Nanjing encounters: Night edition

In the last post, I posted about some random encounters during a short visit to Nanjing, but I would say that Nanjing is perhaps most dazzling during the evening, when it is adorned by colourful lights everywhere. It is therefore necessary to present a second part in the “Nanjing encounters” series, focusing on life in the city after dark.

Lanterns of upright drums lining the path that leads to the ancient city wall up ahead. I believe there were light shows in different parts of the city during that time, around the Labour Day holidays.

Light display of a warrior in the Ming dynasty (the period of time when Nanjing was the capital city) on the ancient city wall.

Strolling along the Qinhuai River, which runs parallel to the ancient city wall. The Qinhuai River flows through Nanjing and finally feeds into the Yangtze River.

Continuing on with my even exploration of Nanjing, stopping by here and there along the river to admire the night scene.

Strolling further along the Qinhuai River around the Fuzimiao (Confucius Temple) commercial district, also a popular tourist attraction and night market.

More lanterns and light shows around the city wall…

Arriving back at the Qinhuai River, I took a break and admired the Porcelain Tower from the opposite bank. Though it is a reconstruction, the Porcelain Tower was my favourite building in Nanjing and looked especially magnificent during the night.

The beauty of the Porcelain Tower (also known as Bao En Tower) is revealed more clearly with a closer look. The colours were just so gorgoues! The original tower or pagoda was constructed in the Ming dynasty but was subsequently destroyed, and what we see here is a replica of the original structure.

Huge flower lanterns guarding the entrance to another lantern festival somewhere around the Fuzimiao area.

And somehow I ended back at the Qinhuai River again, and actually I won’t hesitate to admit that I really enjoyed walking and just chilling along the river, even though it was by myself. Surprisingly there weren’t that many people, possibly because the Labour Day holidays have just passed and all the tourists have already gone back home…good timing for me 😛

Well then, I hope you enjoyed reading my short posts and liked the photos from my trip to Nanjing two years ago. Time to decide what city I should write about next…hmm.

Nanjing encounters

In 2019, I visited Yancheng in the province of Jiangsu for my cousin’s wedding. As a side trip after the wedding, I dropped by Nanjing (or Nanking), the capital of Jiangsu, for a brief visit. Nanjing is one of the ancient capitals of China, along with Beijing, Luoyang in Henan province, and Xi’an (or Chang’an) in Shaanxi province. In recent years, Nanjing has developed rapidly into a modern metropolis of great socioeconomic importance. It is home to tourist attractions such as Fuzimiao (Confucious Temple) commercial area along the Qinhuai River, the historical city wall, the Presidential Palace, and the Nanjing Museum. I visited some of these places, but this post will showcase some of the non-touristy sights and encounters that I found interesting in Nanjing.

Tangbao, or soup buns, are the most well-known street food in Nanjing and are a larger version of the perhaps more famous xiaolongbao. Dip one into some vinegar, take a small bite, and let the hot soup with all the delicious essence flow into your mouth…yummmmmmmmmmmm. I must have had this at least three times during my short stay in Nanjing, and if “You are what you eat” is true, then I have turned into a tangbao myself…

People were lining up for something here but I never found out what it was. I was more interested in the gigantic LINE FRIENDS characters next to the queue. Never used LINE myself but you could never get enough of Brown and Cony 😛

Huge egg covered with a variety of flowers…or well, it looked like a humongous Easter egg, though it was just a tree shaped like one.

Giant plant sculptures of peacocks at Gulou Square. The aerial view is much more impressive.

Large pig, small pigs, pigs doing yoga, meditating pigs, pig doing leg raise…wouldn’t mind grabbing this set of pig figurines and putting them in my living room.

Nothing much to see here, except this ingenious…hat? Convenient for shading from the sun without having to actually hold an umbrella, and the rainbow pattern certainly attracted my attention rather quickly. Nicely done, lady.

Engagement photo session with an extravagant dress on the old city wall of Nanjing. Frankly I don’t understand the hype behind these lavish photo sessions that, to be honest, look overexaggerated and fake, but it ain’t a typical wedding in China if you don’t take these photos. Maybe I’m the strange one.

Statue of a girl playing the banjo (I think), presumably the Jasmine Melody, which is a classic Chinese tune.

