Day 8: A day brought to you by the letter S (A Trish post)

 I’ve been encouraging Jen to give us theme songs to inspire our day, but she says that’s not how days work and that as the day progresses songs will just become apparently relevant to our activities. Today however, had a very clear theme, feelings and events that start with the letter “s”. These will become apparent as you read today’s blog, but to foreshadow they include: sun, subways, sweat, swearing, sunscreen, stairs, (in)sanity.

Today the weather was set to hit 35 degrees. Ugh. After sunscreening ourselves we hopped onto the subway to check out China’s “second great wall” (aka Ming City Wall). The city wall was built as a military defense in 1366 running 60 km in length and taking 28 years to complete. The wall was supposed to be viewable from the subway exit – it’s a big wall – but from the exit we came out of, it was not. So instead we wandered, stumbled across a light art tunnel – which probably would have been cool to see at night – and a half an hour/big circle roundabout later we got to the wall… which definitely would not be viewable from the subway, but would have been pretty obvious if we had turned the other direction (in my defense, our internet died overnight and I wasn’t sure exactly where the wall was based on my map). Despite not being THE great wall, this was a pretty epic adventure. Not only was it void of humans (that’s what you get in a city of only 8.4 million) but the views were amazing, life on the wall is good. We started at the Xuanwu Lake entrance and had a peaceful stroll for about 2 km where only 2 other humans were encountered. I really can’t emphasize how amazing this place was (5 photos from the wall attached)

After an ice cream, sunscreen and hydration break, we headed to our next destination: Purple mountain. A hop on two subways later and we were suppose to be a 20 minute walk from the cable car which would take us up the mountain. Obviously, that wasn’t the case. Instead we walked next to a highway, and through a tunnel for about 45 minutes before realising that the path that should have led us to the cable car was underneath and behind the highway we were walking on. Much sweating (by both) and swearing (by me) ensued. Luckily, Captain Direction (me) can navigate anywhere and after a cut through some neighbourhood alleys, we got back on track. Unfortunately, this track included many, MANY stairs (one picture of some of the many stairs here). 

And thus, more swearing (by me) and much sweating (by both) continued. Honestly, the stairs seemed never ending. Once we did finally get to the cable car entrance, there was a series of weird signs which, of course, lead us to go up and down more stairs than necessarily. By this point, we were mostly delirious with heat exhaustion, which was resolved via a high sugar drink from a vending machine called “Scream”. I think it helped a little.

After buying our cable car tickets, I revealed to Jen that I was a LITTLE scared of heights, and she expressed concern over my lack of life insurance. Feeling reckless, up the cable car we went anyway!  The views from here were lovely (cable car photo here).

Within the cable car was a sign that stated “Do not rely on door”, only mildly concerning since the windows weren’t quite big enough to get through, but by this point we were hundreds of feet above a giant forest, so, oh well. After exiting the cable car, via the door, there were (guess….) more stairs. Ha. ha. But also some very amazing views of the city (two photos here). 

We decided to explore a bit, unfortunately we weren’t near the mountain’s observatory (which is where it was first discovered that there were 365.2 days in a year), but there was “highest peak” bei gao feng – 448 m above sea level -- which seemed like it would be worth checking out, so off we trekked. After a very steep 10 minute walk past a “no photos allowed” military area, we came to a dead end. Suffering. Swearing. Sweat. Turned around, saw some people coming down a pretty sketchy rock pathway, decided “are we the type of people who sweat this much, climb this many stairs, travel all the way to Nanjing to not investigate?” Obviously we went up the sketchy path. It had a nice non-blocked off cliff side view which I stayed very far away from. Jen ventured further out to take this nice shot:

Trekked back down to the cable car, again – wrong entrance – more stairs – cue insanity. Back on the cable car, we kind of lost it, too much sun, possible heat stroke, dehydration, over-absorption of sunscreen (is that a thing?)... this led to the kind of laughing so hard you are crying type of insanity. Decided we need to invest in some Dune-style moisture retaining suits. If anyone has ideas on where we can find them, please let us know (future adventures might benefit from this). It was all in the name of fun. No regrets.

After more sweat, sunscreen, subway(s) and we returned to our Airbnb for a rest before heading out to grab some things from the local grocery store. En route I got a cute photo with a cat statue (see box cat photo). 

For dinner we tried out Volcano Rabbit, and with help from a very kind host who made use of Siri we were able to order super tasty eats. Jen got a too spicy beef boodle pot and I got a tomato cream noodle pot (picture attached) – meals that included dessert custard make Nanjing an extra double win.

Cats seen: only 2