Nanjing – General Impressions

September 23, 2013 Michael Tyler Comments 2 comments

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.

Dai pai dang restaurant

Authentic Chinese restaurant

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.