Nanjing

Day 5- June 13th
The Dohertys enjoyed a yummy "American" breakfast of eggs, potatoes, and French Toast while listening to Sean's presentation for his food safety app. It was so cool to see him in his element, and to have witnessed his progress from the original app concept this now developed and approved iPhone app! I'm a proud sista!!! 

Following his meeting, we all headed to the train station to journey on to Nanjing, where my brother used to live. 
Nanjing, originally named Nanking, used to be capital of China until the Japanese WW2 massacre, resulting in the capital change to Beijing. We drove thru the Nanjing wall, which is the largest "city" wall in China. 

Modernized China was established by Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of The Republic of China. This means China was transformed from an empire to a more westernized government before the WW2 attack when, under Mao Zedong's rule, it became a communist country. Here in the 21st century, the age of technology, China enforces censorship of the media, ie. books, movies, and the Internet.

There are the "Three T's you don't talk about in China"

-Taiwan

-Tibet

-Tinananmen Square, which is ironically named after Tiananmen Gate, "Gate of Heavenly Peace", separating the square and the Forbidden City.

Sean showed me Greatfire.org, which lists the sites currently blocked by the "Great Firewall of China", a pretty clever name, tee hee. Sites are blocked when they do not adhere to the restrictions on content set by the Chinese government. The list includes Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, Blogspot (which I'm using right now!), and the NY Times. Interestingly enough, they also block keywords when using a search engine. They block 1989 (the year of the Tinananmen Square massacre), Tank Man (the unknown protestor who stood in front of a column of Army tanks the morning after the massacre), the year 1989, all combinations of the numbers 6 and 4 (June 4th, day of the massacre), and any other connections that would lead to the discovery of this tragic event. The citizens that were killed that day had gathered to protest China's unfair and unchecked censorship of the media venues, a problem that is obviously still present. 

For lunch, I had plum juice (which tastes like sweet iced tea), mushroom soup, red beans and sticky rice, sweet soup, steamed pear (which was my favorite and apparently good for the throat if you are sick), noodles, tofu and vegetables, spring rolls (the best I've ever had!), shrimp dumplings, potato noodle, and some sort of vegetable, only available in China, that has purple juice inside. Sean's previous co-worker joined us for this lunch and she said this vegetable is believed to benefit woman by replacing the iron needed in our blood.

Dinner later that night was with Andy (Sean's boss for baby clothing store), his wife, and Andy Jr. We gave Andy Jr. a fire truck because he loves to play with cars, and he gave me kisses :) He was so cute :D 

The meal was enormous again, complete with the spinning wheel at the center of the table for everyone to share the food.  The egg and vegetable noodles and the salmon were my favorites from this meal.

Everyone enjoyed laughing as Ivan ate too much soy sauce with wasabi and tried to learn the Chinese names for food with his Spanish accent. 
We completed our night with a boat ride around the Confucius temple. 

Though I appreciate the hospitality of the Chinese, they would not stop giving us food!!! Every friend of Sean's that we met insisted on us trying various new cuisines with them, and to be frank, I'm getting fat! LOL. Tonight Andy and his wife bought us sugar glazed cherries to munch on while we walked, they were speared on sticks like shish kebabs and each cherry had at least 3 seeds to accidentally bite into :/ Whoops! They also gave us stinky tofu which everyone despised!!!!! Never again, thank you!


Day 6- June 14th

We ate breakfast at hotel, where I tried green tea cakes and bandor bread, which is basically French toast. Then we headed off to explore Nanjing! The first stop was to look at tallest building in city. It used to be the 7th tallest building in the world but has been  knocked down the list with the new developments in Dubai. Another of Sean's old co-workers from the school joined us on our adventure, and she taught us a lot! She explained to me that when two characters are broken up by an apostrophe, they are spoken separately; so Xi'an sounds like "She" "Ong".

Drivers in China honk for no real reason but then when something crazy happens, like our taxi driver taking up all the lanes to turn around in the middle of the street, everyone waits patiently!! Pretty backwards to me!!! 

Our next stop was the Ming tomb, built over 800 years ago for Zhu Yuanzhang, founder of the Ming Dynasty. The Stone Elephant Road, a 615-meter long road, leads to the tomb. There are six types of stone animals along the road to indicate the glamour and sanctity of the tomb, as well as guard the Emperor from evil spirits. 

