The West Lake. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The earliest unearthed seals in China go back to the Shang Dynasty (c.16th century-11th century BC) and were used to brand the faces of slaves, the society says. In ancient times, gold, jade, copper and stone were often used in official seals.

If all this sounds a bit too remote, you need not worry, because classes on how to carve seals bring all this to life in a very practical way. First we wrote the seal character of our surname on a sheet of transparent paper, then transferred that to a jade block. We then used a marker to trace the reversed character and, wearing gloves, used a cutting knife to intricately carve it into the stone. For a novice like me, it took about one and a half hours to finish a seal.

It takes two hours to get to Nanjing from Hangzhou by high-speed train. Sofitel Nanjing Zhongshan Golf Resort is about 30 minutes' drive from South Nanjing Station. At the resort, I got the chance to feed chopped vegetables to black swans in a lake, played some relaxing golf and experienced the more rural side of Nanjing.