HSR North out of Guangzhou   It was the earliest morning of the trip. It must have been a 6:00 wake-up call I'd asked for. Even through the clouded-up broken-seal windows I had in the Guangzhou hotel, I could see it was still dark outside. I'm not good in the morning. I groggily did my morning ablutions, finished packing my wheeled bag, and showed up in the lobby.

Day 4 After the week or so in Hong Kong and Macau, it was the fourth day of the group trip. It was too early for the included hotel breakfast, so the hotel provided us with one of those packaged nightmares called a boxed breakfast, which is one Circle of Hell lower than a boxed lunch, which at least can sometimes show some promise. We carried our morningtide sustenance enveloped in cardboard—the sustenance and cardboard resembled each other in appeal--onto our bus in the early gloom. The bus pulled out onto that large boulevard outside the hotel, which at this early hour was almost deserted of traffic, which in China is really saying something. Most of the new HSR stations in China (and elsewhere) are at the edge of town, and we were told it would be an hour's drive to the south. It turned out to be only about 40 minutes, and day was breaking on our arrival at Guangzhounan (check your four directional words for "nan".).

Guangzhounan   The station was new, big, and, like so many of the new stations in China, resembled a terminal at an airport rather than an urban rail station. We went through the usual security check, crossed the huge waiting room, and sat down to wait for our 8:00 train. I opened the cardboard box. It contained small packages of dry crackers and cheese. There was a small apple. There was the perennial hard-boiled egg, which, in my dining experience, shows up only in boxed meals. Thank goodness for the small container of yogurt a with plastic spoon. We dined—and I use the term loosely—pretty much in groggy silence.

We were given absolutely minimal news about the size and newness of the station and about the train we'd be getting on. This is usual for a tour, since many are less interested in details than I am but it's unfathomable for what is purported to be a tour for rail enthusiasts in general and HSR rail enthusiasts in particular. Hence, the following information about the station and the beyond-the-basics information about the train itself has been gathered after-the-fact.

We were told it was new, but now how new. While construction started in 2004, it was only in 2010 that the Metro station below opened (we didn't see it, but these remote stations really need such access). Also in 2010 service started north to Wuhan, where we'd be going today. In 2011, service also started south to Shenzhen North (preliminary to reaching Hong Kong), and it was only at the end of December 2012 that the service north to Wuhan was extended to Beijing, which is where the train we'd be taking was destined for. This means that the Guangzhou-Wuhan(-Beijing) train we'd be taking had been in service for a mere nine months.

This is the point where we should look at a map to re-orient ourselves. Copy and paste this link in a separate window:

http://www.johomaps.com/as/china/guangdong/pearldeltametro_en.html

We have a rail map of the Pearl River Delta, which should tie loose ends together. Let's start again at the bottom finding Macau and Hong Kong. On the Kowloon side of Hong Kong, find that Hung Hom MTR station which also serves intercity rail, and which we took. It crosses between Lo Wu and Shenzhen, and continues to Guangzhoudong Station. Note near the top that this route uses a modern, yet older, model CRH1 train.

Find the dotted blue line showing the route that will leave Kowloon West (the station that we visited that very first day in Hong Kong) and connect with the completed line at Shenzhen North. We can also see that this new HSR line does not serve the very center of Shenzhen, which is typical. Eventually many trains will start in Hong Kong (Kowloon), and I can't imagine how early some of them might leave if they happen to go all the way to Beijing. Only when I found this map did I fully understand how the route connects through Guangzhounan and swings around to Guangzhoubei before continuing north. This is the entire route of the Beijing-Hong Kong High Speed Railroad (Map by Alan Fan Pei). Click to enlarge to see the names of the stops in several languages, including Russian, in Cyrillic. It includes the still incomplete section to Hong Kong. We'd be taking it as far as Wuhan, where we'd change to a train going east.

Back on the map in the separate window, note the blue Metro line leaving Guangzhounan, and follow it to the intersection of blue lines. This is where our hotel was, and this would have been my route to the station had I been on my own. You also can trace the simple orange-and-blue metro connections I could have used to the hotel on my own on arrival from Guangzhoudong. But this is moot, since I would have chosen a more central hotel on my own in the first place.

China builds large rail stations, one new one always seeming to take over the size record from others. When Guangzhounan Station (Photo by Ywchow) was first built, for a short while it took its turn as the largest rail station in area in Asia, and remains the largest station in Guangzhou. It's also one of the four largest rail passenger hubs in China, and is a general transportation hub, since, in additional to the HSR trains and Metro, there are long-distance and local buses, as well as taxis, available. Architecturally speaking, note in the picture that that single canopy covers the whole building and station without any support from pillars.

I now know a lot more than when I was there about its layout. It has three levels. In the East Concourse, on Level One includes the Arrivals Hall, which includes Hong Kong arrivals (for when that connection is completed), with its customs and immigration checkpoint. On Level Two are the platforms, but also the HK departure area, again with customs and immigration. Level Three (All Three Photos by Baycrest "CC-BY-SA-2.5"), beyond the security check we'd always go through, shown here, consisted of the elevated waiting area above the platforms, and the ticket offices. On benches here is where we waited for our train and ate our … breakfast.

I'd been on HSR before, in Europe, in Japan, in Taiwan, so I knew that the trains look different, streamlined to move fast. Maybe some of the others in the group did as well. Still, while munching that dry hard-boiled egg, I thought I'd learn more about the trains in general and Chinese ones in particular. After all, this wasn't a normal tour that we were being schlepped around on, this was a tour for rail, and particularly HSR, enthusiasts.

