Nanjing

Now, we are finally almost caught up!  Nanjing was the first stop on our trip to the coast and it was pretty cool.  After some questionable times on the plane, we landed in Nanjing and didn’t quite know how to get to our hostel.  So we took a taxi.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad idea.  It was a really long distance and I was able to teach our cab driver the word traffic and temple.  He did have a hard time with Confucious though.  So, my Chinese continues to be used here.  It was pretty expensive though!  Oh man!  ¥109 = $19.  So you’re like…so what.  But after paying so little prices for most things here in China, I just about had a heart attack.  If we had been smart, we would have known that there is a shuttle bus that takes you into the city and you can take a taxi from there.  But oh well.  Lol  Next time.

It was Heather’s first time in a hostel so that was pretty neat.  We met a nice couple from Poland and a lady from France.  We met lots of Chinese boys, who were very nice and had some amazing English.  When I tried to speak Chinese, I was told, “I can understand your language, so you don’t need to speak Chinese.”  BURN.  Lol  Well, that’s understandable.  My Chinese must have been painful to listen to.  

We saw some neat things in Nanjing, the Folk Customs Museum, the Presidential Palace – where the Taiping Rebellion and the Chinese Government before the Revolution was housed, the father of modern China – Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum.  We were able to spread all of this out amongst 3 days and it was pretty cool.  My favorite parts had to be the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge – the first major bridge built by the Chinese without foreign help – and the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre.

The bridge was really cool because we were able to walk on it and see the Yangtze as the sun sets.  There are four Communist statues, two at each end depicting the common person, the soldier, the laborer, and the student.  Walking along the bridge as it shook from buses rushing past, sharing the sidewalk with motor scooters and bikes.  It had to be one of the coolest walks I have had.  Long bus rides and shady parks along the way all aside.  Lol

And wow.  The memorial hall.  I have never been to the Holocaust Museum, but I have heard this this museum is very reminiscent of that one.  It was powerful.  I can’t help but just to become sad when I think about the museum because it represents a very painful part of China’s recent history.  In 1937, when China was still trying its best to recover from the fall of its last dynasty and European influence, Japan occupies China.  After Nanjing refuses to surrender, the Japanese storm in only to kill indiscriminately, loot homes, rape girls and women, and humiliate the Chinese people.  It has been aptly called “The Rape of Nanjing.”  December 13, two days ago, sirens went off in the city to mark the day the Japan stormed the city.  It was really sad and eerie listening to these air raid sirens go off.  You watch the people walk past and you wonder if they care or if they find it as awful as I do that days like December 13 even have to be marked like that.  

Nanjing was powerful.  I’m glad we went there.