So that was my non-touristy summary of the brief stay in Nanjing. Again, I did drop by some of the popular tourist spots, but those are simply Googleable so I didn’t want to spend too much time showing photos of them. I think I only spent two days in Nanjing, by far too short to get anything more than an overview of what the city has to offer. Honestly I’d go back for the tangbao alone – it was that good!!

April 2021

So, I quit my job, and April 30th was my last day which means…I am now unemployed?! Well, yes, but I will be starting a new job very soon!! Excited to be entering a new chapter of my life in China but at the same time a bit nervous because I will be doing something that I’ve never done before – I will keep you updated on the status of the new job in future posts, once I get into it. Here’s a recap of April 2021.

Surprise roses from Mr. Husband just because 😉 All those hinting finally worked 😛

Spring evening in Wuhan, between rainy seasons, having passed the cold pre-spring phase and not yet having welcomed the pre-summer heat. Perfect weather that’d only last a few days…

Three lone green leaves amidst a sea of dark red, after the rain.

Happy birthday – not to me! We celebrated the birthday of three friends in April with cake, snacks, and good company at our place.

In April I continued exploring more coffee/drinks shops. Often I’d grab my laptop, a book, and a notebook, order a drink, and either write, read, or daydream for a couple of hours on a weekend afternoon. Top left: classic latte; top right: iced lemon jasmine tea; bottom left: matcha-flavoured yogurt drink; bottom right: “dirty” coffee.

Another recent food-related obsession is curry and I’ve been trying various restaurants that serve curry rice. Here’s one of my favourites – crispy tonkatsu with curry on rice. The curry was rich and flavourful, and the tonkatsu was juicy and tender. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Cats welcoming guests to a coffee shop by sitting in a very…interesting position XD

Meet-up with a friend who came back to Wuhan for a brief visit. Good food and a nice long chat to catch up.

Event of the month: surprise proposal!! I was fortunate to be involved in the planning and execution of the proposal, which was a lot of fun and full of joy and laughter. Congratulations to the newly engaged couple!!

Here we are in May and temperatures have gone up to 30+ degrees Celsius already on some days. Bring it on, summer…bring it on!!

York encounters

In 2017, I spent a weekend in the city of York in England visiting some friends. Instead of hitting up the popular touristy spots (York Minster, for example, which we still passed by but didn’t spend much time exploring), we spent the majority of our time wandering the streets of York. Here are some fun and interesting sightings from the short visit.

Unsure if this was a mermaid or a nymph or some other mythical creature lurking around the corner of Teddy Bear Tea Rooms on Stonegate.

I believe 100% that the roast ham is as succulent as it seems and I regret not getting a chunk right then and there.

Llama in a rainbow shawl, quietly observing the passersby in a corner.

Ah, The Shop That Must Not Be Named. For anyone who wants to acquire some authentic Harry Potter merchandise, this might be the place to go. Funnily I was the YKW (You-Know-Who) in an unofficial Harry Potter role play with my highschool friends… 😛

In recent years, colourful umbrellas lining streets have become popular in cities all over the world. They were interesting at first but gradually lost their charm when they started appearing everywhere =/

Here’s a shop that claims to offer “Two floors of things you don’t need but really really want!” Hmm…I’d believe that, and I would have enjoyed shopping there as much as I liked window-shopping at the Christmas markets of Cologne, where there were a bunch of “cute things that would be nice to have but are too expensive and are cool just to look at”.

I would go grab a drink at Walmgate Ale House just to meet the seemingly friendly ghost that apparently dwells within 😛

Lovely weather – for part of the day, at least, after it had stopped raining.

Wandering in Warsaw

There are places that I travelled to, primarily not because I really wanted to see the place, but because someone I knew wanted to go but couldn’t. It’s not a gesture to brag by saying, “Look, I’m where you want to be!” but more like…”I’m fulfilling one of your wishes on your behalf, though I really wish you were here with me.” The first place was Luxembourg. I think my uncle meant it as a joke and picked Luxembourg randomly on the map of Europe, but when he told me, it just stuck with me, and I went as my first weekend trip away from Belgium.

The other place was Warsaw. Whenever I asked my dad if there was anywhere in Europe he really wanted to visit, he’d say Poland, specifically Warsaw. I don’t know if there was any particular reason, but I think he had the impression that Poland is a good representation of the Eastern European countries, if he could only pick one.