We were told that this would be the fastest train we'd take, and that we'd change in Wuhan to a slower HSR train going east to Nanjing. We WERE informed about the speeds we'd be taking. We'd been told that there are two manufacturers in China for equipment, we'd be visiting both, and a rep from the second one we'd visit would be on the train today. That's it. You now know everything we enthusiasts had been told. I wonder if the others also felt a lack of information. Post-trip research has now filled in some interesting details, which I'll insert here, so that readers will be better informed than we were.

Locomotive Engines   We have to mentally move away here from train images from the past, where a power car up front pulled other cars. They were originally called locomotive engines. "Motive" means "moving" and is actually related to "move". "Locus" means "place" and "loco" is a variation meaning "to a place", so locomotive as an adjective means "moving to a place", and a "locomotive engine" was literally a "place-to-place moving engine", not like a stationary engine. That it dragged cars behind it is not an issue within its name.

But the phrase "locomotive engine" was split in two, and the power car itself was called either a locomotive, used as a noun, or it was called an engine. Either word could combine with "steam" or "diesel". But steam is now a thing of the past, and diesel engines are the ones usually used for trains, particularly long-distance ones. Except when they're not, as in high-speed. Not using an engine to drag cars is like when dad is rowing the kids across the lake, but then dad gets off and takes a rest, and so all the kids get their own paddles and do their own work to move through the water.

This independent style is how subway trains have run for a century, and also commuter lines. No locomotives. No engines at all. Each car "paddles" its own way, on its own power. These cars are EMUs, so let's go back a bit and take a look at them.

EMUs   Whoops! If you're picturing this kind of an emu (Photo by DickDaniels), the unofficial national bird of Australia, shown here with the red kangaroo on the Australian Coat of Arms, you've gone back too far. As much affection as I had for the emu in Featherdale Wildlife Park near Sydney (2010/19), who was taller than I was, but was bent down and pecking on the tasty-looking floppy laces on my shoes (Photo by Margoz), he's not our guy.

An MU is the type of train not pulled by an engine, but with self-powered cars. It stands for "Multiple Unit", meaning there not just one unit providing power to all the others. While some are diesel-powered, and called DMUs, many are electrically powered, hence the acronym EMU, for electric multiple unit. To illustrate EMUs on regular trains, this is a Metro-North Commuter Railroad EMU (Photo by Bebo2good1) in New York's northern suburbs, and, one more, since I can't resist, here in Sydney Central Station is a CityRail (now Sydney Trains) Australian EMU, (Photo by Jason Antony [Alexanderino]) which you would hardly confuse with an Australian emu.

But while EMUs are self-propelled, they are still controlled from one driving cab. They have the advantage of quick acceleration and quiet and pollution-free operation. Tunnel construction is easier, since there are no diesel exhaust fumes.

While these are regular trains, it's obvious that EMUs are ideally suited for high-speed operation, in which case they often have a typical streamlined nose (also, sometimes, matching tail) to cut through the wind, as in this German ICE (Photo by Sebastian Terfloth), or Inter-City Express and Japanese Shinkansen (Photo by Take-y).

CRH   What? Another acronym? No problem. CRH stands simply for China Rail High-speed, a service of China Railways, and is part of the name of the models of Chinese high-speed EMUs. These trainsets start at CRH1 and are presently planned to run to CRH6, but the first three are the ones one comes across most. The different models were originally imported or built by foreign builders such as Siemens, Bombardier, and Kawasaki, under technology transfer agreements, but in time were redesigned and built by the two local companies we'd be visiting later.

The CRH1's—we took one out of Hong Kong (see above)--and the earlier of the CRH2's, were designed for a top speed of 250 km/h (155 mph). The later CRH2's were designed for 300-350 km/h (186-217 mph). The CRH3's, one of which we took to Wuhan, were derived from the Siemens Velaro ICE3 and were designed for 350 km/h (217 mph), but have been recently restricted to 300 km/h (186 mph). Later models of the CRH3 are capable of 380 km/h (236 mph), and in test runs, some models have reached 486-7 km/h (302-3 mph).

Let's take a look. This is the front end of a Siemens Velaro China CRH3 (Photo by wiki05). The cone-shaped snub nose stands out, as is the highly sloped front window the driver looks out of. This is a CRH5 trainset (Photo by 颐园新居)—notice the logo--which shows the typical eight cars of CRH trainsets. A slightly different shape can be seen in this CRH2 (Photo by KimonBerlin). It's fun to compare it to the far more traditional green train on the next track to the left. Finally, here are a pair of CRH3's (Photo by 火车仔) en route on the Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway (with service beyond to Beijing) that we were about to take. When this route opened in December 2009, it reduced rail travel time between those two cities from 10.5 hours to just over three hours at some times, although it took us 3h40. Note two things on the picture. On Chinese HSR trains at least, the front and back look exactly alike, quite a difference from locomotive-driven trains. But then the same question we asked about the trams in Hong Kong: which train is moving away, and which is approaching?

In some ways, it was easier in Hong Kong, since there is left-hand traffic there for both road and rail, including trams. But in China, it's like it is in many countries, such as France. While road traffic is on the right, rail traffic, influenced by British engineers, is on the left. We are looking at the tail of the departing train on the left and the nose of the approaching one on the right. And with twin ends, shapes don't help!

