Nanjing Day Tour (Part 4)

I’ve just finished uploading the food pictures from my China trip into my Facebook account this afternoon. Have yet uploaded the rest of the pictures. Maybe gonna do it some other day when I feel like it. Hahaha … Anyways, coming back with the fourth part, which also happen to be the last part of the day tour. Gonna cover on Jiang Xin Zhou (江心洲) aka Grape Island and a tiny bit of Confucius Temple (夫子庙).

The car ride from Lion Mountain to Jiang Xin Zhou (江心洲) is longer, about half an hour time. And the roads leading to the place weren’t exactly at the very best conditions. Part of the island was being bought over by some Singaporean developers to turn the island into a resort. Therefore, residents around the area were instructed to move out. Majority houses were already demolished.

As you can see, most of the houses were already demolished.

Grape Vineyard. Grape plucking is not available until July.

Our main intention of going to Jiang Xin Zhou is strawberry plucking. There are quite a few strawberry farms around the area. But our tour guide brought us to a farm which he usually goes. He claimed that these farms have the freshest vegetables, fruits and poultry. He even added that these farmers don’t even have to sell their vegetables to the markets in town. The local people would come all the way to their farms just to buy fresh vegetables and poultry.

The main entrance of the farm that we were being brought to.

Freshly grown vegetables.

We were then being led to a part of the farm whereby strawberries were grown. We were pretty much disappointed when we saw the size of the strawberries grown. They were small. Unlike those grown in the UK, plump and juicy. Despite being small in size, they were still sweet.

Small, huh?

Our tour guide helped us with the strawberry plucking too but there weren’t much to be plucked in the end. The best ones had already being plucked on the day before. If you want to get the best strawberries, it’s better to go on weekend if you don’t mind crowds.

We paid for like RMB24 for this amount of strawberries, which is about B$5.

We also bought a plastic bag full of freshly grown “chye sim” for only RMB3, which is about B$0.60. So damn cheap!

Such a poser for a cat. xD

What a sad looking dog. *aww*

Friendly looking dog but it looked like it has not showered in ages. It was wiggling it’s tail when I came forward.

Not advisable to touch these animals even if you find them cute coz you are not sure if they have rabies. Unless you have gotten yourself anti-rabies vaccination beforehand.

Nanjing Day Tour (Part 3)

Covering on Yue Jiang Tower (阅江楼) in this post.

We set out for Lion Mountain after touring around Jiming Temple. Lion Mountain is the place where Yue Jiang Tower is located. You can either choose to take the stairs from the bottom of the mountain or take the lift which can directly bring you to the top of the mountain. After hearing that we needed to climb the stairs from the bottom of the mountain to the top, my mom decided not to tag along and just wait for us at the bottom of the mountain.

But our tour guide said that she can always take the lift but lift fee is RMB3. Tour guides in Nanjing have special passes which allow them to go to all local attractions for free which includes the lift fee, I assume. So, our tour guide offered to accompany my mom if she wishes to take the lift. But all three of us – dad, Sister and I chose to take the stairs. So, she doesn’t want to be left out and decided to take the stairs with us.

It was a winding path and the stairs get steeper the higher you get. There was another family with another tour guide arriving at the same time as us. But they chose to take the lift. When the tour guide informed them that they can either take the lift or stairs, one of the girls in the group immediately responded that they will take the lift instead. Good choice, if you don’t wanna risk running out of breath. It was an exhausting climb and I was pretty much out breath when I reached the top.

We weren’t even halfway yet and my mom was already tired. LOL!

Never ending series of stairs. *sigh*

Mom’s expression – finally!

Set out for Yue Jiang Tower after a little bit of resting and some time to catch our breath.

Yue Jiang Tower from distant.

Yue Jiang Tower has a total of seven floors. It was pretty cool inside the tower so the “climbing” wasn’t that hard. When you get to the top of the building, you can see the broad river scenery. Below are the pictures of the views that we saw from the top of the tower.

Gonna cover on Jiang Xin Zhou and Confucius Temple next. Till then. Ciao~

Nanjing Day Tour (Part 2)

Coming back with the second part of Nanjing day tour. Set out for Nanjing City Wall after we had our scrumptious lunch at Nanjing Impressions (南京大牌擋). It wasn’t a long ride from Lion’s Bridge Street Food to Nanjing City Wall. It was about 5 – 10 minutes car ride.

