你好!
I just got back from a few days in Nanjing and when I arrived, it was snowing! My first thought: My feet are really cold. Why did I bring my Converses with me, and not.. boots or something better for cold weather? I don't think things through sometimes. My solution: double up on the socks, which worked out pretty well, yay.
Day One
The first day I was there, the temperature range was -7 to 3 degrees Celsius, any water that had been splashed on the floor had turned into ice. We spent our afternoon in the Fuzimiao area, walking around, looking in the shops, eating hot noodles, and visiting the Fuzimiao. This was the second time I went to this place, and upon revisit, I was rather disappointed. I think there's some sort of anniversary of the miao going on so there are a bunch of fake-y, nativity scene-esque displays up of Confucius teaching his disciples or other more ridiculous things, like a chicken, all in bright cloth. So, we left the miao and bought some candy. Really, we went across the square and bought a bag of Chinese candies. Sesame covered chewy things, milk and peanut gooeys, pine nut flavored chewies, peanut flavored chewies, strawberry gooeys, and some other glutenous candies. Then, we went back to the hotel because it was so damn cold. I couldn't feel my toes, fingers, or face any more, so we hopped on the line 1 bus back to our hotel.
That night, I met up with a friend I met while studying abroad in Shanghai. He's teaching English at a university in Nanjing and brought along one of his students. They met me at my hotel and took me on the subway to this very brightly lit street with tons of shops and restaurants. We ate really spicy hotpot and drank cold beer while providing examples of the word filthy to his Chinese student. After we'd finished the spicy hotpot, which left my lips numb, we headed toward the university area in search of a bar. We were unsuccessful as it was a Monday night and the only open bar we found had a table of party cadres (or that's what they looked like to me) and they told us they were closing. So we decided to stop wandering around in the cold and took a taxi back.
Day Two
The next day was Zijinshan day and it was slightly warmer. My momma and I took bus 游 1 to Purple Mountain, which includes Sun Yat Sen's Mausoleum and the Ming Tombs. My mom almost didn't want to see Dr Sun's Mausoleum because of all the stairs, but I made her. She remembered some old pictures of my grandmother on the steps of Dr. Sun's Mausoleum so she posed just as she remembered her mother posed and I framed the photo just as I remembered the photo. We then headed to the Ming Tombs (Ming Xiao Ling) and headed for the Sacred Path with all the stone animals. The path is a lot longer than I remember it being, the first part was 250m long and the second part (Elephant trail) was 675m long. Again, my mom remembered an old photo (around 60 years ago) of my grandfather posing in front of one of the standing stone elephants and wanted a photo like it. So we took a bunch of pictures before heading to the actual tomb area. We walked the long path toward the fortress-like building, but to our dismay, it was closed and under construction. It was okay for me because I had already been inside, but my mom wanted to see the tomb, I guess I'll just have to show her my pictures from last year. I had wanted to see the Nanjing Massacre Memorial after Zijinshan, but it was getting late so we headed back to town. We stopped at 1912 on our way back, which is a plaza that's Xintiandi-esque, but not as popular or extravagant. We had hotpot, the second day in a row for me, and it was the perfect way to end a full day of site seeing in the cold.
Day Three
Our last day in Nanjing. I made it a point to go and see the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, because it would be the only thing that I hadn't seen in Nanjing last year, as it had been closed for renovation. This place was huge. There were several monuments including a huge cross and wall stating the number of victims the Japanese army brutally killed (300,000 though the Japanese government claims otherwise and has barely even recognized that the event had happened). It also had a Washington memorial-type long pond with obelisk-in-form-of-lady at the end. Part of the exhibition is piles of bones excavated from the mass grave site where the memorial is situated along with the uncovered grave of 10,000. I thought this was greatly disrespectful of the dead, digging their bones up and putting them on display, less than 80 years after their brutal deaths. The memorial is enough to let people know what happened, the mass grave doesn't need to be shown too. Anyway, then we left for the fast train back to Shanghai and here I am now. Someone's putting off some fireworks outside and it sounds like the city is under fire. Let's hope they stop soon so I can sleep :)
Merry Christmas friends! Have a wonderful day, hope you were all good this year!
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