The Animals the Guard the Sacred Way: 

-Xiezhi, a unicorn with eyes of a bear, also named Renfashou, is a legendary animal standing for justice. It can identify the evil person in two man fight by hitting him with horn. The Xiezhi is placed in front of the tomb to show uprightness.

-Lion, called "King of all beasts" for its unborn agility and ferocity over other animals. It is honored in Buddhism as a holy beast protecting Buddhist doctrines. Stone lions are placed in front of the imperial tomb to demonstrate the Emperor's unparalleled dignity and power.

-Camel, showing the Emperor's national strength, symbolizing peace in the Western Regions, and suggesting vastness of the territory and prosperity of the nation.

-Elephant, symbol of simplicity and vastness. 

-Unicorn, an auspicious creature of ancient Chinese fantasy, it integrates the features of the tiger, lion, ox, and dragon. Legend states that it appears only in the region of a benevolent and wise emperor. No one had the unicorn before this emperor's tomb. 

-Horse, as the Emperor's mount, the horse is indispensable. The horse was also a part of the Emperor's honor guard during court ceremonies of the Ming Dynasty. With spirited eyes and a proud look, the stone horses seem to be flaunting the merits of their imperial owner before death. 

The Divine Road has 24 total animal guards, four of each kind, with two sitting then two standing. 

The entrance to the tomb has five arches; two for officers, one for house servants, one for horses, and the biggest in middle for the Emperor. On the way to tomb, Sean's friend pointed out  bricks with each bricklayers' name engraved in the stone. There were entire structures of bricks laid with sticky rice, land, stone, etc. Sticky rice! The resourcefulness of these ancient builders is astounding! We passed one temple where virgin sacrifices were held. Thank God we've evolved from that stage...

We also saw the beautiful blue tomb of Sun Yat-sen!

And as we were leaving we saw a ginormous pincher bug! Blah! Maybe it was the spirit of one of the Emperor's come for revenge!!

After touring the tombs, we journeyed on to the office of one of Sean's friends. He taught us a very thorough tea lesson while giving us intricately prepared tea. We delighted in cinnamon tea from a thousand year old mountain, brewed in purple clay pots that can only be found in the Jiangsu province, and served in beautiful, hand painted and burnt porcelain cups.  (As in, he has very expensive tea accessories and drinks only the very best tea of China.)

Lessons:
-If the purple clay pot is over 50 years old, it can only be found in an auction  
-Use spring water not tap water
-Clay absorbs taste so use different pots for different teas

-Loose tea leaves provide up to 7 pots of tea and can be left overnight and reused

-Clay pots have small air pockets to keep the tea fresh

-Allow the temperature of the water to fall below 100 degrees before adding the leaves in, otherwise it damages the tea leaves and you don't get the rich flavor 
-Don't drink the first batch; wash the leaves and pour, unless it is green tea, which you don't need to wash

-Don't steep for too long; pour the tea into a porcelain holder quickly or will become bitter

-Pour slowly to avoid the leaves coming out

-The color of good tea looks like whiskey

-You can keeps bags tea leaves in freezer

We also tried a red tea and then a green tea from the plains.  
- In the springtime, he first leaf of the tree is used 
- It is picked within the first 5 days for its baby leaf freshness, making it a rare and expensive tea 
-It must be drunk in a glass cup to see the color change and watch the leaves dance like needles

-Tea bags should be made with hot water over 100 degrees

-Green tea should be transparent and a light green, not yellow

How to spot a fake teapot:
~Handle, top and spout should all line up if hand made not machine

~Shape, looking at it, it should be perfect

~Belly needs to be 2/3 down from top, or shoulder high up from lid, you should be able to take a quick look and get the feeling that everything is proportioned right
~A good pot will be dry quickly when hot water is poured on top, because the clay will absorb the water. If it is a fake, the water will just sit on top. 

I started noticing as we strolled more and more streets, how odd it is to see families with only one kid. China has the family law of one kid per couple, or they have to pay for permission to have more than one. I can't imagine my life without my siblings, they were such a vital part of my childhood and very important to me. 

Dinner that night with Mr. Tea Man was an assortment of sautéed mushrooms and chopped garlic, best thing I've had yet! I also tried pat noodles with tomato, eggplant that looked like honey combs, and white rice wine- 42 percent!!!! Yikes!!! Now that's a drink with a kick!!!! Our dessert was decadent yogurt with honey. MMM :D 

We ended our night with some Karaoke in an amazing bar full of studio-like, private rooms! I would love to take some friends there for a night of singing and dancing! I had a blast singing songs with my family, the von Dohertys! :D