Here is a brief description of Nanjing City Wall which I quote from one of the pictures taken with the brief introduction of the place.

Nanjing City Wall of the Ming Dynasty consisted of the Palace City Wall, the Capital City Wall, the Outermost City Wall and moats around each of them. The existing Nanjing City Wall is the Capital City Wall of the Ming Dynasty.

In the period from 1366 to 1393. Zhu YuanZhang the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, successively enlisted over a million people to build a City Wall in Nanjing on a large scale. Zig-zag-ing for 35.267 kilometers around Nanjing. The City Wall extended itself in a spectacular form, enjoying the reputation of high and firm in China. Having undergone more than 600 years, the existing Nanjing City Wall still retains it’s previous magnificence.

In 1988, Nanjing was rated as an important unit of cultural relics under national protection.

Nanjing City Wall

The adhesive that put all these bricks together was the juice of glutinous rice. Surprisingly, it can last so many years.

Xuan Wu Lake

Most favorite picture of myself throughout the entire trip.

Jiming Temple behind me.

We walked to Jiming Temple. There is nothing much to see at Nanjing City Wall apart from the view of Xuan Wu Lake. The one thing different about the temples in China and the temples in Malaysia and Brunei is that you need to pay for entrance fee, even though you went for prayers only. Entrance fee is RMB7 per person and it came along with 3 joss sticks per person.

Different god and goddess were put in different temples. You can go into different temples to say your prayers to the god or goddess you wish to talk to, but there is only one place where you can burn your joss sticks.

This is where you put your burning joss sticks after saying your prayers.

We found a special looking dog at the entrance of Jiming Temple while waiting for our tour guide to bring around his car. We were wondering what kind of animal was it. Dog? But it has the head of a lion! Then we decided that it must be a dog, couldn’t be a lion on the loose.

My father was intrigued with the nature of the dog, went “chasing” after it so that he could have a picture of it on his phone. He even stood in front of the dog and gave it a stop signal like what a traffic officer would do at the traffic light. It was such a hilarious sight. Surprisingly, the dog somehow understood his instruction and let him have a picture.

LOL!

Does it looks like a lion? Or it’s only me with bad eyes? xD

Review: Origins GinZing Eye Cream

Here comes my review on Origins GinZing Eye Cream.

Got this from Hong Kong International Airport while Sister was transiting in Hong Kong. She got it for me for about HKD$260, if I am not mistaken. Couldn’t seem to remember but all I remember was paying her B$42 for this product.

I don’t really like this at first when I started using it coz it irritates my eyes. It contains Caffeine, Panax Ginseng, Magnolia Extracts and natural optic brighteners. This product focuses on brightening and depuff. It does brighten the area around my eyes. Not drastically, but there are visible effects. I am not sure about the depuff part coz I seldom have eye bag unless I am extremely sleep deprived, only then you can see a little bit of eye bag appearing.

At first, I don’t really like the texture of the eye cream. Felt that it’s not as smooth as Shiseido White Lucent Brightening Eye Treatment. But I think my eyes felt pretty moisturized after using it for about a week. It absorbs onto my skin very quickly. The scent may not be very addictive or nice like Shiseido, Lancome or other brands, but it’s acceptable for me.

Pros:

1. Moisturizing.
2. Not expensive, compared to Shiseido White Lucent Brightening Eye Treatment which I bought for B$99.
3. Small in size, hence easy to bring around when you are traveling.
4. Fast absorption.

Cons:

1. Nearest counter is in Singapore.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Would I buy this product again? Maybe not, I am not someone who would stick to the same eye cream all the time.

Nanjing Day Tour (Part 1)

I intended to do a review post on Origins GinZing Eye Cream but I had forgotten to transfer the pictures to my flash drive this morning. So, the review will have to wait.

Sister hired a local tour guide who works for the only five-star local hotel in China that meets international standard – Jin Ling Hotel. Our tour guide arrived early. We planned to set out at 8:30a.m. but he was already waiting for us when we got down. I will be addressing him as “tour guide” coz I do not know his name. Not paying attention when he introduced himself to my Sister. I was busy reading You Drive Me Crazy by Carole Matthews.