Speed   Just what speeds are we talking about when we discuss HSR, particularly in China? There are two ways to count speed in commercial service, either by using the top speed or the average trip speed. To review the km/h speeds in a slightly simplified fashion, the CRH1's can do 250, the CRH2's 300-350, and the CRH3's 350. On that basis, the route we're on now to Wuhan, which uses the CRH3, in its inception was the world's fastest train service, averaging 313 km/h (194 mph), with a maximum in-service speed of 350 km/h (217 mph).

But then the well-reported Wenzhou HSR train crash occurred on 23 July 2011, where a CHR1 and CHR2 collided on a viaduct due to signal failure, and both trains derailed with many casualties. However, speed was not a factor, since neither train was moving at the time any faster than 99 km/h (62 mph), a very moderate speed. However, as of 2011, speed was lowered across the entire system nationally to a maximum of 300 km/h (186 mph), so these CRH3's are not allowed to use their maximum speed.

But when this route held first place worldwide for average high speed ever, at the same time, a section within it held the second-highest average high-speed ever record of 283.7 km/h (176 mph), and guess what—it's now the highest! In other words, this route held for China the two top places, and with trains no longer running at the top speed, the second place has moved to the top! Following that speed are lower (but not much lower) speeds on some of France's TGV routes and Japan's Shinkansen.

In actuality, we were told on the train that we'd go over the limit by a hair and reach 306 km/h (190 mph), which is exactly what we did, which we could see by watching the speed readout on the front of the car (below). After we changed trains at Wuhan to go east to Nanjing, we were told we'd be going at a slower high speed of 200 km/h (124 mph), which, in retrospect, would have probably made it another CRH1. Most of the trains we took after this one leaving Guangzhou were still high-speed, but at lower rates. They were all modern in style, including the one to Tibet, but that was a rather slow train, as were a couple of others.

Comparing the two trains we took on this day tells a lot. Guangzhou to Wuhan, a distance of 1069 km (664 mi), on a CRH3 took us just 3h40, while Wuhan to Nanjing, a distance of 516 km (321 mi) took us just 4h00. In other words, the second trip was just about half the distance of the first, yet took twenty minutes longer. So there's high speed, and then there's high speed. But either is better than a regular train.

We'll talk about the Shanghai maglev (magnetic levitation) train later, but it's worth noting this. The second train, at 200 km/h, ran at only 46% of the maglev's speed. The first train's 306 km/h was only 71% of the maglev's speed. When that first train used to run at 350 km/h, then it was an admirable 81% of the maglev's speed. So how fast was the top (not average) speed of the short distance of the maglev? 431 km/h (268 mph), the exact speed we experienced a couple of days later.

The Word "Train"   Let's leave for a moment the world of the civil engineer and step into the world of a "civil" linguaphile. (I love that word and wish I'd made it up, but it is in a couple of dictionaries.)

Very frequently, words lose the original basis for their being formed, but continue nevertheless. A person who repairs shoes is called a shoemaker, although almost none of them actually make shoes anymore. Still, we keep the name and think nothing of it. With the rise of the EMU over the last century, the same has happened to the word "train", although people are even less aware of that than with other words.

It started with the French word traîner, which means to drag. The only other common language I can find that has a similar word is the Italian trainare, with the same meaning. It seems that an early meaning of the noun train in Old French was in reference to the train of a gown being dragged behind, and by the end of the 14C, trailing parts of gowns were also called trains in English. As of 1820, the word was also applied in the railroad sense to an engine "dragging" cars/carriages/coaches behind it. In that sense, a train is a "dragger".

The word spread far and wide. In the Italic (Romance) languages, Italian has treno, Spanish, Catalan, Romanian tren, Brazilian Portuguese trem. (European Portuguese uses comboio, with the imagery of a convoy!) Beyond that, Irish has traein and Basque has trena. But the only other Germanic language besides English that uses a variation of the word is Dutch, which has trein. But what the other Germanic languages use is interesting.

In English, "drag" and "tug" are similar in meaning. Although the latter tends to imply short, repeated movements, the meaning is still similar. Therefore a "dragger" and a "tugger" should mean much the same thing. However, while "tugger" doesn't appear, "tug" as a noun does, and also has referred to something dragging something since 1817, but in a maritime sense, a vessel dragging another vessel, in other words. a tug(boat). Yet this is the root used in the other Germanic languages, not on the water but on land, to mean "train". For "train" Danish and Norwegian use tog and Swedish tåg (both rhyme with "rogue"); German uses Zug, pronounced TSUG, so there is that T-element. The point here is that the image evoked by all these variations is that the vehicle you're riding in is essentially being called a "tugger", and thus a "dragger".

The Russic (Slavic) languages have various words for "train" that I cannot comment on, but I can comment on the Russian word (and the Ukrainian, which is similar), since the image it evokes is so precise. One of the words in Russian that mean "to go", specifically by a vehicle, is ездить (yez.DIT'). It appears with a prefix as поездить (po.yez.DIT'), with the varied meaning "ride, travel about a little". From this latter verb comes поезд (PO.yezd), in Ukrainian spelled поїзд, both of which mean "train". The imagery here has nothing to do with dragging or tugging. Instead, the vehicle you're in is described more as a "rider" or "traveler". Describing a train as a traveler would seem a bit more elegant than describing it as a dragger or tugger.

But the bottom line is, now that EMUs are so common, each car moving on its own power, nothing is being dragged, so the imagery of the word "train" has now become obsolete in all the above languages—but not Russian or Ukrainian, which never used that imagery. Of course, no one realizes this obsolescence—or cares about it, other than the occasional "civil" linguaphile.

