江南行 - Day 5

Day 5 (28 Jun) - Nanjing, Shanghai

 

In Nanjing, our local guide 小王 first bring us to 南京长江大桥. Before I talk about the bridge, I'll talk about the guide first. She's another middle aged lady, very elegant. She is the decendent of 王羲之, who wrote the 天下第一行书: 兰亭序 (the same calligraphy piece that's on my fan).  From the way she talked and carried herself, we can see that she's very cultured and learnt. However one of the aunties disliked her, saying that she's very proud of herself. I don't see what's wrong with being proud of yourself if you are truely capable. I thought she's quite a nice person.

 

Back to the bridge. According to the guide, the bridge is the pride of chinese all over the world. It was built in times of great difficulties, using chinese engineers and china's own resources, without any help from foreign countries. It was after this bridge was built that foreign countries stop looking down on the chineses. The technical difficulties were immense. The riverbed consists of shifting sands, not solid ground. Thousands of chinese volunteer divers lined up along the riverside going down one after another into the fast moving river to lay the foundation. Many lifes were lost in the construction of the bridge. Really admire the chinese for their determination.

 

Because the bridge is toll free, many trucks and heavy vehicles detoured through here, causing damage to the bridge. Yet because of the same reason, they don't have money to maintain the bridge. A very famous 内画大师 (forgot his name) seeing this, volunteered to work at the bridge and sell his works to raise money for the maintanence of the bridge. Admiring his spirit, I bought a very beautiful orb for 200+ rmb as a form of support (see photo). 

 

After that we went 明孝陵 (tomb of 明太祖朱元璋). Nothing much, coz since chinese government don't have the technology to protect the artifacts in the tomb, they can't open the tomb. Should have gone 中山陵 instead. 

 

Anwz, then we went Nanjing museum, where they showed us ancient jades. Then we went to a jade shop. How to determine real jade from fake jade: 1. When you hit it, you hear a very high, crisp and clear 'ding1' sound. 2. When you use it scratch glass, the glass is scratched while nothing happen to the jade. This is due to the fact that jade is harder than glass.

 

Actually there's a reason why old people wear jade bracelet. 小王 said it serves protection purpose. It helps to dissipate the force when you fall down, since jade is a very hard material. '玉碎人平安', as the saying goes. Don't really know how it works, but I believe there's some truth in it.

 

After lunch we said goodbye to our local guide and took a 5 hour journey to Shanghai, our first and final stop.

 

Once we reach our destination, the first thing we did is to rush to the toilet. After dinner, we took a cruise to tour 黄浦江外滩. The view is spectacular. Facing us were tall buildings after tall buildings, a sharp contrast with cities like Hang Zhou and Su Zhou. There are bright lights along the entire length of the great river. It's grandeur supercede even Singapore itself. This is the most economically advanced city, the CBD of the entire China: Shanghai.

 

TO BE CONTINUED...