Freedom at last

Freedom at last Nanjing, China

Nanjing, China

After eight days on the road Elly and I felt we needed a break. We got into the hotel in Nanjing at about 9.30 last night and felt like a day away from our ever so cheery tour mates. So we bade William, our guide, a fond fairwell and said we’d see him again a 24 hours. We felt like Steve McQueen jumping the fence in the Great Escape. So while Elly caught up on her beauty sleep, I thought I’d head off for some street photography. The hotel pointed me at a market in the north of Nanjing called Zhongyangmen. Either the cab driver got lost or the concierge had a sense of humour but I landed up in Bra World. I kid you not, I was dropped in a lane at the end of which was a building coverd in abour 30 giant posters all advertising bras and all the stores sold bras or strange meat soup. Not where the locals come to do all of their shopping I thought. Back on the streets and I got some good shots, then the rain came so I jumped a taxi looking for *cheap* software and DVDs. I was pointed in the direction of Zhujiang Road. No problem at all. After 30 seconds I was offered all sorts of software. As one old street seller didn’t have what I wanted on him he suggested that his daughter and I went back to his ‘shop’ for a longer look. His shop was a lean-to shed in a broken down alleyway. He has tons of titles including DVDs. It was $1 a disk. Rather charmingly he only offered me the adult material when his daughter had left the room. You see there is a code of honour amongst the software pirates. I bought a few things, strictly for evaluation of course, and headed back to Elly with Father, Mother and Daiughter waving me a fond farewell from their shed. Xie Xie, Groodbry. I picked up Elly and we headed to the smarter malls and Elly bought some Birkenstock shoe clones for $12. We had a pizza for lunch (nice change) and back for blog writing and hair washing. The rest of the tour were visiting Sun Yat-Sens mausoleum and Chaing Kai-Shek museum plus Nanjing Yangtze River Brige (complete with inspirational revolutionary inscriptions). Unless you are a passionate student of early revolutionary China or a fan of nine-span cantilever bridge construction give Nanjing a miss.