Nanjing

Before I get started, happy Easter to all! Okay, two weekends ago, my program arranged a trip for all of us to go to Nanjing! Nanjing is about a 9 hour train ride south of Beijing. The word "nan" (南）actually means south and the word "bei" (北）means north. Just as Beijing is China's capital in nowadays, Nanjing used to be China's capital during the Ming Dynasty and, more recently, during WWII. Because of it's history, Nanjing is a very interesting city with lots of historic sites juxtaposed with modern technology.

So the trip started off with a 9 hour overnight train ride. I've always wanted to ride on an overnight train so I was super excited. But, I was expecting a Harry Potter-esque train. Definitely did not get that. On the way to Nanjing, we were in what's called a hard sleeper. Each car had 11 compartments (open to the aisle, no door) in it and each compartment had 6 beds. Your ticket told you if you where on the bottom, top or middle. I was on the bottom, thank goodness. The beds where short and hard. They provided us with a pillow and comforter, though I was pretty wary of those. The toilet was a squatty potty. Let me tell you, using a squatty potty in general is really difficult, but using one on a moving, shaking train? Next to impossible.  The lights in our car where turned off at 11pm and that was when I tried to go to sleep. Unfortunately, I did the math in my head an realized that we had 66 people in one car. For some reason that weirded me out, so I only got about 2 hours of sleep that night. And then I was awaken the next morning by people hocking loogies everywhere. Overall, the first train was not the best experience ever, but certainly one that I am glad I had.

We arrived at the train station on Saturday about an hour late, so we where rushed through breakfast and then headed out to the royal gardens that where preserved from the Ming dynasty. The gardens where incredibly beautiful and lush with great architecture and artwork. The best part: seeing grass and trees for the first time in over a month.

Left to right: my friend Hannah, Kate (roommie), yours truly

 After the gardens, we bopped over to a Confucian temple for a few minutes.

 Burnt offerings

 Confucius himself

 Inside the temple

Prayers tied to the railing in the temple.

After the Confucian temple, it was time to check into our hotel. My roommate was the same roommate that I have back in Beijing (Kate, from above). The hotel was actually really nice and the bed were....soft! So great.

 Next on the agenda was visiting the mausoleum of Sun Yat-Sen (the founder of the Republic of China)  and the first Ming emperor's tomb. These two places where huge and crowded, but worth the congestion and the walking.

Heading up the 392 steps to Sun Yat-Sen's mausoleum 

View from the top 

Ming Emperor's tomb

The mausoleum and the tomb was followed by a hearty dinner and then an early bedtime.

Sunday started off with an early wake-up call and then a bus ride to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial. The Nanjing Massacre Memorial was built to remember the lives lost in Nanjing during the Japanese occupation which occurred during WWII. According to the memorial, over 300,000 Chinese lives were lost in the brutal killings. 

 A statue outside the memorial

The memorial itself was expansive. We where given an hour to view the whole thing (it was set up like a museum with displays and info on bulletin boards), but we could have spent way more time there. It was quite the sobering place. i knew very little about the Japanese occupation before visiting. I also found the language the exhibits used very interesting. Whenever possible, they used adjectives such as "disgusting" or "abhorrent" etc. It just made me wonder how accurate all of the information was, considering it is coming from the Chinese communist party, it coincides with the victim narrative and China and Japan have such tense relations nowadays.

We lightened the mood a bit by then busing to and island located right outside of Nanjing. The island was a quaint little place with small villages and farmland dotting it's landscape. Unfortunately, China just sold that village to a company from Singapore. I didn't even know that could happen, but apparently it can. The company is now forcing the local residents to relocate so they can demolish everything and set up a high-tech industrial center on the island. Ah, progress (sarcasm).

On the very tip of the island, there was a park that we visited that looked out over the mighty Yangtze river. 

The Yangtze

Two of our teachers. I was hoping I could capture them falling in.

 They didn't.

朋友们! (Friends!)

Exhaustion set in pretty quickly, so we soon returned to the bus, went back to the hotel and checked out and then headed over to the train station for the trip home. On the overnight train home, we had soft sleepers. Despite the name, the beds where just as hard as the hard sleepers, but it was only 4 per compartment and we could close a door. There was also a western toilet (alleluia).

I slept much better on the way back than I did on the way there. We pulled into the train station at about 7am, sat in traffic for 2 hours and got back to the dorms at around 9am. I quickly unpacked, changed clothes, repacked my backpack and headed out for my 10am class. No rest for the weary! Overall, it was a very fun, and exhausting trip. I feel like I learned a lot more about Chinese history as well as getting to see another part of this huge country.

This week we have midterms. I have a midterm everyday, so I've been busy studying. Thankfully, this week we get Thursday and Friday off, thanks to 清明节,  or the tomb sweeping festival. This is a time when all Chinese people remember and celebrate their ancestors. But for me, it means a trip with 4 good friends (Hannah, Kate, Eddie and John) to a city on the coast that is also the home of China's most famous beer brewery. The city is called Qingdao and I will update you more on it when I get back!