Zhonghua Gate (Mén Chéngbao) Nanjing

1 August

Nanjing was unbelievably hot (35degC+ during mid-day, and it's rather humid). No wonder it was recognised as one of the 4 great stoves in China. We arrived around mid-day from Beijing and took the Nanjing Metro to the station (Xi'anmen) nearest to our hostel. The day was soooo hot that when we arrived at the hostel, we ended up …

How lucky was I to have visitors to my fine, fair city for the Dragon Boat Festival. No work so plenty of time for fun and games as I showed them a glimpse of what Nanjing has to offer.

Started off with my dear friend Shaun visiting from Beijing. We first met when we both started working in China together teaching for Buckland …

... Marianne was not feeling too great on Wednesday, so being the great guy I am, I headed off to check out the zhonghua gate without her. Nanjing is surrounded by a ming-dynasty city wall, which has its main gate at the south end of the city, near ...

... walls. Today's majestic walls in Nanjing, the longest of its kind in the world, are the result of that phase of construction. Zhonghua Gate, simply meaning 'Chinese Gate', is a noted attraction for tourists in the present city center. In spite of its ...

... construction of the gate. Built on the remains of the old Tang Dynasty south gate and standing at a height of 21 meters, Zhonghua Gate features four archways capped with towers. Each archway had a 1 ton gate that could be dropped to trap attacking ...

... a form of early quality control each brick used to make it was engraved by the maker in case of faults. I went to go and see Zhonghua gate, the largest of the gates at the south of the city. It had 4 layers of gates and could hold 3000 soldiers making ...

...                       After settling we found a Nanjing style restaurant and  enjoyed some Nanjing cuisine-duck, winter melon soup,  a chicken soup, and a sweet & sour ...

... the largest city gate in China as well as the best-preserved and most intricate city gate in the world.  Zhonghua Gate is double distinction of being the biggest castle-style city gate in China and a structural element of the most complicated ...

... a sleep in today as pick up time's not til 10am. so time for a leisurely brekky then we were off to the Zhonghua Gate of Nanjing City Wall where we saw more examples of Chinese ingenuity like the inner stone gate & upper level soldiers ...

... those rebelling against the Emperor). The Cemetery was impressive, with a number of large structures and statues. We continued on towards the Zhonghua Gate, the most fortified gate in the city. The gate was pretty cool with a number of exhibits about ...

... we had to rush through the sprawling grounds towards our next destination of the day. Next after modern China history was a hark to the more distant past -- Zhonghua Gate of the Ming dynasty.  This is a huge gate set within the southern city walls, ...

... , and passed a way with a lot of animal figueres. Later than we went into downtown to see the famous Zhonghua gate. The day ended with a tasty pizza in Nanjing, before we got our train back to Suzhou. The train was 3 hours delayed, but on Saturday night ...