Well, my dad still hasn’t gotten the chance to go to Poland but alas, I knew I had to go and see what it was about Warsaw that attracted my him. So I went for a weekend in 2017 and, for the first time in my life, photographed a streak of lightning and saw a peacock spread its feathers. Of course, these are only two of many reasons why the two days in Warsaw left a deep impression in my memory. After almost four years, I am blogging about this trip from recollection, so a lot of details may not be accurate. But this will be a reminder to head back with my dad in the future, to fulfill his wish for and with him.

Palace of Culture and Science, a prominent landmark in Warsaw. Dark clouds were approaching and a storm was anticipated, so I had to dash quickly to get inside before I got soaked. There was a viewing terrace at the top of the building where I enjoyed a panoramic view of Warsaw in the midst of a thunderstorm…

Same building viewed from a different angle, lit up in rainbow colours during the night, after the storm. I mistakenly thought that this was the building known as “Stalin’s Birthday Cake” but that was actually the Academy of Science in Riga, though they do look similar.

The old town square in Warsaw looks like any quintessential old town square found in almost every city in Europe. Don’t get me wrong, it is very pretty, especially on a nice day under blue skies. Ironically, unlike Bratislava, Warsaw didn’t come off as melancholic…or “blue”.

Quiet morning after the rain, with not-so-blue skies this time (a day after the previous photo).

I quite liked these carvings on the walls of the University of Warsaw Library (Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Warszawie, or BUW). There were actually eight panels and it took a bit of research to find out about the two pictured here. On the left is the score for B-Moll Study by Karol Szymanowski, a Polish composer (source), and on the right is Collatz conjecture algorithm coded in Pascal (according to Reddit).

I thought this was just a random sculpture of a mermaid with a sword and shield but apparently the Mermaid of Warsaw is a symbol of the city. She appears on the city’s coat of arms and there are various sculptures of her across the city, the one in the photo standing next to the Vistula River by the Świętokrzyski Bridge.

And here is a silhouette of a unicorn and a girl on the “unicorn well”, next to St. Kazimierz Church in the New Town. Apparently the unicorn had been on the coat of arms of the New Town, according to Wikipedia, again. I’m quite stoked to be learning so much, after four years, about the symbols that appear in these images that I took without much thought. Pretty amazing the amount of information you can find out there by Googling “Warsaw unicorn”…

Chillin’ in the park, under the shadows, in the sunlight. Of course that wasn’t me in the hanging cage (is there a specific name for that?) but I wouldn’t mind switching with those folks… 😉

Time for some food!!! I was looking forward to dining at Rózana in Warsaw because I’ve heard great things about it from various sources. After sitting down, I decided to get the roasted duck, which was described to be “served on apple and forest cranberry sauce with potatoes and fried apple”. I love a good duck dish everywhere I go, and while this one was nice, I couldn’t help comparing it with the duck roast that I had in Prague. As a result, the Polish version appeared a little underwhelming because the one in Prague was just sooooooooooooooooooooo good. A bit unfair I know, sorry!

Pierogies, or dumplings, are perhaps Poland’s national dish and if not, they are still massively popular. There are restaurants specialized in serving pierogies, Zapiecek being one restaurant chain that can be seen all over the place in Warsaw. Obviously I had to try some, and I went for the mixed pierogies with Ruthenian dumplings (cottage cheese with potatoes) and dumplings with meat and cabbage. The dumplings were served with a very greasy but flavourful bacon gravy. I was surprised to find that these dumplings were quite similar to the Chinese pan-fried ones (pot stickers). Would I get them again? Why, certainly I would!

Of course, the trip wouldn’t be complete without cabbage rolls, or gołąbki, as they’re called in Poland. There’s something irresistible about cabbage rolls but I didn’t know that I was getting it when I ordered. “Polish gołąbki” on the menu didn’t mean a thing to me (gotta order something mysterious once in a while) and I was surprised and glad that it was indeed a cabbage roll dish, which was oh-so-delicious!

Always carrying my best travel buddies, Mr. Nikon and Boo from Mario, with me all around the world. It would have been nice to share the lovely food with some good company but my dad wasn’t there at that time and I hadn’t met Mr.ZJ back then, so some trips such as this one had to be completed alone. That didn’t stop me from enjoying a nice beer with the gołąbki, ha!

I left out one place that I will write about in the next entry and that is Łazienki Park, which was probably my favourite place in Warsaw (out of the limited number of places I visited). Lots of green coming up in the next post!