Month: September 2013

Bye bye Edward!

Housemate from the US has parted company.

He had problems with meeting his responsibilities , and at the weekend had a bottle of beer. Or two , some Bacardi , and also some vodka.

I disappeared for the weekend , went to Nanjing.
When I came back, I heard the sound of tins being opened early in the morning.
About 6am.

This isn’t the first time this has happened.
Last weekend he drank all my brandy and the police came round because he was outside smashing things up.

He had a habit of sleeping in odd places ‘close to nature’.
People would wake me to come to the aid of Edward, outside, in a pool of his own wee (or whatever ). Sometimes he was conscious , sometimes not.

China has it’s fair share of alcoholic teachers.
The Russian I used to work with was drunk 24/7.
One of the other teachers commented “I never realized he was drunk till I saw him sober .”

Another stocked up on Bijiou to get him through his day at Kindle.

On Monday it all came to a head when Ed turned up for work on the sauce.
Police were called. Poor Eddie had to spend the best part of the day in the cells explaining and clearing things up with the Chinese authorities 。

Employers , linestart have threatened to blackball him.
Effectively making it impossible for him to get work in China.

There’s a letter.

China blackballed
China blackballed

Nanjing – General Impressions

Site of the Nanjing massacre and home to the Ming Dynasty. The mighty Nanjing has undergone some tumultuous times… It was once capital and carried out all the administrative duties of the empire named Nanking.

The city is like Chengdu. It’s got large tree lined boulevards. Elms competing with the high-rise for sky space. It’s a like parts of Rio, leafy but built up.

I travel into town in the metro. I take a look around some of the main sights. I won’t go into them in any vast detail, but just to give you a general overview of what the city is about.

Attractions around Nanjing

Here is a map of the main sights around Nanjing.

Nanjing Map
Nanjing Map

Dai pai dang restaurant

Authentic Chinese restaurant

The Nanjing Massacre Memorial

photos

The Zhonghua East Gate

photos

Purple Mountain Observatory

photos

The Blue Frog Café

Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum

photos

Linggu Gate

Xuanzang Temple

Nanjing city walls

Gujiming Temple

Of all of them, I’d say I liked the Mausoleum the most, it was free to get in and had the best views of the city. Very nice experience.

Zhonghua gate was good also.

Nanjing recommendation

I’d like to go again. Nanjing is a nice place to hang out.
It’s less of a work in progress than this Shanghai area, which is preparing itself for the opening up of a free-trade zone in the next couple of weeks.

This means that Shanghai and the surrounding area, (of which we’re part), will be the subject of some extensive growth.

The Chinese are trying to cash in on this by throwing up all number of buildings and developments in the hope that the economy will explode. Nanjing is not subject to that level of growth and it shows.

It’s nice not to be surrounded by cranes and live on a constant building site, which is what it sometimes feels like here.

 

 

Nanjing Dai pai dang Restuarant

Situated at the top of the Deji Plaza, the Nanjing Dapaidang Restaurant serves food of the locality.

Dai Pai Dong
Dai Pai Dong Restuarant

It’s said that the restaurant offers street market food in the style of a restaurant. Some people have a thing about street food, i.e., they won’t eat it.
In China, if you don’t eat street food, you’re never going to taste any of the local delicacies.

Luckily, Nanjing has the Dapaidang.

You’re given a ticket at the door, as the queue is quite large, even at 8.20, when I arrived.
They have little benches at the door and pass you a menu so you can be mulling things over as you wait.

The menu is in English.

The service was in English…

Dai Pai Dong
Sweet and Sour Fish, Nanjing Noodles, Doughy Jiaozi, Bean and Sticky dumpling soup.

The food was a sweet and sour river fish (fresh from the Yangtze), Nanjing Noodles, Doughy Jiaozi, and sticky dumpling and bean soup.

This was a delicious meal of four courses which cost me 58 yuan, or £6.

Nice.

Kunshan Nanjing Express

Had the advantage of standing next to French bloke in queue yesterday.

He spoke Chinese fluently. This was lucky as the girl was refusing to understand my requests.
As I gave the information each bit was thouroughly scrutinised and highlighted for wrongness, which was duly corrected.
This is a moment when French piquant was used to good effect.

I avoided the seatless trains.

Thanked my French friend.

Am now waiting at the station.

Here’s a picture.

image

The journey takes about 2.5 hours.