(From our trip in April 2018)
We headed off for another day of adventures. First we went to buy train tickets for our trip to Shanghai in a few days. Whilst there I had another “celebrity” moment. This lady was lined up to get tickets also and she was just so goddamn in love with me – I mean derrr. Remember I mentioned previously that being blonde and “larger than life” in China is considered amazing? Well friends I’m living my best life right here in Nanjing. I’m ALL OF THE THINGS let me tell you!!!! She was so incredible for my ego, she told me I was beautiful, asked if she could hug me and we took a selfie together. I think I can state with confidence that my face is now in a frame on her bedside table with red lipstick kisses all over the glass as her idol of all time. (Not gonna lie….if she was rich, a girl mighta just had to get a quickie divorce and make an honest woman of her).
My friend insisted we had to try these strawberries on sticks that were covered in edible paper. For the life of me I don’t know why she was so excited because the paper stuff had a weird texture but they weren’t too bad and it was something a bit different, noice, unusual etc.
We then headed to Lion Hill Temple. The grounds were lovely, so many interesting things to see.
The temple looked so majestic sitting on top of the hill but I could only mildly enjoy that view because somehow I knew it was going to translate into alot of stair climbing for me and honestly I’d rather suck a tick off a dogs butt than climb another stair but here we are so…..pray for me!
Every set of stone stairs you climb up leads you to more interesting architecture and better views of the city below.
This one was clearly before the stairs – still smiling
My face literally cracks me up – I’m sending hateful thoughts out to the world about stairs
But this is just the outside, you gotta climb more stairs inside. At this point I hate you me and the world but at least the temple is beautiful.
We saw this man doing “water calligraphy” and it was so mesmerising to watch him. It was almost like a dance. I was a bit stumped as to what the point was of doing all of this exquisite writing only for it just to disappear but it was explained to me that it’s something people do to A. keep traditions alive, B. to keep their brain focussed and C. to relax.
Now given the building is like 50 metres high you’ve gotta know I was hurting bad and as someone who likes to share all things, I made sure my companions heard about it. The F Bomb was about to get dropped from a great height – yeah at the top of this climb!
I honestly can’t remember if I made it to the top, my friend kept lying to me that we just had to climb one more flight of stairs and we’d be there. Of course we never would get there and I think the karma police will be paying her a visit later on (please please please). I think I landed a few floors short before I tapped out but was happy with the views. It was pretty windy outside on the balcony but amazing views ::of course “husband-heights-hater” wouldn’t come outside to see though ::.
These little animals on all of the roof gables all throughout China fascinated me
I’m not sure if the climb was absolutely worth it but I thought the architecture was simply incredible and I loved all of the lion statues that were everywhere around the building
As we were finally ~praise the lord~ heading down the stairs and away from this Stairway to Hell place, we stumbled across some Tibetan monks and they were so excited to see me.
They literally had their phones out ready for selfies the minute they spotted me. Not gonna lie…..I’m feeling like two scoops of fabulous today!
Even the monks wanted to run with the queen!
NANJING MASSACRE MUSEUM
After a quick delicious lunch we were heading to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. What we encountered when we arrived outside will go down in the history books as the day it was confirmed for me that I was always meant to be ADORED!!! There were thousands of school kids who had been bussed in from the smaller surrounding towns all lining up to enter the museum. I can’t be sure but I think this may have been the first time some of these kiddos had seen a short, round blondhaired DIVA in real life which sent them literally into a “Justin Bieber” frenzy like you wouldn’t believe. I know at this point you think I’m joking but hand on my black heart – I swear it was exactly as described.
I mean the kids thought husband and my friend were oh-kkkk but they are dark haired so it’s only a bit exciting. But me – I’m like the MOTHERLOAD of FREAKDOM for these kids and they were having all of it!!! For an EXTRA like me it was awesome but wasn’t quite as up husband’s alley. I can’t understand why!!! He was squirming at all the attention – meanwhile I’m over here practicing my royal wave #QUEENFORTHEDAY
I always knew I was born to be adored but even I was impressed with myself.
Did I sign autographs, hell yeah I did!!!!!………….(no I didn’t, but I wanted to)
This continued on the inside which was a bit awkward because this Museum is a very somber place and needs to be treated with respect. It actually was quite difficult to know what to do. The kids kept coming up to us wanting to chat and touch and selfie. Kids are awesome how they have zero filters and ooze excitement so you want to be all the things but at times it was a bit uncomfy given the serious subject matter of the museum.
Husband just walked off and left us – shaking his head as he went and explored on his own. The kids low key stalked us for the rest of our time in this museum which was totes awks and kinda totes awesome all at the same time.
Now to serious stuff – the Nanjing Massacre Museum was so tastefully and sensitively done. When you are dealing with such a horrific subject it would be easy to get it wrong but they got it so RIGHT!!! I find it incredible that I had never heard of this massacre. I believe it is actually referred to as The Rape of Nanjing. Over a 6 week period starting in December 1937, the Japanese Army murdered over 300,000 Chinese people and robbed and raped throughout the city. I didn’t take a ton of photos on the inside because it seemed a bit wrong to and I was busy reading all about the history of the terrible tragedy.
That is such a shocking number of people to lose their lives in such a short time, the whole museum was a complete eye opener.
The outdoor section was incredible with some of the most powerful sculptures I’ve ever seen. This place really was perfectly put together to respect the victims.
Nanjing Brocade Museum – This little place was our next stop and it was so interesting to see how the ladies on the looms made these beautiful fabrics. The brocade sells for soooooo much money and having now watched how long it takes to do just a few rows and the intricacy of the work I can see why.
On the way home we stopped at a supermarket to pick up a few things and set up outside was a ramshackle fresh food market. These people arrive around 4.30pm each day with just a small handful of something to sell to people entering the store.
I was really struck by the small amounts that people were actually there to sell. To me it hardly seemed worth the effort.
One lady literally had only a few bundles of spring onions to sell. It wasn’t until we were inside that I asked my friend about that. She explained that these people are just so very poor that even the money they would get from 2 bunches of spring onions would help them out. It was then that I wanted to go back out and buy everything they had. It was actually one of the most sobering moments of the trip for me. We really need to count our blessings don’t we?
It wasn’t long before my senses were assaulted by this street vendor selling fertilised eggs. Now it must be said, I don’t give much thought to eggs and how they become the way they do for me to whip into a yummy omelette. And I also don’t give much thought to how eggs actually become chickens. But now, having seen these “fertilized eggs” being cooked up and for sale for people to actually eat (what in the blueberry fuck muffins???). I actually gagged seeing this…..shudder!!!
FAVOURITE TOILET OF THE TRIP – Okay this may be my hands down favourite funny toilet of the trip. The door had a kind of window with spindles that made me feel like I was about to enter a saloon in a country and western. My friend went into the one directly across from me and we both absolutely got the giggles because of the absurdity of the whole “now you see me, then I sit on the shitter, now you don’t” part of it. I was pretending to go down an escalator so my head slowly descended. I mean we are pretty funny bitches so this comedy act went on for quite a while. When we came out of the toilet husband told us off because he could hear us laughing from outside. I mean, how can this not make you laugh (until you cry tears of what the hell is happening)
We headed home for a quiet dinner. And so ends another day in the life of The Kellys on Tour in an incredibly eye opening city!!!
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