The Emperor's Playground

In about 4 weeks time, my brother will be visiting us in Nanjing, closely followed by my Mum and Dad and then Alasdair's sister and her family. So, looking for ideas to fill their time in Nanjing, we have decided to do a few touristy things ourselves over the next few weeks and suss out the best places to take our visitors. This weekend we took a trip to Purple Mountain to visit the Ming Tombs.

With 2 small children in tow, we were a bit wary of what appeal it might have for them but we really needn't have worried as they had a great time! In fact, they had so much fun, it made me wonder if the Emperor may have had 2 small children himself and therefore given some thought to the amusement of younger tourists 700 years later... With the stone animals and the ruins as you enter, the complex was like a historical playground for the kids!

Here are a few pictures from our afternoon out:


Olivia practises her statue pose on what seems to be an old, empty plinth!



Angus is a less serious statue!

The Spirit Path is lined with stone animals and leads to the tomb



The tomb itself

Hazy view of Nanjing from the top



Ticket to Ride, Shop, Swim...

Our swimming pool has changed its rules for getting in. Last week, we paid the man who sat by the door and walked through to the open-air pool. Now, we have to go into the same building, up 2 flights of stairs to an office to buy tickets (torn carefully from a book of impressive looking printed tickets), go back downstairs to give the tickets to the same man  by the door who piles them neatly with the others he has taken that day. Predictably, this prompted Olivia to ask "why?" and her question, in turn, made me ponder on the simple tasks that are sometimes made so complicated in China.

China is unashamedly bureaucratic and we encountered numerous examples of this when we first arrived and had to register for residency permits, etc. The police station where we registered had five numbered desks. The man at desk one checked our photos were acceptable, the man at desk 2 stamped one form, the man at desk 3 stamped a different form, the man at desk 4.... well, you get the picture! But that's almost to be expected of a government office and I had come across similar set-ups in Europe too; it's when it comes to shopping that it's more difficult to comprehend...

So, a couple of weeks ago, we ventured into town and found ourselves, for the first time, in a department store. We had visited many, many shopping malls but never a Debenhams-esque department store. We soon happened upon the children's floor and let Olivia choose something to buy with some of her birthday money. She eventually chose a Barbie handbag and we took it to the lady in the children's department with purse in hand, ready to pay. But the lady didn't take our money, she wrote us out a ticket. She handed the ticket to us and pointed to a dark corner of the store. We wandered over, rather bewildered, where we found a long desk with about 6 people sitting in a long line. We approached the first lady who smiled nicely but pointed to the end of the desk where we noticed that only one of these ladies had a cash register (begging the question what the other 5 did) so we walked over and handed over our ticket. She kept one part of the ticket, gave the carbon copy back to us and we paid our money. We then went back to the original lady in the children's department and handed over our carbon copy of the ticket and our receipt. She then took the Barbie bag back off the shelf and put it in a bag for us. Phew! This department store had 8 floors and I can only assume that each of them has a desk of 6 people and one cash register!

When I think back to shopping in UK supermarkets (and even Boots and WHSmiths),"self check-outs" were the norm. On the absolute opposite side of the coin, there are real people working every check-out in the supermarket, approximately 3 people working on every aisle, not necessarily stacking the shelves but seemingly just to advise of this week's special offers and which laundry detergent smells best, and not to forget the man who stands at the exit to stamp your receipt. Why? We have no idea but I can guarantee that his role would never be filled by a machine!

My own musings on this are that because every employer is encouraged by the government to employ as many people as possible, there is just no incentive for simplifying processes. I imagine that the man at the swimming pool was reprimanded for taking our money in that first week as it was denying his colleague upstairs a job!