One thing about the cuisine in Nanjing is that it’s all about the Duck. If you walk down the streets of Nanjing, you will see restaurants advertising its signature dish – Duck Blood Soup with Vermicelli.

That day, after visiting the Meiling Palace, ravenous after the morning’s walk, we began to search for food. Thankfully, that was only a 10-minute walk. We ended up ordering two ducks, cooked in different ways – salt-roastted and marinated-roasted. Both were equally delicious and we even got a show of traditional music.

During my travels in China, I found ordering meals to be quite cumbersome at times because the menu is on a specific QR code that’s different for every table. Only one phone can display the menu at a time. So if someone is viewing the menu, another person at the same table cannot view the menu. Also, to order requires a domestic phone number, which means my mom and I cannot use our phones to order food.

To be honest, though, I would much prefer to look at the traditional menu with large pages and fonts.

After lunch, we made our way to the subway station with plans to visit the Ming Dynasty Palace. I made the mistake of not looking at the map. Instead, I followed the signs on the street. It turned out the station was just outside the restaurant, hidden behind a wall of trees and the signs led us in a large circle.

“OMG!” My mom cried, “what a horrible signage!”

I was quite surprised when we arrived at the Ming Palace because being the former home of the Ming emperor, I had expected the palace to be grand and huge. So imagine my surprise to see this building was all that’s left. This building is no longer a palace but a museum, chronicling a period of Chinese history, which I am still not familiar with since I wasn’t able to read any of the texts in the museum as it’s not translated into English.

Since that day, it made me a bit paranoid and wondered whether the text are not translated because foreigners like me aren’t supposed to know this history.