On to Wuhan and Nanjing!   So, with much more rail knowledge now than I, or presumably any of us on the tour, had, as I finish my hard-boiled egg in the Guangzhounan waiting room, let's all take the escalators down one level to Platform 5 (Photo by Baycrest "CC-BY-SA-2.5"), where what we now know is our CRH3 EMU is waiting for us. Note the cleaning staff. Our first-class car is toward the back. We'll be on this train, as mentioned, for 3h40, from 8:00 to 11:40. I've since found out online that there's another train in 15 minutes, at 8:15, one that leaves from the 1908 station in the north part of town, Guangzhoubei, which also serves regular trains. But that later train is not quite as fast and won't allow for our Wuhan connection.

While we've seen other Chinese rail tickets, let's look at a ticket for this route, although the arrow shows it to be in the opposite direction (Photo by Ywchow). On this ticket, we'd go to car 13 and take seat 05, although Wendy told us that we could sit anywhere in the two dozen seats for our group. And this is our exact route (Map by Alan Fan Pei). Click to enlarge to read the names of the stops. When we change at Wuhan, the next train will take us two black dots to the east to Nanjing, and the next day, another train will take us one black dot directly further east to Shanghai.

This is our first-class coach from the back (Photo by 颐园新居), with two-by-two seating. This is a front view of a first-class coach (Photo by Ywchow). The major difference that I can tell in a second-class coach (Photo by Baycrest - "CC-BY-SA-2.5") is that the seating is two-by-three. The red dots at the far side are the digital readout of speed and time. The digital readout that we had was an LED display (Photo by HKFumi) that shows the train number, time, current train speed, and temperature. If I remember correctly, it flipped between external and internal temperature.

One negative aspect had nothing to do with the train, and it soon resolved itself, anyway. The tour director had decided that, Americans perhaps being a little too casual, whenever we were to meet Chinese officials (that first day I skipped apparently being an exception), we should dress up. Thus, despite the unbearable heat we were having in China in the month of September (that he'd picked for political purposes that didn't pan out), we were asked to bring some dressier clothes. I always pack very sparsely, yet I packed a jacket, and some nicer shoes. So as we boarded our train, we looked like we were ready for a Board meeting somewhere.

Sure enough, an official appeared to visit with us, accompanied by several young men. He spoke English, but a bit haltingly, and the young men supplemented what he had to say. It is still unclear to me what the director expected the man to do on a busy train. I'd had some visions of a lecture, with a lot more information about the train, so I wouldn't have to wait until I got home to learn it was a CRH3 I had been on.

The man turned out to be Sun Bangcheng, who is the Chief Engineer of the Tangshan Railway Vehicle Company, one of two such domestic companies that build high-speed trains in China. They build the CRH3, obviously including the one we were on, and we'd be visiting the company later out of Beijing and seeing Mr Sun again (we'd also be visiting the other company). It turns out that the diminutive Mr Sun was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest person we met in China. First of all, he showed up wearing jeans! My jacket then went immediately onto the hook next to the seat, and stayed in the suitcase for the rest of the trip. No, he didn't lecture, but he came down the aisle where our group was sitting and chatted about trains and all sorts of things. He also handed out his business card. What a pleasant man. What a pleasant time with him.

But the high point of his visit is when he offered to give us all a cab visit with the train driver. Picture it as being like getting into a plane cockpit to see the pilot. I think he took about four of us with him each time, so that would have been about six trips up front for him. When it was my turn, we tramped from the back of the train, through second class, up to the cab car. We also discovered for the first time that first class is not the top class, because the rear part of the cab car consists of what they like to call VIP Seating or Premier Class, beyond which is the train driver's compartment (Photo by Wuyouyuan). We noted that Premier Class has two-and-one seating.

But we were privileged to go beyond the VIP Seating and physically enter the inner sanctum (forward sanctum?) of the train driver. There was room behind him for us to stand and watch for a few minutes in that oddly-shaped, cone-like compartment with the slanted window up front. As you can tell, the Chinese take their train personnel very seriously, and upper train officials wear serious-looking uniforms, including the military-style hat you can see in the picture. But the train driver goes one step further. He wears white gloves.

If watching the countryside speed by looking out of the side windows on a high-speed train is fun, looking straight ahead is breathtaking as you whoosh into the void and slice through the air around you, while the train seems to devour the tracks below. It was a unique experience.

And we noticed something odd, but when it was explained to us, it made perfect sense. We've all had the experience of zipping along a superhighway and succumbing to its hypnotic effect, allowing our minds to wander and even making us sleepy. To resist that hypnotic effect, the driver kept on pointing, to the left, to the right, again and again. We were told he had to point to every train signal, to show that he'd seen them. Maybe so, but one got the impression he was pointing to even more than that. Still, it's an interesting remedy.

After the meager breakfast, a lunch was welcome. Carts had come through selling drinks and snacks, but otherwise, the CRH3 had a buffet car (Photo by Ywchow), where Wendy led the surprisingly few of us that were interested. I must say, this food service was a disaster. Other than more snacks, on the counter were three piles of styrofoam trays. If Wendy hadn't asked in Chinese what each one was—also the price, which was reasonable—we wouldn't have known one pile from the other. Actually, once we knew that one was pork (which I took), one chicken, and one beef, one couldn't tell, anyway. Each tray was enveloped in clear wrap, and had about five compartments. One had the mystery meat, one had rather dry white rice, and the other had various mystery vegetables. They came with throw-away chopsticks. It was not a "happy meal".

