So after the entertaining but mildly traumatic events of my last blog life has been remarkably calm. So much so that last time I sat down to blog I realized that I had nothing to write about… But finally: An Event! Last weekend we went to Nanjing, we being Megan, Lillian, Jonas, Nick, and I.
We took the train out Saturday morning and stayed through Monday night. (yes I did play hookie, so sue me) We stayed at a Hostel that one of our fellow students suggested. It turned out to be a great spot. It was right next to Confucius’s Temple and a really cool walk street/night market area. It was also clean and nicer than I expected, especially for the oh so expensive $6 a night I was paying for it. It was also cool to be in a place with tons of other traveling kids from all over the world. I ended up having a fun Chat with a group of German kids who were studying film in Shanghai.
The first afternoon we decided to go to the Nanjing Massacre Museum since it is a “must do” from everyone who has gone to Nanjing. Since there were five of us taking a taxi was pretty much out of the question no matter what because we would always be stuck taking two, and our direction giving ability was iffy at best, so it would be particularly bad if we got separated. So… On to the Bus system!!!!
We found the right bus line and the stop nearest us and walked down. We saw quite a few brand new shiny buses go by, but our bus had yet to arrive. But the, from down the street, we saw it… The red bus, chipping paint and all, that looked like it was built in the early 70s and had yet to be remodeled with a large number 63 painted on the front. We looked at each other and asked Megan “we do really want the 63 right?” “yep” so we all headed on… Lillian described it as “it’s like the bus is in a time warp that no one else is stuck in” The windows rattled… Actually the whole bus kind of rattled. But we did get there… And in one piece too!
I still have mixed feelings about the Massacre Museum. Initially I was incredibly impressed. The architecture was amazing and the various outside courtyards were beautifully laid out. There was some quite disturbing statuary, but it really bought the emotions home in a still relatively tactful way. The whole thing was constructed in Black Marble and gray concrete which, in conjunction with the grey weather, made quite an impression.
When we got there we wandered through the outside courtyard before getting in line with a massive tour group to go inside. However, when we were only a little way into the line the guard monitoring the line announced “外国朋友请先来” Or “Will the foreign friends please come first” so we got to cut the whole line which was pretty nice. In my opinion the museum went down hill from there.
We proceeded to a recreation of the excavation of the mass grave left behind after the Nanjing massacre that, in my opinion, was done in extremely poor taste.
However, there was something extremely interesting. At various points throughout the museum there were huge chains of thousands of paper cranes. I guess that Japanese tour groups came and brought them to leave in apology. I thought that was incredibly interesting for several different reasons. On one hand it was really interesting that the Japanese were admitting that it was a mistake on their part enough to bring a symbolic offering of apology. On the other hand it was equally interesting that the Chinese were willing to leave the chains out for visitors to view, since the rest of the museum seemed essentially devoted to perpetuating the hatred between Japan and China.
After we walked through the mass grave there was an eternal flame, and then we walked out into a large open arcade. At the end was a massive statue of “Peace” portrayed as a western woman, which I thought was really interesting.
At the same time as we were there, there was also a large group of Chinese soldiers visiting. Groups of them got together in front of the statue and take pictures, with V for victory signs and all. It was really adorable.
Lillian and I were walking along and there was a man trailing us who was determined to take a picture of us using his cell phone. I am pretty used to it at this point. Some people however, are more subtle then other. The incredibly loud shutter sound that his cell phone camera made kind of ruined this particular man’s attempts at stealth. Finally Lillian and I decided to turn around and just pose for the man, however, when we did so he vehemently denied having been taking our pictures. So we turned around and kept walking and he kept trailing…
Megan had decided that she needed to go to the bathroom, so we decided to meet her at the end near the statue. About 15 minutes after she had left Lillian’s cell phone went off. The Conversation went something like this:
“Hey Megan. Where are you?”
…
“at the front gate… Why?”
…
“YOU GOT IN A FIGHT!!!!”
