I should’ve known better than to trust my mom when she said, “Our last day in Nanjing will be the easiest.” Um… No.

For the last three days, it’s been almost non-stop walking from one location to the next with sometimes, maybe a few hours of rest in between. I was walking about 20,000 steps each day while spending most of my other precious seconds editing photos and chronicling each day. We were only a third through this trip and I was already a fast draining battery.

My sleep had also been compromised since my mom had been secretly changing plans behind my back before and after we arrived in China. During the planning stage of the trip, she had promised me that I would be getting my own hotel room. That was the primary reason I had agreed to go on this trip but since she had invited an additional cousin to join the trip, I was now having to share a hotel room with my mom.

All night long, she was either sawing logs (snoring) or had YouTube playing on her phone. It made me wonder whether I’ve made the worst decision of letting her into my VPN plan but then, it would’ve probably been worse if she couldn’t access YouTube as she would’ve been experiencing withdrawal symptoms instead. I think I was able to average around 5-6 hours per night, maybe less, because my watch hasn’t been able to properly track my sleep since I arrived in China.

Anyway, the first location of day 4 didn’t involve at taxi. It was within walking distance and it was another important historical landmark from the times of Republic of China – the Presidential Palace.

The outside of the Presidential Palace was under restoration when we visited so I wasn’t able to grab a picture of the exterior. As always, there were already tour groups and people everywhere, despite it was just barely after it opened.

To visit the Presidential Palace, my mom had to make a reservation in advance. As foreigners, we must rely on one of the cousins to make the reservation for us since a domestic number and ID was required. The same would apply to all the historical places we visit throughout the trip. Then, to get in, my mom and I had to join a special line of people as we do not possess a domestic ID. In addition to that, our belongings would be randomly searched and put through an X-ray machine. I’ve lost count of the number of times I had to put my belongings through an X-ray machine and being patted down during this trip.

At first glance, I thought the Presidential Palace was a small place but it turned out, it was enormous. After turning all the buildings, instead of exiting back where we came, we found ourselves wandering about a Chinese garden that could’ve well had once been in a Chinese-style painting.

There were less people here as most tour groups don’t tour the garden, but nonetheless, there were still quite a lot of people, most of which were posing in about a million different ways for a photo. As for me, I tried to focus on landscapes, on the areas that have either been cordoned off or places people couldn’t reach (i.e. water). By this point, I have given up photographing by camera because the camera strap kept sticking to my neck in the heat and humidity. Even though I do lose the zoom function when photographing with my phone, I still have the crop function. It’s also easier to photograph with a phone since it’s more handy and I don’t have to carry such a heavy load.

Beside the water feature in the garden, the rock garden was also a draw for me. I love that it doesn’t look like anything until it’s captured on camera. Do you see a gateway to a strange world in this picture?