Wuhan is on the south side of the Yangzi, and today has seven bridges and one tunnel crossing it. But I'd read in Frommer that the first bridge to do so was opened only in 1957, carrying a roadway on the upper level and trains below. Before that bridge it could take an entire day to barge railcars north-south across the river. It's officially called the Wuhan Yangzi Bridge, but is more commonly known as the Wuhan First Bridge (Photo by Fllee), not only because it was the first bridge across the Yangzi in Wuhan, but because it was at the time the furthest bridge downstream anywhere! In other words, one could sail upstream from the mouth of the Yangzi and not pass under a bridge until this one, well across the country. Yet on today's map, there are several bridges even in Wuhan itself downstream from it (one of which our second train later crossed). I didn't expect Wendy would know if we'd cross, or even get to see the bridge, but I expected our esteemed director to have an idea. No such luck. The new rail station was on the east side of town, and when we were on the second train, I at least made sure I looked out at the river, even though I couldn't see the First Bridge. No one else was even made aware that we were crossing a river as important as the Yangzi. I just shook my head.

But we had a layover in Wuhan, maybe 1 ½ hours, and we settled down in the waiting area for the connecting train. It was convenient having our luggage with us, and I was sure to pack away my jacket, change into my usual sandals, and go into the men's room to change my shirt. I'd be more comfortable from then on. Those that hadn't eaten the mystery meat on the train were directed to a cafeteria line. I took a look, and no one knew what anything was that they were choosing. I was more satisfied with what I had had on the train earlier.

The second train got us into Nanjingnan in the late afternoon. By clicking, you can follow on this rail map (Map by Howchou) the blue line from Guangzhou to Wuhan (and on to Beijing), and then the green line from Wuhan to Nanjing, and then on to Shanghai, which we'd do the next day. The main purpose of stopping in Nanjing was to break up the trip to Shanghai, but Frommer gives Nanjing two stars; I think I agree, but the two half-day visits were nice enough but not enough time.

Nanjing   We said earlier that Nanjing meant "South Capital" in contrast to Beijing, the "North Capital", and for a while, Xi'an ("Western Peace") was called Xijing ("West Capital"). Nanjing was the capital of China twice, in the first years of the Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, and again in the 20C, when it was the capital of the Republic of China from its beginning in 1911 to the Japanese invasion in 1937.

Knowing our directional words comes in very handy. As you can tell from the name Nanjingnan (Photo by S37), this new station (2010) is to the south of town. Although it was getting dark in the late afternoon, we did not see as spectacular a view of the station as this, since we were shuffling off to the tour bus. One's mind begins to swim with statistics about new Chinese rail stations, but at least at the present, Nanjingnan is the world's second largest rail station in terms of gross floor space. But check again tomorrow.

You'll have to forgive my occasional griping about being on a tour. Yes, if I'd been alone, I'd have looked around the station a bit more and taken the metro into town, but without the tour, I wouldn't have met Mr Sun and had the cab visit. I'd checked in Frommer earlier what Nanjing had to offer, and what interested me. When I saw on the bus we'd be entering the town from the south, and cutting right through the City Wall, I asked the local guide in the bus if we'd at least pass the Zhonghua Gate, also known as the Gate of China. Well, no, that's to our left. Would we see the City Wall. Well, a little bit. That's when someone asked, knowing the Yangzi flows though Nanjing as well, if we could drive over a couple of blocks to see the river, and the local guide said, as reported earlier, the infamous line "That's not in the itinerary", for which Wendy reprimanded her, which I found out when I checked with Wendy the next day.

I think it's easiest to give the reader a feeling of place by first showing an overview on this map, which you should copy and paste in a separate window, and keep it handy for the rest of the posting:

http://www.johomaps.com/as/china/jiangsu/nanjing/nanjingmetro.html

It's a good map and you should understand quickly what was available to do and see, as suggested by Frommer, and of that, what we actually did. What we DIDN"T experience, but I still found to be of interest and would have included had I been alone and had allowed more than two half-days, I'll include as well.

Our Nanjing visit involved two activities, one that evening on arrival and one the next morning, and I would have made two further additions. Let's start at the bottom of the map. In the center you see the dotted green rail line where Nanjing South Station crosses the blue metro line. While our bus drove into town, let's instead fantasize taking the metro five stops north to Zhonghuamen.

My first addition to the visit would have been the Gate of China and the Nanjing City Wall the tour bus had driven through nearby. At this metro stop, you see a dotted blue rail line crossing, since the older Zhonghuamen Railway Station is (apparently—I wasn't there!) right near the Zhonghuamen itself (Photo by Vmenkov). I think we can see from the multiple roofs the accuracy of what I've read, that this gate, first built in 1386, is very complex in structure and actually consists of four rows of gates. It could house 3000 soldiers, who could ambush anyone caught between the gates. I think we can also see when we look at the main entrance (Photo by Kanga35), which is charming despite the fake period soldiers, that there a complex structure within of multiple gates. Zhonghuamen is the biggest and best-preserved of the City Wall's original 13 gates.

