Despite the large amounts of beer consumed the evening before, I woke up hangover free. We headed to a nearby noodle shop for breakfast. The food must have been passable, but I cant remember what I had so definitely not amazing. I was feeling a bit dehydrated, so the quest to get some water started when we left the shop. We found a small convenience store on one of the backstreets and stocked up for our journey. Back at the hotel, we packed up, checked out, and ordered a Didi to take us to Nanjiecun. The journey took about 40 minutes and after we left the city, we were just on a straight road through the countryside.
We arrived in Nanjiecun, and our first stop wad the hotel in town. We had been unable to make a reservation online as the system required the input of a mainland ID number. However, when we turned up at the hotel, we found out that they do still accept foreigners. Check in was fairly quick, and we headed up to our rooms. The hotel was a little different from normal hotels as there was another reception style desk on each floor, manned by
a woman. I kind of imagined it to be like the old Intourist hotel I visited in Estonia. The guide there explained that each floor had a desk manned by old woman to record and goings of each person staying on the floor. Im sure that wasnt the purpose here, but it did feel a bit like we were being watched. The room was very nice. I really liked the view from the window, as I could see some of the towns propaganda boards. It reminded me of a bit of North Korea.
Once settled in, it was time to head back out. We had some time before the guide picked us up, so we headed to East is Red Square, which is the centre of town and right next to our hotel. The square was pretty surreal, not the big statue of Mao in the centre, but the large portraits of Stalin, Lenin, Engels, and Marx, that surround him. There was also music playing that I presume was propaganda. It was pretty quiet, too, although that was probably due to heat as it was a scorcher of a day. It was reminiscent of North Korea, the
only thing missing was the men in black suits watching your every move. We took a short walk to the main street that leads onto the square. There were some large propaganda billboards on the top of some of the buildings. These boards displayed different historical figures, who helped the new China, the PRC. Some of these figures may not actually be real, but they are good for propaganda purposes. We headed down one of the side streets and came to a small museum about the town. Since there wasnt a lot of information in English, I had to just look at the pictures to get some information.
One of the guides from the tourist association picked us up in a large electronic golf cart type thing and drove us to the tourist centre. Before heading over there, we went straight to the collective canteen for lunch. I wasnt that hungry as I was still feeling full from breakfast, however I cannot refuse Chinese canteen food as it takes me back to my (Chinese) uni days. Since it was quite late, the canteen was pretty quiet. We loaded a card up with some money and had a look around
the few stalls that were open. There was one stall that was filled with different options. I got a huge mound of rice and three dishes. One dish was pork and peppers, which is a firm favourite of mine. Another was stir fried bok choy, which is simple and tasty. The third was an eggplant dish, I love all the different eggplant dishes available in China, this one was battered and fried and served in a gravy, very delicious. The town also makes its own beer, so we partook in some cans of the local Nanjiecun lager. It was pretty decent, I just wish it had been served chilled but China seems to like warm lager.
Feeling stuffed after lunch, we walked across to the visitors centre and paid our entrance fees.
