The most famous tourist attractions are the Purple Mountain and the historical sites on and around it, and the Nanjing Massacre Memorial.

It is also a good place to shop--particularly for western food items and other such luxuries you may be missing if travelling here from elsewhere in China.

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Double rooms with private bath start at 100Y. When I checked in (in the early evening) the cheapest room available was 120Y so I gladly took it. To be honest I really wasn''t expecting much being that I was taking a cheap room in a budget hotel in a city that is known for having somewhat pricy hotel rooms (by Chinese standards). However, the room, though small, was very comfortable. It had very recently been renovated and the bathroom facilities, carpet and furnishings all appeared completely new and the room was equipped with a television and an air-conditioner.

The location of the Nanshan is also quite nice being that it is located in the middle of a rather quiet and gracefully landscaped University campus.

Breakfast is also included in this price, although I slept too late to eat mine (they stop serving at 8:30). I wouldn''t know but word has it I didn''t miss much. And the street in front of Nanjing Normal University is a great place to buy breakfast from street vendors. You can get a tasty breakfast or snack of steamed buns, dumplings, or various Chinese pastry products for less than 1 Y.

There are several little Chinese food restaurants. To my experience they were all good, cheap, and indistinguishable from each other (and most of them have English menus!). I particularly enjoyed a dish that I had at a place called Gold and Silver Cafe consisting of eggplant pieces stuffed with chicken, grilled and covered with some type of spicy sauce. I would have never thought to order this if my friend, who lives in Nanjing, had not recommended it. It was a really delicious combination, however. However, all of the entrees that I tasted in restaurants along this road were really very tasty. Most of the meals came out to about 10Y per person.

Jack's Place is a small local chain of restaurants owned by a Chinese man (whose English name is Jack) who has spent some time abroad and, during this time, apparently learned to cook some things. Upon returning to China, he opened his restaurants, which serve both western and Chinese food.

The staff seems to know their recipes well--they are able to produce tasty, or at least familiar-tasting, standard western food items. However, their knowledge of western food culture ends there. (I'm not sure if these people who are making and serving western food have ever actually eaten any of it). They aren't always sure which condiments are supposed to be offered with such foods (milk with coffee, ketchup with fries, salt and pepper with everything, etc.) and get confused on the order in which to serve things in.

Take my experience with breakfast this morning. It began last night when I was ordering my supper at the Ninghai Street location and I noticed the rather tempting looking American breakfast food selection on the menu (pancakes, French toast, omelets, etc.) I asked the waitstaff what time they opened for breakfast, and they told me nine o'clock.

Nine o'clock seemed to me a ridiculously late hour to open a restaurant with an extensive breakfast menu, particularly since the Chinese eat breakfast very early. However, when we showed up there this morning at 9:30 (only twelve hours after having asked them about this) they were still closed, so we headed over to the Shanghai street location.

They had a breakfast special there for 28 Yuan, which included pancakes, eggs, bacon, French toast, and either coffee, orange juice, or hot chocolate. This covered quite a few foods that I was missing so I ordered it.

The French toast came first (which was very good--the highlight of the meal). After I finished the French toast, I was brought a large pancake and asked for my drink selection.

Okay, I understand that the western idea of expecting your beverage at the beginning of your meal completely eludes the Chinese (you get used to that), but there seemed to me something comical about being offered orange juice upon the completion of my French toast. I find it hard to believe that anyone, in any culture, doesn't not find that combination disgusting. I chose hot chocolate.

After I had finished my pancake, they brought me my egg and ham (they were out of bacon). The egg was completely cold. I don't gather this was entirely negligent. I think they believed they were supposed to wait for me to finish my pancake for some reason.

Okay, this wasn't the best service I've ever had, but the food is decent and reasonably priced and you really can't be too picky about service in China--you'll starve.

When you arrive for lunch, they hand you a little slip of paper (it is in Chinese and in English) where you can put checkmarks in the boxes next to the things that you want. To someone who has grown accustomed to the hassle of trying to order in Chinese and hoping you don't get something really weird (like dog brains), this seemed remarkably, wonderfully convenient.

Lunch includes a sandwich with a cold drink for 15 yuan. I was ecstatic when I noticed that the first words on the menu sheet read:

Bread:

____baguette ____ciabatta

This is real "just-like-home" bread they are serving here. Most bakeries in China have no idea what a baguette or a ciabatta is. Chinese bakeries are filled with weird pastries and "bread" (which always has sugar in it for some reason). Actual western bread tastes wonderful when it has been a while since you have had some.

