Vegan Buffet and the City Wall

After sleeping in—though it didn't really work out because it got bright and noisy far too early—we admired the view from the 25th floor of our accommodation before taking two buses to the other side of the city to have lunch at a vegan buffet restaurant. An all-you-can-eat buffet with a huge selection of completely vegan dishes is practically paradise on earth, and admission to this paradise cost the equivalent of just over 3 Swiss francs, making it incredibly affordable.

In the afternoon, I had wanted to visit the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum and the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, both located in the Zhongshan Scenic Area east of the city. However, Wenxin found out that both attractions require visitors to reserve a time slot in advance, and it was already too late to book one for today. So instead, we visited the southern section of the city wall. With a total length of over 25 km, it is one of the longest surviving city walls in the world, and the southern section is one of the four parts open to visitors, stretching over a considerable distance itself. We thought it would be a good idea to rent a vehicle. Since all the tandem bicycles were already taken and ordinary bicycles were—well—a bit too ordinary, we opted for a covered four-seater pedal cart.

Had we known that the vehicle would creak and groan more than it would actually convert our effort into forward motion, we probably would have made a different choice. Even with the sunshade overhead, I was completely drenched in sweat within no time. It was hardly surprising: the temperature was high, pedalling required a lot of effort, and there was virtually no cooling breeze. I'm looking forward to getting back on my own bicycle.

Still covered in sweat, we took the metro back to the hotel, and that was when my tiredness really caught up with me. At that moment, I was actually glad that we hadn't been able to visit the two mausoleums—they would have taken much more time, and I was happy to catch up on some sleep after all, since it was supposed to be a rest day. I only had some fruit later on and didn't need anything else to eat after the lavish buffet lunch.