Nanjing Weekend Get-Away

To celebrate Lila’s birthday, Karl had planned a weekend away in Tangshan and Nanjing. Tangshan,about 3 hours from Shanghai, is famous for its hot springs. The resort, owned by a Balinese company, has around 20 private villas, each with it’s own private lap pool and hot spring jacuzzi, and stocked with your choice of music CDs. In each room of the villa, there were at least 2 walls of floor to ceiling windows – giving the place a very open feel.

We arrived on Saturday, with driver Peter. Upon checking in, we ate at a very local restaurant before sending Peter back to Shanghai. We then ventured out for a 45 minute bike ride through the countryside (Karl’s first time on a bike in three years and his ‘offical’ practice for the upcoming race), hung out in the jacuzzi, and figured out how to make use of the 24 hour butler service. We discovered they made really good (& complimentary!) fresh ginger-lemon tea (Lila consumed about 10 pots over the weekend) and had nice afternoon tea sets delivered to our villa. We also found the butlers very handy in filling the hot tub. They would drain it and put in new water … at just the right temperature! Without any typical spa chemicals, we enjoyed the fresh refills. Between the service and the atmosphere, we quickly relaxed and settled in. To top off a great start to our weekend vacation, Karl had arranged for a candlelit dinner in our villa.

On Sunday, we went into Nanjing city, about 45minutes away (the resort provided transportation). We were very surprised by Nanjing. For a city of 6 million people, it felt small with mountains, lakes, and greenery. Our only experience with Nanjing was knowing it means "South Capital" (as opposed to Beijing = North Capital) & the Japanese occupation as outlined in the movie "Rape of Nanking." Needless to say, the day was a pleasant surprise.

First stop in Nanjing was Purple Mountain, full of trees. Most of this area had been build up in the early 1900s. Highlights included the Sun Yatsen memorial/masoleum and an old Buddhist temple. From there, we went into town – visited the shopping area which we mistook for something completely different. It felt too much like Shanghai. We finally made our way to a beautiful Buddhist temple on a hill in the city. They gave out free prayer incense sticks. Upon watching others, we figured out what to do. The temple was very peaceful – a mustard yellow against the blue skies. We accidently stumbled across the old city wall, and walked that with kite fliers and a few other people, until it ended and we were forced to walk along the shores of the lake. We ended the day with a 30 minute massage and more time in the jacuzzi under the stars. Yes! We could see stars, very special scene which we can’t appreciate in Shanghai’s brightly neon-lit nights.

Monday we had a 2 hour massage appointment to end the long weekend. Driver Peter picked us up around noon, for the 3 hour journey back to Shanghai. We were able to get a lot of work done in the car – very important as Karl left later that evening for a 2.5 day business trip to Beijing. We both really enjoyed the weekend away. Note to selves: was amazing ...need more of these relaxing escapes!