Our first picture together for the day and I looked like I have yet woken up from sleep.

Our first stop was to the Beamless Hall. A hall which was constructed in 1381 without beam but layers of bricks and it can last till now without collapsing.

Beamless Hall （无梁殿)

Inside Beamless Hall

Pi Xiu – A non-existent beast with no tail.

We went to Sun Yatsen Mausoleum next after finished touring around Beamless Hall. Kindly take note that Sun Yatsen Mausoleum is closed on every Monday unless public holiday falls on Monday. There was still a big crowd despite Sun Yatsen Mausoleum is closed for the day.

Sun Yatsen Mausoleum. Lots of tourists tried to have peek through the gates to see what does it looked like inside the mausoleum.

Next attraction – Stone Elephant Road.

Stone Elephant Road, 615 meters long, is the first section of the Sacred Way. Along this road are six kinds of stone animals including lion, Xiezhi, camels, elephants, unicorns and horses. Carved out of whole pieces of stones in full relief with smooth lines, these animals are imposing in looks and bold in style. They not only indicate the loftiness, sanctity and glamor of the imperial tomb, but also achieve a symbolic effect of guarding the tomb against evil spirits and showing ritual customs.

Stone Elephant Road

Me & The Elephant!

Our tour guide doing all the explanations.

The stone is believed to cure illness (any sort) and hence the holes, dug by people in the past who believed in the legend.

It was already near lunch time when we finished covering the entire area. So, our tour guide dropped us off at Lion’s Bridge Food Street (狮子桥) for Nanjing Impressions (南京大牌擋). Recommended us lots of dishes. He also gave us a heads up. Food was served pretty quickly but one annoying thing was that the staff tends to ask whether you are interested to have a dish of steamed fish or maybe prawns. And they are usually very expensive, at the least RMB200.

清炖狮子头

Also known as Stewed Meatball. I believed that the pork meat was not minced, but chopped till it was smooth. They made it into balls, The soup base is cooked for six hours. It’s nice at first bite but try not to eat too much of this coz you’ll get sick of it. They used the belly parts of a pig hence the meatballs texture is smooth and juicy.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Up close

金牌煎饺

Also known as Fried Dumplings with Pork, Leek & Mushrooms. I am a big fan of fried dumplings but this was the worst that I have ever tasted. I prefer dumplings which are pan fried rather than deep fried, like the ones served at the breakfast buffet of SSAW Hotel.

Rating: 5 out of 10

王府泡椒鸡

Also known as Chicken with Pepper. It has three different tastes – sweet, sour and spicy. The chicken was roasted in the first place and then marinated in the special broth. The texture of the chicken was good and you can instantly taste sweet and sour. But I think it wasn’t spicy enough.

Rating: 9 out of 10

地锅小公鸡

Not sure what it’s called in English. It’s baby roaster cooked with potatoes in soy sauce. Typical dish but it came with freshly made finger breads. I think the breads taste nicer than the chicken. Hahaha … Nah, both were nice.

Rating: 8 out of 10

美龄粥

Known as Mei Ling Porridge. Usual porridge tastes plain or salty. However, 美龄粥 tastes sweet. It’s weird since I had the usual plain or salty type of porridge. The texture of the porridge is extremely smooth. It’s cooked with sweet potatoes. I believed that they did added in some sugar or else it couldn’t be that sweet with just sweet potatoes only.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

清炒芦蒿

Not sure what 芦蒿 is called in Chinese. Tour guide said this is one expensive vegetable in China. But none of us liked this apart from my father. He managed to eat up half of the vegetables. I only had one bite and decided that the vegetable tasted too raw for my liking.

Rating: 4 out of 10

酒酿赤豆元宵

I only had a spoon of this dessert and decided that I don’t like it. It’s fermented rice bean soup. If you don’t like rice wine, maybe this is not something you’ll like. It’s thick in texture.

The entire lunch costs us near RMB300, but it was well worth the price coz all four of us were fully fed by the end of lunch.

Shall do Part 2 soon when I have the time. Till then. Ciao~