Nanjing

I went to Nanjing last weekend with Kym, Paul, Mary and Web. Web is the guy that I came over with and he lives in a city about 1.5 hours away from me, and so he met us in Nanjing. Nanjing was the capitol of China at one point and is a very large and metropolitan city (ie they have a Starbucks, butter, cheese, cream, french bread and lots of night clubs and bars). We took the bus from Yangzhong and went to a youth hostel near the Fuzi Miao district, which is where the original temple of Confuscious is located. It is a big market and shopping district and very lively!

In the afternoon we went to a cable car lift up the tallest mountain in the city. It was a gorgeous day so you could see the whole city extended around the mountain... looked very much like you had made it in Sim City on the computer... just random areas of buildings and housing developments plopped all over the city. We also went to Dr. Sun Yatsen's Mausoleum. He was the fouder of the Republic of China and his mausoleum is very beautiful, extended on lots of land with over 350 steps up to the top of the temple. It is exactly what I pictured China to be like, so it was nice because that is the first time this trip that my expectations were upheld... see how different it is here than you would expect!

That evening, we went to a Chinese restaurant that was excellent. There were huge paper mache trees and lanterns inside to give an ambience of being outdoors and it was packed with people. It is one of Kym's favorites because you can point to dishes and they cook them up for you. Web and I enjoyed a few Heinekens (11.8% alcohol, as opposed to our beer in Yangzhong, which is 3.5% alcohol!). Afterwards we went to an Australian pub/expat bar. It was full of foreigners and we had VB's (popular Aussie beer) and listened to boy bands! Afterwards we went to Big Scarlett, a popular night club in town. They give VIP 50% discount cards to foreigners, so there were quite a few foreigners. We bought some food and drinks and danced the night away. My favorite part was the techo remix of Country Roads... horrible version but a nice taste of home! Met some cool French guys that danced and laughed with us, and then I also met Kristin, the girl who taught at my school last year. It was a good time.

The next morning we went to the Massacre Museum. In 1937, the Japanese invaded Nanjing and killed almost 300,000 Chinese citizens in horrible and inhumane ways. This museum was done in honor of those people and is a tasteful, yet highly disturbing memorial. The site of the memorial is a mass burial ground, and there are visible cross sections of hundreds of skeletons, as well as photos of everything. Apparently a Japanese soldier got his photos developed and the guy made a copy of them, which led to everyone finding out what happened. The Rape of Nanjing is a book written about it and is supposed to be really good.

Afterwards, we had lunch at a western restaurant... a hamburger and french fries! And I had a cup of coffee! Web left, Paul and Mary went shopping and Kym and I ventured into the markets. We bought some DVDs and cute silk bags, and our bunnies. We went to a Wal-Mart of all places too, and looked for some western food, but no luck. Only butter.

We put our bunnies in our jackets, grabbed all of our bags and got on the bus home... It was a good time...