(Nanking)
10-06-2005 day 1 of cruising the Yangtze

Up early. No surprise that it is a grey day. I could hardly see the shoreline. Lots of freight / barge traffic in this section of the river. In the afternoon we docked and bussed into Nanjing (Nanking). There was very little mention of the Japanese invasion and atrocities. We visited the city wall from ~600 years ago. Bricks were signed by makers as QC. If there were problems the emperor knew who to punish - at least this is what we were told. The actual inscriptions seem a bit longer than "made by Woo Fong Brickworks". The wall seems about as big as the Great Wall and more substantial. From here we went to a 99.5 room home. The emperor could have 999 rooms and those below him had to be less than 100, so this guy pushed the limit. It has rooms restored to how they would have looked during the time and filled with typical furnishing of the period. Not terribly interesting. Dinner is captain’s welcome – we even got a FREE drink!