of these boats maximise profits by going as fast as possible. I think you could water ski behind them.
I was starving by now and considered deep fried snack food from one of the hundreds of vendors such as these. The most terrifying thing is the deep fried dough that gets wrapped in a flat bread, then the whole thing gets re fried and then seems to get coated in some sort of syrup.
But I resisted! This nice restaurant was 3 floors underground in that nice mall. Somewhat alarmingly, underneath big fountains and pools as this is the aqua mall.
There were lots of nice looking places to eat here.
My dinner was boney pork cartilidge with sour beans. It was delicious. You crunch through the bones and eat them.
The waiter was fascinated by me and wouldnt leave me alone. Every time I took a sip of the warm water he provided he would refill it. When my food came to the table and I reached for my chopsticks he would grab them first and hand them to me. However pulling out my camera had him flee in terror?
Water is the theme, pools such as this snake through the entire place, with big fountains that do stuff synchronised to lights and lasers. Kids have these water pistol plastic tubes they fill and squirt each other with, similar to the things I photographed in Wuxi used to feed goldfish.
I guess if we had these in Australia someones kid would drown in them and that would be the management of the stores fault. Or we would need the surf life savers to have more ads on tv every 5 minutes begging for money to pay for their ads whilst they complain they cant afford to save kids drowning in fountains.