The Nanjing City Wall was built between 1366 and 1386 by the founder of the Ming Dynasty, who established Nanjing as the capital. 200,000 laborers were used, who moved 7 million cubic meters of earth. At 33 km (20 mi) it was the longest city wall in the world. Happily, much of it remains, but in segments. Look at the map again in the gate area. You can see the wall indicated, with a moat on the outside. Follow the wall remnants on the right, around a park and lake, and on the left, as it nears the Yangzi. We did get to get closer to the Ming wall, since it was near our hotel north of the lake, and we also drove along the City Wall (Photographer Unnamed) the next morning on the way to the park. At one point the bus got so close that we were able to easily see what is one of the most interesting details about the wall. Each brick in it is labeled (Photo by Vmenkov), as this closeup shows. This writing, put there when the bricks were made centuries ago, indicates the markings of the brickmakers and their supervisors, which was an early form of quality control. Seeing a wall of marked bricks at arm's length from the bus made we feel that we did see the wall, after all. Though not the gate.

The left side of the map indicates the Rape of Nanking Memorial, actually called the Nanking Massacre Memorial Hall, to commemorate the victims of the Japanese Invasion of 1937. We didn't see it, either, and perhaps it's just as well, as Frommer points out that it's a little heavy-handed and overdone, even given the seriousness of the matter. One can commemorate the victims from a distance. I'd heard of the massacre and always wondered why it took place in Nanjing and not somewhere else. Only now do I realize that at the time, Nanjing was the capital of the Republic of China, the last year that that was the case.

Let's continue on the map, fantasizing taking the metro from the station at the gate just one stop north and walking a bit east to where a thin strip of water crosses the area. In actuality, we did come to this area in the bus as our first activity in Nanjing. It was early evening, and was already dark. We parked a few blocks away, and walked down a pedestrian street to the riverbank. This is the Quinhuai River, a local tributary of the Yangzi, and in on its bank at this point is the entertainment and shopping area known as the Fuzi Miao (Z=TS), which means, rather surprisingly, the Confucius Temple. Although Frommer had described it, so I was warned, it was still a real eye-opener.

I suppose I'm more used to the situation in Europe, where a cathedral, particularly in a smaller city, is surrounded by market stalls dating back centuries, in some cases even leaning against the building. So when Frommer said that the center point of this shopping and entertainment area was a temple dedicated to Confucius, I suppose the image of combining a religious building and a marketplace was not totally unfamiliar. After 2-3 blocks walking down the rapidly darkening pedestrian street (Photo by Vmenkov) from where the bus left us off, a street that had a lot of fashionable shops in it, at the corner we turned right at the McDonald's, whose very presence already makes some kind of a statement. We were on an open plaza with steps going down to boats in the water. I assumed at the time it was a lake—I had not known we'd be going here and never had had any chance until now to look at a map to orient myself—and now know it was the river. To our right we saw a slight distance the temple, and could see through its open front area a statue of Confucius. I understand now after more reading that the whole area was once a center of learning as well. I've since read that 17 centuries ago, the first of a couple of universities was located in the area of the original temple, and over the centuries it was a wealthy residential area. Now it's shops, restaurants, bars, hotels.

The local guide told us little, at least of the sort of thing I like to know. It was dark now and was just a matter of having us look around at the spectacle of all the lights (Photo by Dick Rochester) on the boats and on all the buildings around the plaza, many of which had pagoda-like roofs. It was like being lost in a hell of holiday Christmas lights going on ad infinitum. Click on the previous picture to enlarge it and to ensconce yourself in the whirl of activity. Keep moving right and lo and behold! you'll actually find the McDonald's where we turned onto this plaza from the side street. Now remember those white light columns and the blue pagoda and let's turn the view to the right, over the river (Photo by SQFP). This shows the lights on the boats better and the view of, and across, the narrow river.

Fuzi Miao was spectacle; it was gaudy kitsch; it was like an open-air shopping mall; it was like a Chinese Disneyland. You wanted to hate its gaudy taste, but you kept on staring. That's the best I can say about it. I wonder what Confucius thinks, sitting in the middle of all this.

Hot Pot   But this first activity in Nanjing took place at supper time. Given the day's bleak breakfast, and the bleak train lunch or Wuhan cafeteria fare, coupled with the fact that the location of this first activity was a food center, we were ready for a decent meal. The guide had pointed out earlier on the bus that she knew a good restaurant that served hot pot, and she'd take anyone there who wanted to go. Given that the weather continued to be so hot, even in these evening hours, sitting around a meal that had the word "hot" in its name seemed vaguely unwise, but it was traditional, and worth doing. About a dozen people, or half the group, went with her, and the others wandered off in search of other fare, taking—pardon the pun—pot luck. Some said later they ate at McDonald's.

Let's start with the image of fondue, sometimes called Swiss Fondue, which has melted cheese in the pot, and diners dip in bread using long, slender forks. The word fondue is the past participle, feminine form, of the French fondre, "to melt", so it literally means "melted". But the concept has been generalized beyond cheese. Sometimes the pot contains chocolate for dipping fruits. And, to move closer to our central topic, the pot can contain things that are not melted at all, namely hot oil or broth, for dipping meat and vegetables. Fondue bourguignonne, literally "Burgundy fondue", uses hot oil for dipping meat with those slender forks. And fondue chinoise, literally "Chinese fondue" uses hot broth for dipping meats and vegetables, but with chopsticks (Photo by Popolon). And another name for fondue chinoise is hot pot. Hot pot migrated from China to Japan during the 20C, where shabu-shabu is based on it, parallel to the similar sukiyaki, which is apparently more traditionally Japanese. I had the two latter dishes when in Japan; as a matter of fact, now that I've had hot pot in China, at one time or another, I've dined on all the dishes mentioned in this paragraph.

