And it was hot…So freaking hot

Last weekend, Boyfriend and I got out of Shanghai to explore the neighboring cities of Nanjing and Suzhou. Nanjing is about a 1.5 hour train ride north west of Shanghai while Suzhou is 30 mins west.

We left Shanghai at 8 am and got into Nanjing early in the morning. As our first activity, we went to the Nanjing Forbidden Palace.

Or at least, we tried looking for it.

After 1.5 hrs in the Nanjing heat and no shade, we alas did not find the Nanjing Forbidden Palace. We got off at what we believed was the right train station, and walked in one direction for too long before we realize it was the wrong way. So we headed back, and found a giant park and assumed  ‘Oh, it must be here’

But it was not. After walking around, it did not exist. And so we left.

We headed close to our hotel for the night. After checking in and dropping our things into our room, it started POURING non-stop. That’s something I’ve learned about in China, actual rain. It rains cats and dogs, where it’s hard to be outside.
So we waited indoors while it rained. Once it slowed down, we walked out and headed to the city wall. The Nanjing City Wall is the longest existing circular wall in the world. It’s huge. We were able to walk for a little bit, but after so much, it’s the same view, looking at the same thing.

After the wall, we headed to Master Gao, a local Nanjing brewery. They gave us a menu with 20 different types of beers to try. However, all were gone except 4. JOY. The 4 they had weren’t that great, so we left and went to a local beer bottle house, where they had some premium US east coast beers that are even hard to find in the US.

The next day, we took the 9 am train to Suzhou. It was hot, and really awful to be outside. We first went to the giant mall in Suzhou, where the building next to it look likes giant pair of pants. We had lunch at teppanaki.
You know what teppanaki is. It’s Benihana’s! But just the type of restaurant.

After lunch, we took the train to the part of Suzhou that’s like the Venice of China. It’s really cute and nice to walk around. It was just so hot and unbearable to be outside. We tried to spend a lot of time indoors, but hard to do.

After that, we went home and enjoyed A/C.

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