Wednesday 7th July - woke up in Nanjing

Woke up in Nanjing and somehow ended up in McDonalds.  And then somehow ended up having just a bean pie for breakfast.  Think of their apple pies and replace the sugary apple with sugary purple bean.  It tastes good but doesn't really set you up for walking around mountains in scorching heat.

We took a cable car up the mountain.  I was made to go on my own as I think the cable car guy was a bit frightened by my size.  This fear of his was always going to be somewhat contagious.  Up the mountain there were several things to look at, though unfortunately the view was very cloudy.  There was "the number one buddha south of the Yangtze" which we defiled by sitting on its head for photos.  What cultural artifact should we defile next.  They also had a well, a cave with a buddha (I think), and a the life a man of doubtless significance carved into stone.  It was fun walking round the mountain mainly.

It was totally sweltering, and we were drinking a bottle of water every 20 minutes or so.  Going shirtless alleviated the discomfort to some extent, and did surprisingly little to stop the Chinese tourists wanting photos with us.  A man by the lift was sitting in the large but barren restaurant, eating his lunch with occasionally firing arrows at the targets on the other side of the footpath that tourists walked down.  Marisa swears that she was nearly taken out by him.

Lloyd and I then went alone to the Mausoleum of Sun Yat-Sen, seen by the Chinese as the father of their nation, according to Amelia.  Marisa was put off by the hundred or so steps to get to the top, and it was a little effort to get to the top.  This is a very impressive memorial in an unspoiled area and was very busy; clearly he means a lot to the Chinese.  It didn't stop them hawking every type of shit by the entrance of course.

Back to the station for the return train to Shanghai, we got some bao zi and dumplings from the massively cheap food place.  £4 including a couple of beers set us up well.  Back in Shanghai we went to a restaurant with north-west Chinese food.  This is "muslim" food and started badly with a massively greasy meat pie, though what followed was good.  They have an ingredient which numbs the mouth which I tried to overdose on.  I'd never had it before and will remember the sensation, but it's hard to describe, so bad luck then.