Hot pot in China has a history of more than a millennium. It's also called Mongolian hot pot, because that's where it seems to have originated. It spread to southern China during the Tang Dynasty, and became most established during the Mongolian-led Yuan Dynasty. By the 20C, hot pot was popular throughout most of China. The ingredients that are dipped into the broth to be cooked include, among other things, thinly sliced meat, vegetables, mushrooms, and seafood (Photo by Chensiyuan). I've read that in some places in China the central pot is divided in two (Photo by linan0827), with a differently flavored broth in each. And that's exactly what we had in Nanjing.

So to describe our own hot pot experience, we crossed the plaza and found that our restaurant was one flight up, which reminded me of the marvelous dinner I had in Taiwan (2009/14). I'd found my way across Taipei by metro and a long walk to a Mongolian Barbecue restaurant that was well-known, and walked up a flight of stairs. I managed to get a table with sign-language, and dined with a group of English-speaking college students. Great evening. But Mongolian Barbecue is misnamed, in that it isn't Mongolian nor a barbecue. It's purely Taiwanese stir-fry, but that doesn't make it any less tasty.

But here in Fuzi Miao we walked upstairs in the heat to find that the restaurant wasn't air-conditioned, and plenty of hot pots were heating up the inside air. Our half-group sat at two tables, and ordered from a menu that included English descriptions. Although we each ordered what we wanted, after a while of dipping, things got out of control and we had a mish-mash, each person tasting items others had left. But we did have a divided hot pot, with one broth spicier than the other. And the design was charming, and so Chinese, as compared to the above picture of a split hot pot. The two parts of the pot formed a yin-yang symbol (Image by Klem).

The hot pot was pleasant enough, and it was nice that it was so communal, but the hot weather was a major factor during the whole meal. And the evening doesn’t even begin to compare with my Japanese experience with sukiyaki in Takayama. If you don't remember it, or never read it, I strongly urge you to refer to 2009/40. It was one of my most memorable travel experiences ever. Actually, the entire Takayama experience was so memorable that I found myself writing haikus on the spot. Take a look.

Another glance at our Nanjing map shows we can get back on the blue line and take it seven stops north to Nanjing Railway Station, one of the traditional stations in town, where we'd leave the next day for Shanghai. Our hotel was just west of it, and in actuality, our bus followed this route north to the hotel. From the glass elevator on the front of our hotel, we could hazily see the lake and the City Wall. Unfortunately, this was the hotel where I've already reported that, as I entered my room, there was a puddle in the hall rug under a leaking air conditioner, and I had to have my room changed. But it was only one night, and the hotel was otherwise reasonably OK.

After breakfast on Day 5 of the group trip, we piled our bags into the bus since we'd be leaving Nanjing in the mid-afternoon, and we proceeded to go to the east of Nanjing to the large park on our map that is the location of Zijin Shan (Photo by Farm), or Purple-Gold Mountain. It gets its name because at dawn and dusk its peaks are often covered by purple and gold clouds. The park is a haven of many heritage and scenic sites.

Frommer points out two locations of interest in the park, one of which I'd have made my second addition to the Nanjing visit, as it has two stars, and one that was our second Nanjing activity, which has one star.

Frommer states that the highlight of the park is the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. Sun Yat-sen (Image from the Library of Congress, colorized by Militaryace) was of course, the founding father and first president of the Republic of China, who played an instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. He remains revered in both mainland China and Taiwan today.

He died in 1925 and construction of the mausoleum lasted until 1929, when he was buried there. Not having been there, I understand the mausoleum reclines on a mountain slope. From the entrance at the arched gate (Photo by Universe729) in the square below, it's more than 700 meters/yards to the top and the main hall and vault (Photo by Jiong Sheng) containing the marble sarcophagus (Photo by Px820). It's reached by 392 steps (Photo by The Land of Smeg), as seen from this view from the summit. I suppose I'm rationalizing, but the local guide did say when I asked her that the heat would have made those steps more exhausting, anyway.

But even Frommer admitted that the park was much more peaceful surrounding the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum, our morning activity, also known as the Ming Tomb. While it's not named on our map, it's located in the park southwest of Sun Yat-sen, not quite as far as the adjacent station on the red line, so this is where we were able to drive close to the City Wall. It's the tomb of the founder of the Ming Dynasty, the first Ming Emperor of the 14C, and the only Ming emperor buried in Nanjing. It was also the model for the later Ming tombs near Beijing.

I would like the reader to compare two different versions of the same tour, the minimal one given by the local guide (which I'm sure reasonably satisfied a lot of people) and my more informed tour, now that I've researched what we had seen. From the bus we entered the park and came across two paths. The guide sent us up the right-hand path to see the animal statues on either side, a ten-minute warm walk, then ten minutes back. Then she took us up the longer path to the left to a point where a number of structures lay on one's left side, apparently the tomb area. She waited at the entrance while we had maybe a half hour to keep walking through pavilions and statues to a high stone structure. A small entry led up a long tunnel-like staircase (most didn't make it this far, but I went all the way) leading to a terrace with a view back over the area we had just crossed. She had told us that the tomb wasn't really visible, but was "in the hillside" against which that final structure was built. Otherwise, we didn’t really know what much of what we were seeing actually was.

I would indicate what she did—which I know can be very typical, since many people aren't really all that interested—as a perfunctory showing us of "stuff", OK, Chinese stuff, during a sweltering walk in an attractive park. Otherwise I felt disoriented, confused, underinformed, and, of course, hot. The only information I was interested to get was when we were on that long path with her and I asked about the weather. She said it was typical for September. I asked about changing leaves, which I had experienced so memorably on my autumn trip to Japan. She said if we'd come in October, all these trees we were walking under would be red and yellow, and it would be comfortably cool. This comment of hers was the most invaluable thing I learned from her.

