Thursday 14th Januray, 2016                   2215

Well what happened today………….

Firstly neither or us bothered with breakfast in the hotel. The internet advises against although I did suggest that Joan might be ok with it - she declined. I am really not happy with this idea of a lone fish in every room, bad enough if it had company but it doesn’t sit well with me at all and naturally I will make a point of saying so on Trip Advisor.

So by the time we had both showered and got ready it was 1130. Having got my bearings in the taxi on the way back from Taj Mahal last night, I knew exactly where to take Joan for a lunchtime snack. It was walking distance from the hotel and close to the Confucius Temple north gate, a branch of Paris Baguette. Oh how I wish we had one in Chizhou! Proper bread!

She had a hot chicken pannini (admittedly only hot when I informed the assistant the tag said “hot” - stupid boy - and a girl took it from him to heat up) and I had a rather different type of sausage roll than I am used to, purely because Joan had chosen what I was going to. A bizarre taste but strangely enjoyable. Of course the rigours of the previous day’s travelling had taken their toll on my hitherto under-used legs and so when we left to take the Metro to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial I was already in trouble but having been there a couple of years ago and been greeted by a queue of thousands (and decided against waiting for hours to get in) I was determined on this visit I would get to see it.

As neither of us knew how to use the token machines for the subway properly we bought tickets for just two stops on line 3 and assumed the tickets needed for the 5 stops when we switched to line 2 could be bought at the alighting station. Wrong. Not wanting to do a Cherie Blair, I got Joan to ask a guard what we should do. Here it is different, if you don’t have a ticket you simply pay before you exit your destination station. Great.

At the end of our journey I confessed my sins and gave them my token, Joan doing likewise. The guards must have thought we were stupid because it seems as if 2y was enough for our entire trip, although of course to us it seemed ridiculously cheap, what the hell.

No queue this time, straight in but a good half a mile walk through the lane system to actually get into the building. Now the building, although futuristic in design, doesn’t look that big so I was confident my pins would hold up and we would be out well in time to pay a visit to Wuanhu (I think) lake afterwards.

I could not have been any further from the truth. I have read The Rape of Nanking and already knew of the terrible inhuman atrocities perpetrated on the citizens and so was prepared for what I was about to see. In fact in the museum the exhibits are much more toned down than in the book but nonetheless a sombre mood overcame me.

However, no sooner than every time I thought we had reached the exit did we arrive at another part of the museum. It’s like the Tardis - the entire thing is colossal because out the back there are open spaces and other buildings. I must have walked three miles and just before the end (by now the feet were killing me as well as the legs) there was a huge obelisk surmounted by a woman and baby holding a dove aloft with one word at the base - Peace. In front burned an eternal flame and so I wanted a picture of it. Ahead of me were some high school students, one of whom had a seriously gammy leg and so I followed them, waiting for them to finish so I could take my photo when they were out of frame.

As I watched, one of the girls in the group bent down and placed a flower in front of the flame, stand and then the entire group bowed in remembrance, I came perilously close to shedding a tear. No adults were with them and nobody had prompted them to do it.

Eventually we neared the exit and Joan stopped to read a sign leading to somewhere else. I asked what it was and she said it was an exhibition. Oh God, my legs won’t take any more, I protested. I confess I was mightily relieved when she informed me that to enter you had to have ID. I had left my passport in the hotel so I couldn’t go in! Of course, she being Chinese I felt she really should go in so I waited outside in the cold for an hour whilst she learnt a little more of her country’s history.

Well by the time we finished it was far too late to go to the lake and far too early to see the lights at the lake by Confucius Temple seeing as it was still daylight but we caught a bus anyway and I sniffed out a place to have a beer and a sit down. The plan had been to eat at a Spanish restaurant this evening but on Chinese search engines Joan couldn’t find it on her phone so in desperation I got her to find Jimmy’s Sports Bar, knowing it would be good for a burger, pizza, steak etc. the bloody taxi dropped us off about a mile from the place which pleased me greatly seeing as GPS had indicated where we were originally was just 2.5km away. So creaking under the strain, my legs trundled slowly along until we found it.

I forgot to take any photos in there but it was a cosy place with good, solid western grub. She had Tex-Mex burritos whilst I contented myself with a hot dog (she ate my fries!) - sausage roll for lunch and hot dog for dinner - I am eating SO healthily!

The taxi back was almost as bad as the one before, trying to dump us off somewhere neither of us knew but this time I insisted Joan got him to drop us at the door. Clearly they don’t do “The Knowledge” in Chinese cities!

So the plan tomorrow (if I can walk) is to do the lake and if time permits another attraction. Dinner venue to be decided, ditto somewhere for lunch for madam, who will doubtless polish off my expensive packet of plain chocolate McVities digestives the moment she wakes up in the morning.

Housekeeping here is sloppy. The mug I used to make tea in this morning was simply covered up by a paper trip tray and my empty wine bottle was left where I put it beside the desk on our return. The latter currently sits in the middle of the corridor outside and tomorrow any mugs/cups used will be left in the bathroom sink before we leave. I don’t expect five star service from a mid-priced hotel but I do expect basic standards to be provided. They are not on course for a glowing internet review thus far!