I ordered a chicken salad sandwich with mayonaisse and vegetables on a ciabatta with a soda-a very simple meal but highly satisfying. A very good cup of coffee with or following the meal is available for an extra 10 yuan (you have several choices including standard coffee and cappuccino). There were also salads available for an extra 10-13 yuan but I personally did not try one.

Desserts are lovely as well, there is a wonderful array of pastries (as one would expect in a good bakery) and an Italian style gelateria. Yummy.

But the highlight of my experience was the cheese shop. Cheese in China isn't easy to come across, and when you do find it, it is usually those processed slices that are wrapped up in plastic. Even the blocks of "Cheddar" and "Gouda" which you can buy at Carrefour taste a bit odd. So it was wonderful to find a place where I could buy slices cut from large blocks of a wide assortment of imported European cheeses. I left with some gruyere, gouda, and parmesan. There is a small variety of additional western grocery products available there as well so I bought some sour cream and salsa.

If you are in a hankering to grab a good western meal in Nanjing, but aren't looking to spend a great deal of money, this is a great place to do it.

Nanjing is probably most famous for being the victim of some of the worst war atrocities in history in December of 1937. Nanjing was the capital of China at the time, but the government retreated to a more protected city shortly before the Japanese occupied Nanjing. The Japanese invasion forces then raped, tortured and murdered the civilian locals by the thousands over the next month resulting in over 300,000 fatalities.

I knew before that the memorial was built at the site of mass grave that was unearthed and the bodies were put up for display. I thought this sounded like it was in pretty poor taste when I first heard but in practice it really wasn't so tasteless. The skeletons have been unearthed and examined by forensic scientists who determine their approximate age, gender and cause of death. It really hit home when you have a skeleton in front of you labelled "this is a sixty-year-old woman with a bullet through her head", "this is a 19-year-old girl with a nail driven into her skull", or "here is a six-year-old boy who has been decapitated".

The memorial also contains a rather stark looking garden with various pieces of concrete sculpture and a museum with some rather graphic photographs.

As one who tends to see the world through rose-colored glasses, maybe it is important that every once in a while I allow myself to be reminded of what a horrible place the world can be. I wouldn't say that I enjoyed this experience, but there is certainly something to be gained from it.

Purple Mountain is really enormous for a park located within such a large city. It takes thirty minutes in a cable car to get to the top of the mountain--basically the central point in the park. From there, most people walk down the mountain to look at the scenery and sites of tourist interest at various points along the mountain. When you are up in the cable car, you really get a feel for how big the place is. It makes a lush, green, peaceful retreat from the busy and polluted city of over 6 million people surrounding it.

In theory, Purple Mountain park is home to an impressive array of cultural treasures, many from the Ming Dynasty. However, they can be very difficult to find, as they are scattered about the park and little help is given to find them. There is a remarkable shortage of signs to show you where to go and the maps available are really horrible. Employees we asked for help seemed unable or unwilling to steer us in the appropriate direction.

We found a few statues, including an enormous Buddha that is very easy to find because it is close to the site where you disembark the cable cars at the top of the mountain. I am guessing it a relatively recent construction since the surface finish is chipped in places to reveal that the Buddha is made of concrete. Still, it is a lot of fun because you can climb on the Buddha--ten people can sit on comfortably on his belly. We also found some buildings which looked to be of some historical importance but were not marked in English. They were okay, but not the spectacular cultural treasures I was expecting to find. Spectacular cultural treasures may be there, we just weren't able to find any before we ran out of time and had to leave.

Another thing, for a park that is regarded as a premier tourist attraction, the pathways are horribly maintained. If you plan on walking down the mountain, you must be in decent shape and wearing appropriate shoes and clothes for mountain hiking. If you have any doubts, don't try it. Take the cable car up to the top of the mountain and then back down again. The place is a sprained ankle (or worse) waiting to happen.

Okay, so the paths weren't wonderfully well-maintained, materials to steer you in the right direction were inadequate, and I didn't find the historical treasures I was seeking. Aside from that, I really enjoyed it. The scenery was lovely, the weather perfect, and the hike across the mountain was a lot of fun. Maybe I didn't find the fascinating relics of ancient China that I sought (which probably were hiding around there somewhere), but I found a good place for a nature hike.