Ow, my ass!

I bet that got your attention.

Tuesday I was back on the tourist trail, this time with Mr. Zhang’s bicycle and with HT again as guide. The Flying Pigeon was a good fit, but I think Mr. Zhang needs a new seat, as I am quite saddle sore. And we didn’t go all that far!

Part of the ache might be from a little spill I took. I slid down a few stairs of a pedestrian bridge in the morning as I searched for breakfast. It was to be an experimental breakfast to make sure my course of Cipro was really taking hold. The previous night had been rainy, so the stairs were slick. I have a nice rivet-patterned bruise on my bum today, and a partner on my wrist. The only real damage was to my dignity.

The rest of me feels great though, because HT ended our day by treating me to two traditional Chinese massages! An hour on my body, and an hour on my feet. Both felt great, although my feet are a little sore. I knew damn well how to ask for less pressure, but I was going with the flow. That’s part of the reason why I am feeling particularly useless today. Several times over the past couple days I’ve found myself hesitating to use my Chinese. Last night I was trying to make my reservation for Shanghai on a chain-hotel’s English-language website. When my net connection went out, I almost went into a tizzy (damn you Starbucks!). I went to a second coffee shop (which I had been using all week, but they were even more expensive than Starbucks, and I was trying to be quick and cheap), but I couldn’t connect there either. I asked for help from someone else who was online (in Chinese), but they couldn’t understand me and called over someone who could speak English. He told me to talk to the staff. In the end, it turns out we were all freeloading on someone else’s net connection: this wasn’t the coffeeshop’s wireless!

Feeling completely dejected (and knowing full well I could ask HZ’s parents or HT for help), I finally just called the hotel. Did I try Chinese? Only to ask if they could speak English. So I’m useless! (and by this point, completely wired from all the coffee).

I am especially useless because this morning I picked up my phone instead of my camera when I left my hotel room to return ZW’s bike. Who the heck is going to be calling me? Not only did I miss a chance to take one more picture of Hui’s parents, but this morning was English corner at the Zhang household! 6 retired professors all complimenting me about how well I speak Chinese (but truthfully, they are all more functional at English than I am at Chinese!). Opportunity lost.

So I’m useless and my ass hurts!

So back to the travelogue. Tuesday HT and I biked to the south end of town, which still has some older architecture. Many of the streetside businesses have 2nd floor apartments for the shopkeepers—very traditional, if not very old. Nanjing is very pleasantly laid out, and many of its streets are lined with, what a couple students told me are, French trees planted in the 1920s. We checked out a touristy pedestrian area and I learned to read a few new street signs. I now know how to tell which hotels rent rooms for two or three hours at a time. Oddly, these hotels are located near a museum for one of Nanjing’s most famous ladies of the night, who apparently figures prominently into quite a number of literary works. Here’s a photo of me in front of her place of business.



As the day goes on, I was confirmed in my suspicion that HT is a Chatty Cathy. Maybe it’s the reporter in him. He took every opportunity to engage folks in conversation—from the ‘Best Chestnuts’ vendor (“How can you say that they are the best?”) to a curator at the museum where we spent a good chunk of the afternoon. He even talked his was into someone’s courtyard house so that I could see traditional architecture.

The museum was a great find. And not in the Lonely Planet. I LOVE getting taken to things that aren’t in the guidebook. I’m still a little unclear on exactly who this house used to belong to, but for generations they were Peking Opera buffs, as is ZW, and so local amateurs meet here to perform for each other. Turns out that taking me here was ZW’s idea and, although he wasn’t there on Tuesday, he sings there regularly. Apparently, he is one of the ten best amateurs in Nanjing. As soon as I get near a scanner, I will share a photo of him in costume that he presented to me this morning.

The museum has expanded in recent years, and goes on and on and on. The furnishings are really fantastic, and the displays are particularly well done. The wall text is ink-jet printed on giant textured paper, which is then mounted seamlessly on the walls. The effect is so great that I didn’t mind not being able to read any of it.

