This may be in the parks and gardens section, but it’s so much more than that…it’s like a total recreational area for the young and not so young, and the rich and the not so rich.
Wutaishan is a huge area housed in Gulou district , and it offers a wide variety of features and things to do. For those people wanting to have a visit to Nanjing and would like to stay somewhere a bit away from it all but still in the middle of everything, there’s the Jinn’s Inn Hotel (???), phone number 025 5188 7999, which is right on the mountain itself. Thus, this hotel is within walking distance to all the places Wutaishan has to offer – for starters, there’s a huge indoor tennis court surrounded with public exercise equipment (this, along with the public ping pong tables and chess/checkers tables nearby, makes this place a favourite with the locals in warmer months).
There’s a basketball court (very expensive – from 60 to 100 yuan an hour, depending on the time of day), yoga and massage centres, a massive sports arena, and a music stage. There’s also Wutaishan Hotel (??????), where you can get local food every night. Accessible from the Guangzhou Lu side, there’s another cocktail of activities on offer – there’s the Librairie Avant Garde bookshop, the upmarket German bar Paulaner Brauhaus , a golf driving range (30 yuan for 50 balls or 60 for 100 balls, enough to sate even the most golf-crazed individual), an underground pool hall, and the Shishang Yunnan restaurant (where you can get odd delicacies like crickets and caterpillars).
If you’re a local and you’d like a place where you can get some exercise in a nice area dedicated to physical activities, Wutaishan is ideal for young and old. If you’re planning to stay in Nanjing on business for a week or five and you’re a bit of an exercise buff, this place is ideal (there’s also many other hotels in the near vicinity, so you have a few to choose from).
