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I've briefly mentioned mine and Nicole's ongoing passport/visa problems before, but basically we've been a month without our passports now, being fobbed off with vague excuses about forms and every time we ask about them. This is obviously a bit of a pain and, because you need your passport to book train tickets or stay in any hotel in China, has effectively scuppered all of our plans to explore other parts of Jiangxi in our weekends. Even more frustratingly, we were given three days off this week (our students have mid-term exams) which we're unable to use for anything exciting. Anyway, having spent enough time whining about how annoying it all is, last night Nicole and I made a snap decision to visit Nanchang today. And this morning, armed only with the address of the Jiujiang long-distance bus station and more money than we've carried collectively in the past month, we left the house at the ungodly hour of 8am and threw ourselves into a taxi.
Finding the bus station and buying our tickets went swimmingly, and by 9 we were en route to Nanchang. I was sat next to a very friendly old man who was determined not to let the language barrier prevent us from becoming bestie buds; within maybe 5 minutes he was showing me pictures on his phone of his grandchildren and taking photos of the two of us together (other passengers had to be recruited to help with this as he couldn't get the angle he wanted himself). Within maybe 15 minutes I'd replaced his newborn grandson as his phone wallpaper. Unfortunately, I put a pretty conclusive end to our new friendship by falling asleep for the rest of the journey. Whoops. I woke up just as we were driving into Nanchang. Once off the bus, we ducked into a cheap fast food restaurant to hide from all the taxi drivers who immediately pounced on us and plot our plan for the day. In all honesty, the main appeal of Nanchang for us had been the rumoured existence of an H&M, but as we thought we'd better do at least one cultural thing whilst we were in Nanchang, we decided to visit the Tengwang Pavilion, apparently Nanchang's "main tourist drawcard", first. THIS WAS A BRILLIANT DECISION.
It was a bright, sunny day and we were both excited to be out of Jiujiang for the first time in over a month, so we feeling very snap-happy before we even made it through the temple gates. We'd been in the temple complex about five minutes and already amassed about twelve photos of ourselves pulling faces next to various statues when we were approached by a Chinese uni student and a guy with a massive video-camera tripod set-up. The student was called Candy, and explained very excitedly that she was making an entry video for a tour-guiding competition and needed some tourists to show around - would we mind helping her out? I know it sounds like a scam, but she was sooo cute and lovely that we agreed. When we told her we were from Jiujiang she screamed and clapped: "OMG! I am from Jiujiang! No way!"; when we told her which school we teach at she gasped and clapped some more: "oh, that is very good school! They pay very well there!". She said "OMG" and "like" in nearly every other sentence, had a massive spaz when a bee flew near her and warned us about the expensive gift-shops in the world's loudest stage whisper as we walked past them and their English-speaking shopkeepers. I absolutely loved her, and in her honour will now impart some of my new knowledge about Tengwang Pavilion:
1. It's named after a prince from the Tang dynasty.
2. It was first built over 1300 years ago, but has since been rebuilt 28 times because people kept burning it down and stuff (bloody typical).
3. The latest incarnation of the Pavilion was built in 1989 - hence why there are 89 steps leading up to the door of the temple.
4. The temple was made famous by a poem written in the Ming dynasty; the poem is apparently so famous that everyone in China knows it and many can quote it. It's so famous that there are even legends about how the poem came to be written.
5. The legend goes that a water-god heard the writer, Wang Bo, compose a brilliant poem in Jiujiang and so came out of the river in the form of an old man to tell him that if he could compose a similarly brilliant poem at the Tengwang Pavilion the next day, when a big banquet was being held, he would earn eternal fame. The slight problemo was that "transport wasn't so great then" (direct quote) and even by boat would be pretty slow. Luckily the water-god was, y'know, a watergod and helped out a bit with some magic wind. This whole story is represented in a stone carving as you enter the pavilion.
You're welcome, fact fans!
We had to say goodbye to Candy quite soon, but we swapped numbers and she later sent me texts apologising for having had to leave (she had to finish off her video), saying how happy she was to have met us, giving us tips on what to get for lunch and offering to help us out anytime we might need it. Aw! Left to our own devices, we abandoned all pretence of trying to learn about the temple and just ran around like idiots taking photos of anything and everything. We had photos taken of ourselves in allegedly traditional costumes - I was a princess and Nicole an emperor - which was the best use of Y35 I can imagine. The Chinese women running this particular tourist trap were hilarious. They basically stole Nicole's glasses so she'd have her photograph taken without them, manhandled us into various awkward poses and then had me pose with my arms all over the places to show of the big sleeves on my dress. If I was still capable of embarrassment after two months in China, this might have killed me, as a load of Chinese tourists congregated to take their own photos of me looking stupid; as it was I just ruined most of my photos by laughing through them. Next up were the temple gardens, which were really pretty: several levels of brightly painted pagodas and walkways, white stone bridges, lurid green ponds, stepping stones and more statues. Plenty of exercise for our cameras!
After this, we were headed off in search of either H&M or Papa John's - whichever we found first. Our master plan was to get a taxi to People's Square, which my trusty guidebook promised was the centre of the shopping district, and wander around from there. We had a brief 20 minute detour to the wrong side of the river, because apparently my guidebook isn't so trusty after all and had misprinted the Chinese characters for People's Square, but we realised something had gone wrong when our driver tried to drop us off in the middle of nowhere and refused to leave the car. Luckily my guidebook had a map of Nanchang as well, so we managed to explain where we wanted to go with this instead. (Our taxi driver was very keen to explain that it was the book's fault, not his, so he wrote down the proper name for us and taught me how to say it.) and as we managed to stumble across a Pizza Hut within minutes of getting out of the taxi our good moods remained untarnished. Pizza Hut was much more exciting than it really should be - I think I actually clapped when we were reading the menus - and I'd describe the whole thing in excruciating detail except I realise that's probably a bit boring for everyone except me. But I did have an Oreo milkshake! It cost the equivalent of 4 portions of egg-fried rice at our favourite local cafe and it was beautiful.
Post-Pizza Hut, we had a quick wander about People's Square which is less interesting than it sounds (what do you mean it doesn't sound interesting?), being basically a big empty square. We did manage to find a small underground market where we haggled for little bracelets to commemorate the day, and then it was time to find a taxi and head back to the bus station. We went to the wrong place AGAIN, although this time we didn't realise until a bit later. By which I mean I'd been having a very confusing conversation with a very confused woman in what I'd assumed was the ticket office for nearly 10 minutes before she managed to explain we weren't at the bus station and sent us off with another address. In hindsight, that building was suspiciously empty for the major bus station of such a large city, but oh well... we compensated for being a bit dim there by arguing like pros with the tuc-tuc drivers waiting to accost us on the street outside, until one agreed to take us to the right place for half her original price. We then rattled off into five lanes of traffic in a tuc-tuc made of plywood and held together with elastic tags, where our driver variously tried to cut in front of buses, mow down pedestrians and drive close enough to the pavement that passing bins might take my elbow off. Boringly, we made it alive, uninjured and to the right place... which takes me to the end of our time in Nanchang!
Will hopefully be going to Jingdezhen with Julie on Wednesday, and welcoming the full set of Jiangxi vols to Jiujiang that evening, so should have plenty to write about very soon!
Ella
xxxx
- comments
Fond parents Looks like you've got the family's bonkers gene and love of all things inane. Clapping the menu in Pizza Hut! And you know your Gran will want to know what was on the menu. We both like the wonderfully daft pic of Emperor Nicole and Princess Ella - they're making new episodes of Star Wars so you can audition.