The strange thing about writing about Nanjing is how few pictures we have of it given how beautiful the city was. Maybe when I’m walking along I’ve gotten inured to all the beautiful lakes and parks and green spaces in Chinese cities, something that for me, at least, was utterly unexpected.

Now a city of somewhat over six million people, Nanjing has been a key city through much of China’s history. Currently the capital of Jiangsu Province, at various times it was the capital of China; the name Nanjing, in fact, means “Southern Capital.” (For what it’s worth, Beijing translates as Northern Capital.)

For me, the highlight was the 1,100-acre Xuanwu Lake and the parks surrounding it. The Chinese apparently have this thing about building walkways in lakes out to islands, creating gorgeous parkland for walking, running, reading, and so on. In this case there are five islands in the lake, and they’re all connected by artificial walkways that have become landscaped works of art. The islands are awash in temples, pagodas, fountains, flower gardens and just all sorts of beauty. I continue to be stunned by how beautiful Chinese urban parks are and by how much green space there is in these cities. I’ve suspected that since we’re staying in tourist areas that maybe we have just been lucky, seeing the best parts of the city we’re in at the moment. But according to Wikipedia, at least, Xuanwu is listed by the city of Nanjing as merely one of the five top parks in the city.

In the West, at least, Nanjing is best known as the site of the notorious Rape of Nanjing, the brutal sacking of the city by Japanese troops in 1937 in what was effectively the start of World War II. At the time Nanjing was the capital of the Republic of China and thus was a key target for the invading Japanese. After capturing the city, Japanese troops killed perhaps over 300,000 people, raping and looting as they went. Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanjing, published in 1997, is a vivid and brutal description of the atrocities committed. Sadly, just seven years after the book brought her widespread fame, she committed suicide; one can only wonder about the impact her research must have had on what may have been a fragile woman’s psyche.

So aside from beautiful parks and the bustle of a huge city, we also went to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. Part of what fascinated me about the museum was the palpable rage that still exists. When we toured the prisons French colonialists used to brutalize Vietnamese rebels, you didn’t get the sense that they still hate the French. And two years ago, when we were in Eastern Europe and went to museums testifying to the brutality of both Nazis and Soviets, again, it seemed in the past.

Not so in Nanjing, though. They believe the Japanese have never properly acknowledged or atoned for the evil they perpetrated and thus the wounds remain raw. Some Japanese, in fact, deny that anything much happened there, and many seriously doubt China’s claim that over 300,000 people died at the hands of the Japanese. This is uninformed speculation on my part, but my guess is that the difference has a lot to do with decisions made by Douglas MacArthur when the war ended. While German leaders were prosecuted for war crimes, MacArthur determined that getting Japan back on its feet was an American priority and that the country needed the Emperor to remain in charge. Thus Japan never quite had to accept the nature of its World War II behavior the way the Germans did.

Interestingly, we went to the museum the day after President Obama met with Japanese Prime Minister Abe in the White House, lauding the importance of the U.S.-Japanese partnership in ensuring stability and prosperity in Asian Pacific region. Observing the Chinese sense of Japanese aggression, it’s easy to understand that they’re not big fans of the U.S.-Japanese partnership.

The other excitement for us in Nanjing was figuring out how to deal with the wrench in our plans caused by the earthquake in Nepal. We were going to go through Yunan Province in southwestern China, then up into Tibet, and down into Nepal. But Nepal is obviously off the tourist route now and, since the road from Lhasa to Nepal was a hey reason for going to Tibet, we had to question that, too. And then we started thinking; a key reason for going to Yunan was for some great hiking, but Mark’s knee isn’t up to that yet, so we decided to rethink the whole thing.

Then the question was “Well, if we have four full weeks with nothing planned until our reservation in Bhutan, where else would we go?” And Mark said one word: Korea. That’s perfect. We’ve wanted to carve out some time for Korea for a long time, and May is the ideal month to be there. On top of that, a month seems long enough to really dig into it. So after one last stop in China (Xi’an), we’re going to Korea. Don’t worry, though, just South Korea. The neighbor to the north might fascinate Mark, but they’re not letting anyone in these days. OK, then, soon we’re off to Korea!

As we were working our way east from Chonqing, the logical next stop after Hefei would have been Nanjing – a city we definitely wanted to see – before moving on to Shanghai. The way it worked out, though, hotels were a problem during those days in Nanjing so instead we just hightailed it to Shanghai and will backtrack to Nanjing before flying up to Xi’an.

And so we’re back in Shanghai, just to see it a little more leisurely than we did a few weeks ago with Al & the family. But it didn’t quite work that way. Mark’s knee is still bothering him, so he didn’t get out much. And I decided to deal with a problem I’ve been having with my iPhone and just camp out at the Apple Store as long as it took to get it fixed. Turns out I underestimated the meaning of “however long…”.

Without all the boring details, I spent hours in two different Apple Stores, working with half-a-dozen “experts”; ultimately no one could figure out what was causing the problem or how to fix it and the best we could do was just wipe my iPhone clean and start from scratch. But that was most of my time in Shanghai.