After finishing up we grabbed a cup of coffee and then headed off to dinner with ZH’s parents. Another fantastic banquet! ZW poured over the menu, and even took notes. He asked for things to be brought out in a particular order (a request that was promptly ignored). We took it in stride, and enjoyed everything. A Western salad. Tofu soup. Spicy frog chunks. A whole fish laid out with stripes of sauteed garlic, yellow, and red bell peppers. A plate of vegetables, including lotus and that same fungus that I had in Zi’an. Eel in a brown sauce (and to be brutally honest, I prefer Japanese eel to Chinese). Some puff-pastries with veggies. And finally sweet squash cakes for dessert. We also enjoyed a pitcher of 黄酒 (yellow wine), the price over which ZW and HT argued with the 服务员 vehemently.

HT insisted it was too early for me to go back to my hotel. He obviously remembered me asking how one could tell a legitimate massage place from one where a happy ending might be had, because he offered to treat me! So off we biked into the drizzly night. I walked out feeling two inches taller. I could really enjoy that on a regular basis.

Looking at the map later, I think HT took me across town on minor streets: exactly what I would have done with a visitor in Chicago when I knew its streets best.

Yesterday I was on my own, so started the day eating breakfast on 东南大学 ‘s campus. I enjoyed a little conversation with a couple students and then set off for exploration. There were no bargains to be found at the big department store downtown. Peking U has nothing on Nanjing Normal University’s hilly, formal campus. (It also has a couple of great streets of student restaurants and stores.) I had lunch on Hunan Street, another shopping district in the north end of town.



Guess what I had?

小龙虾。 The very literal translation of which is: little lobsters.

I next had to return to my hotel to wash my shirt. Eating was a bit of a chore. When I started, there wasn’t anyone there to give me a lesson. I mostly just ate the tails. I know you’re supposed to suck the heads, but I have no idea if these guys are farmed or taken out of the river. Some of their insides looked better than others. And after Sunday night’s experience, I was trying to be cautious. A couple came in when I was about halfway finished, and since I caught the girl taking a photo of me I felt completely ok staring at them as they ate. The girl ate with gusto, cracking the claws open with her teeth and spitting them out empty. I don’t know what was going on in her mouth, but it was a feat at least equal to tieing a cherry stem into a knot (was that in a David Lynch movie?).

After taking care of laundry, I looked for some software that L has requested (sorry honey, still haven’t found it), and learned that one should NEVER leave a bag sitting on the ground in Nanjing. Even for a minute. Fortunately I didn’t find this out the hard way: it was someone else that had put his plastic grocery sack on the ground while he unlocked his bike. A dog promptly ran up to it and, um, should we say marked it as his own territory. This was one of many dogs wandering around as their owners engaged in yet another form of outside group exercise: drum dancing! Does this make 5 kinds now?

Later in the evening, after all the hotel drama, I returned to Hunan Street on the bus. (Did I mention that saddle soreness?) The book said it’s more of a snack street in the evning, but it seemed mostly the same to me—although with Vegas-style lights. I walked back, and for the first time in China found myself in a McDonalds. Don’t think I have gotten completely soft though: I was only, shall we say, marking it as my own territory. It was a long walk!

I took a shortcut through a park and found myself behind a building looking at the entrance of a bar. The Lonely Planet had mentioned the Scarlet Bar, but this was the Red Bar. I figured this was someplace capitalizing on the popularity of someplace else (there are many clubs and restaurants in Beijing with names similar to popular tourist spots). So I stepped in. Turns out the name was more of a play on words than I thought. I have learned that unless you are actually at a Party meeting, when you call someone Comrade these days you are putting them into Dan Savage’s camp. So it only took about ten seconds of scanning the clientele for it to dawn on me before turning to the manager who had taken my arm and was leading me to a stool to say: “对不起同志。我在错地方。”

If I had stayed, I’m sure I would have been very popular.

Nanjing by foot and bike.