The mercury plummeted even lower today. The interpreter for our Tui Na lessons told us that springtime in Nanjing is like having four seasons in one as the weather is so changeable. It was about 7 or 8 degrees when I set out for a morning of retail activity and exploring, mainly around Xinjeikou where there are lots of department stores, trendy designer stores and the usual mix of street traders. Here and there blood donor buses on street corners awaited clients; Saturday must be a good day for pulling them in. There’s a picture of the “blood bus”:

Mooching around the Grand Ocean department store was unnerving. A Westerner is clearly a rara avis, and whenever I looked at or (heaven forbid) touched items a store assistant would instantly materialise right next to me talking in Chinese. The layout of the store was intriguing – the usual terrifyingly made up assistants on the first floor guarding their exotic and expensive cosmetics and perfumes waiting to pounce on potential customers, then up through ladies clothes, teen clothes young girls clothes, children’s and baby’s clothes, mens clothes and home appliances. Unlike stores in Ireland the store was teeming with staff. Paying for goods was amazingly complicated. First the goods were brought to a counter and a docket written up, then one was accompanied to a cashier’s counter with the docket where payment was made, then back to the first counter to collect the goods. Many clothes in the department stores weren’t exactly cheap even by Western standards, and a quick check in H&M proved that prices were pretty much the same as in Europe.

The notion of personal space in China is rather different to Europe. Store staff come and stand right next to you, at a distance which would be considered intrusive in the West. Perhaps living in a very crowded environment desensitises one to being cheek by jowl. The sense of disgust is not the same in China – we foreigners seem to offend them sometimes judging by the “you smell” incident on the metro, but hawking and spitting which would induce revulsion and rebuke in Europe is part of the quotidian soundtrack in China and passes unremarked.

Retail therapy was followed by a group expedition to Confucius temple via the metro. The area is a mix of old buildings and enormous shopping malls, tourist shops, street food stalls and restaurants. The temple itself is nothing like Jinming temple; it’s a tourist site. The river view near the temple is impressive, and there’s a shot of old Confucius himself:

Having been round the temple and trawled through the tourist stalls and shops we were frozen so repaired to the Pacific Coffee Company to thaw out with jasmine tea and an intriguing little tart possibly made with bean curd. We passed by another coffee place with a slightly bizarre name

The next port of call was Finnegan’s Wake, an Irish bar a short walk from Confucius temple. It is owned by a Scot from Dundee who came and talked to us while we had a drink. He has lived in China for almost 10 years and set the bar up in 2008. According to him the Chinese are the most racist people on the planet, which might be exaggerating just a bit. The prices in the bar for food and drink were the same or higher in some instances as at home. The surrounding streets were a mix of attractive newer houses and older ramshackle buildings which seemed to be a mix of residential and trade. One shop had a fascinating collection of aged electrical appliances.

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Tired and flagging at this stage we headed back to the metro and to the Golden Wheel for a pick your own meal. The restaurant was heaving, we hit peak dinner time so the food took a while to arrive. I have put in pictures of some of the stranger items on display; we did not sample these! Everyone had a vegetarian meal, and it was excellent. Big chunks of garlic and generous slices of ginger livened the dish up, and peanuts mixed through added a crunch to it. Perfect fuel for the walk up Hanzhong Lu to the hotel. I visited the supermarket for water, and couldn’t resist capturing an image of a group of stoically disconsolate frogs sitting on top of each other in a tank in the fresh produce area, presumably awaiting their fate as someone’s dinner.