Most, but not all. I still took a couple hours to walk up to the Bund and stroll along the river, coming face to face with one of the big annoyances in the city, the Tea Ceremony scam. It works like this: A young, friendly local strikes up a conversation. You know, where are you from, where are you going, what do you like. That kind of stuff. In my case it was a young woman asking if I’d take a picture of her and her friend, then starting up the conversation. All innocent enough. Then she suggests we go to see a traditional tea ceremony. Fortunately I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck and quickly told her goodbye. I didn’t know what she was going for, but I knew it wasn’t good.

Not 10 minutes later, while walking along the Bund another young couple strikes up a conversation. All innocent and friendly, until he suggests we all go to see a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. OK, now I know something is up. And it is – a common scam to vastly overcharge unsuspecting tourists, or perhaps something worse.

The worst thing about it is that it makes you leery of starting a conversation with anyone. It happened to Mark when we were last in Shanghai – someone tried to get him to go to a tea ceremony; of course he didn’t go – and now he’s skeptical of anyone trying to be friendly. The next day I sat in a pretty park to read a little and an older guy sat down next to me, and started to chat in modest English. My first reaction was to try to go back to my book and not fall for whatever he was after. Instead I engaged him, and had a lovely talk with a 66-year-old retired English teacher. Born and raised in Shanghai, was a boy during Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward and a teenager during the equally awful Cultural Revolution. Limited to one child when he was having his family, and his one son also had only one son, so in his old age jokes about the big family he wanted. He’s seen it all and it was the kind of encounter you would never want to miss. But with scam artists swarming around, too, it’s sometimes hard to tell who’s what.

The other item taking up our time is trying to figure out where we’re going later in May. The plan has been to go to Yunan Province in southwestern China for a couple weeks, then work our way up into Tibet, down into Nepal, and over into Bhutan. That earthquake in Nepal, though, has pretty much tossed those plans out the window which is really unfortunate, given how hard Mark worked at putting the plans together. Tibet and Bhutan are both extremely difficult to get into and around in, requiring tons of planning and advance permission and all of that. So far we still don’t know what we’re going to do, but as Nepal was kind of in the middle of all of it, we’re going to have to scramble and do something else.

From Wuhan it was an easy three-hour train ride to Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province. Basically, we’re working our way east back to Shanghai at a rather leisurely pace. From there we’ll backtrack a bit to Nanjing and then fly to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors, among other sites.

Trains in China – and travel in general – are pretty impressive. The last few journeys we’ve taken have been on high-speed trains that are remarkably clean, comfortable, and fast; it’s just a great way to get between cities. The train stations themselves are a delight: sleek, shiny, vast, more like arriving at a new airport than the kind of rundown, dirty places usually associated with train stations. They leave right on time and get in on time and are a fraction of the cost you’d expect. I love them.

Similarly, the subway systems have been great, too, and so much easier to use than systems I’ve used in the U.S. or Europe. When we were living in Cambridge I often thought how impenetrable the T must seem to people with limited English skills. In contrast, every system we’ve been on in China has been multilingual with lots of signs and useful signals about what’s going on. And cheap – a 40-minute ride in Wuhan from our hotel to the train station, traveling 11 stops, cost about 35 cents each. Simply put, much of the transportation experience we’ve had in China makes the U.S. seem like a poor, developing country.

But, back to Hefei. This is the one big city we’ve been in without a subway system, but it’s under construction, scheduled to open next year. That didn’t cramp our style, though, as the main highlight of the city was the Huancheng Greenway, a “jade necklace” around the oldest part of the city. I was amused to see that the English description of the park system describes it as a “boutique” greenway. I suspect someone had studied in the U.S. recently and observed that “boutique” is a good thing in tourism, no matter what it means.

Whether it’s a boutique greenway or not, it was certainly beautiful with great opportunities for every kind of exercise you can imagine. At 6:30 AM when I’d go out for a run there were people of all imaginable ages strolling, walking, jogging, running, dancing, tai chi-ing, badminton-ing, stretching, clapping (older Chinese in particular have this thing about clapping while they walk, presumably to get their blood moving and heart pumping just a little more), and even swimming in water you might not trust. There are Chinese workers out sweeping the walkways all day to keep it clean, and at this time of the year the orange trees and roses are in full bloom. Sometimes you get the most amazing aromas as you’re walking or running past.

Of course, I should mention the real highlight of Hefei: a random tech store that had the new Apple Watches available the first day they went on sale. We just assumed they were on display for pre-order or something, but when we asked and found the one person in the store who spoke (some) English, we were told that they had a few models available right then. So there we are, early afternoon in China the first day they’re available, with our two new Apple Watches. We had to pay cash, since the store didn’t take non-Chinese credit cards, but, because we’re 12 hours ahead of the East Coast, we’re pretty confident we had our Apple Watches before anyone else in the States did!

The downside? Two more devices to plug in and keep charged. Or, make that three, since I also bought wireless headphones so I can use the Watch to play music while I’m working out. If you’re keeping score, we now have wo iPads, two iPhones, two Apple Watches, and an iMac that need daily charges, plus two speakers (for stereo), two Kindles, a camera, and an electric toothbrush that need periodic charges. Hotels need more outlets!

Here are more pictures from the Huancheng Greenway.