Now here's my tour of the same location, which I not-too-modestly will call a quality tour. Come take it with me and we'll both be better oriented and informed. I've already enjoyed this park visit more in the writing than in the actual doing. We didn't have a map of the park and I still don't, but I believe that the park entrance we had taken—very possibly because we were on a bus and not entering individually—was a side entrance leading to the middle of what I now know is called the Shéndào, or Sacred Way. Apparently because we were in the middle of it was why we ended up walking in two different directions. At the time, I just got the feeling that the park was decorated helter-skelter with statues. Now I know that the far end of the "animal path" is where we logically would have started, and we never entered at the monumental main entry gate known as the Da Jin Men, or the Great Golden Gate (Photo by Vmenkov).

That would be the beginning of the Sacred Way to the tomb. A sacred way in China is traditionally an ornate road leading to a tomb of a major dignitary. In other words, these animal statues weren't just a park decoration, they were a fundamental part of the Sacred Way. I now know that the entire winding Sacred Way runs for 1.8 km (1.1 mi), and we apparently walked most of it, thinking it was two separate paths. I also understand that the first section with the animal statues is called the Stone Elephant Road, and is actually the more interesting part.

The Stone Elephant Road is lined with statues of six kinds of animals, often in pairs, which "guard" the tomb. Obviously, we expect to see elephants (Photo by Kimon Berlin); this excellent photo shows not only elephants but shows just what the narrow path looks like. Here's a kneeling elephant (Photo by Farm), and also a pair of horses (Photo by Farm). You can see a camel (Photo by H. Grobe) or several standing and kneeling camels (Photo by H. Grobe), a seated lion (Photo by Farm), or a pair of standing lions (Photo by Farm).

But those are statues of four kinds of real animals. China has a rich mythology, and the other two animals on the Sacred Way are legendary. One is the xiezhi (X=SH, ZH=CH) (Photo by Vmenkov). A xiezhi is a righteous and just animal. When it sees a fight, it rams the wrong party, and when it hears an argument, it bites the wrong party. In other words, it settles disputes by roughly identifying the party at fault. As such, the xiezhi is a symbol of justice and law. Qing and Ming public officials wore a xiezhi badge as a symbol of office; military police in Taiwan wear a similar badge; and in mainland China, a xiezhi is engraved on the gavels of judges. What a marvelous symbol.

The other mythological creature is the qilin (Q=CH) (Photo by Vmenkov), which is said to appear as an indication of the imminent passing of a sage or illustrious ruler. It's a good omen thought to bring prosperity, and also serenity. It's often shown with what looks like fire all over its body, as can be seen in the picture of this statue.

The other section of the Sacred Way we walked on is called the Wengzhong Road, which has statues of guardian figures, that is, civil and military officials, called wengzhong. This is a government minister (Photo by Vmenkov) and this is a general (Photo by Farm).

I wish I'd known all this at the time, including the following visit of the tomb area itself, which now makes much more sense, including the dizzying number of gateways and pavilions. Turning off the Wengzhong Road section of the Sacred Way, the tomb area is seen through the decorative Lingxing Gate (Photo by Vmenkov), which leads along to the Wen Wu Fang Men (Photo by KongFu Wang), or Gate of the Civil and the Military, a reflection on the previous statues. This gate finally really gives you a feel of entering the tomb complex. After that comes other structures and some ruins, and eventually one comes to that final stone building. Although it wasn't fully clear to me at the time, I now understand the layout.

The emperor and his queen weren't "buried in the hillside". They were buried in a tumulus, or burial mound, 400 meters/yards in diameter, created for that very purpose. In front of it was built a stone building half-embedded in the front face of the tumulus. This is the building with the terrace on top. It's called the Ming Lou (Photo by Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch), or Ming Mansion. The crenellations along the terrace can be seen, in front of the colorful upper structure. When I'd gotten to this point it was unclear what to do, but that opening in the façade seemed to beckon.

Entering the "hole in the wall", I saw this tunnel-like staircase (Photo by Vmenkov). The last thing I needed after all the walking was to climb this, and I'm sure I was the only one of our group that made it up the stairs and to the terrace—along with quite a number of Chinese. When I reached the top of the stairs, huffing and puffing, some smiling Chinese gentlemen egged me on, to which I smiled back. But first I looked back down the staircase (Photo by Vmenkov). The top of the stairs is at the back of the structure, so one has to walk around the upper structure to get to the terrace (Photo by Vmenkov), with the view to the right, over the crenellations (Photo by Vmenkov). It was a long haul, but now we've made it.

Actually, the UNESCO World Heritage Site encompasses all the "Imperial tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties", so in addition to this tomb of the first emperor, the 13 Ming Dynasty Tombs to the northwest of Beijing, which I did not see, are also included as though they were one site. As we said, the later ones were modeled on this Ming tomb, which we can see by the much wider Stone Elephant Road (Photo by Richardelainechambers) at that site.

We stopped in the blessedly air-conditioned restaurant in the park for another very nice lunch. Memorable were the 2-3 men working as greeters, who were dressed in traditional, colorful silk costumes, including the pillbox-like hat. We then returned to the hotel area, which is where the older Nanjing Station is. Until 2010, this was the main Nanjing station, before many of the high-speed trains were rerouted to Nanjingnan, where we had arrived. We boarded our train for the couple of hours it took to Shanghai.