As it turns out Megan had gotten involved a bathroom brawl and had been escorted to the front gate by the security guards who came to break it up. She had been waiting in line for the bathroom, and had finally gotten to the front when a group of older Chinese women came in and tried to cut the line by elbowing everybody out of the way. The woman behind Megan tried to stop them by pointing out the she and Megan had been waiting in line. Megan piped up that yes, she had in fact been waiting for a long time. Elbows flew… Security guards were called…
We went back to the hostel in the evening to chill a little and then head to bed. The hostel had a resident cat that was completely adorable and I really enjoyed playing with for a while earlier that day. However before we got back something really traumatic must have happened to that cat, because we opened our room door and the cat appears out of no where and sprints into the room and takes up semi permanent residence under my bed. Now that wouldn't have been a big deal except that Megan is EXTREMELY ALLERGIC to cats.
Mission Eject Cat then commenced. I sat in the room and tried to coax it out to start with. Finally I reverted to sitting with my hand out and waiting for the cat to come to me. Fortunately I noticed the cat shift its weight somewhat oddly so I tensed up, which enabled me to throw myself out of the way when the cat came shooting out from under the bed in full battle mode and moved in under the bed across from mine. Unfortunately, at that point there was a Chinese man asleep in that bed... I finally went for help. I'm still not sure how, but Nick eventually managed to get it out of the room without it ever having gone onto Megan's bed so all was well.
The next morning we decided to head out for a traditional Chinese HOT SPRING ADVENTURE!!!! But first we needed breakfast. So while the boys woke up Megan Lillian and I went down to find some street food. Fortunately there were several food stalls right under the hostel. We grabbed a "麻球" (sesame ball) for everyone. These turned out to be filled with honey rather than the usual red bean paste and were delicious! We also bought what we call Chinese crepes. I never have actually figured out the proper name for them. They are a really thin piece of crepe like dough with an egg, some chili pepper, some really awesome brown sweet sauce, some little pickled thingys, some green veggies, and your choice of a crunch thing or a 油条 which I call a Chinese donut all wrapped together. They are Excellent. (I was really upset when I actually learned the Chinese name for Chinese donuts and realized that they translate to "oil stick")
We were without a doubt the most interesting thing to have ordered food in a long time and by the time we were done there was quite a group who had come to watch us chat with the ladies who ran the food carts. Always glad to be of entertainment!
After breakfast we headed out. There are some famous hot springs in the mountains outside Nanjing which we decided we couldn’t miss. We were planning on taking a bus out, but when we got to the bus station this guy came up to us and was like “I have a van 15 kuai per person and I will take you “ and we were like “sketchy van man… perhaps not…”
But then the bus pulled up and it was absolutely full of people. Sooooo… standing for an hour and a half??? Sketchy van??? standing for an hour and a half??? Sketchy… Ohhhh look those Chinese people are taking the sketchy van… WAIT FOR USSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
So we took the van and the driver, after making some fun of our Chinese took us straight to the door of the hot spring complex. The hot springs were AMAZING!!!! Seriously who doesn’t love a spa day? It was practically a hot spring resort with a $20 or so entrance fee you got to spend the day playing in their 42 different hot springs. What are in the 42 different hot springs? you might ask…
Well, to start with : flesh eating fish! Not kidding, I promise.
Apparently it is an ancient Chinese exfoliating technique. You sit in a warm pool and fish come and “吃” (eat) you. I had heard about them before, but I never really expected to do it. But hey, why not right? I also expected the fish to be tiny and tadpole like, but no, they were about three inches or so. All the Chinese were sitting there completely calmly, not twitching at all, so we settled in to wait.
And then all of us at one felt the fish “吃” us. We pretty much flipped out. There was jumping and giggling and flailing of all sorts, much to the amusement of the 50 or so Chinese people chilling in there with us. We eventually adjusted to it and stopped flailing and got be amused in our turn when a group of Chinese girls flipped out too.
There was drink and snack service included in our package, so when we were sitting in one of the hot springs a waitress came around with a tray of drinks. I was kind of expecting something zen and soothing such as unsweetened green tea, but no, she comes by with a tray of orange, green, and clear soda. I of course had to get the toxic waste green bubbling liquid, who wouldn’t? Which turned out to be some pretty awesome green apple soda.
We kept hot springing until about 2 in the afternoon. Some of my favorites were, besides the fish pool of course, the waterfall hot spring where you could chill under a waterfall, and the small baths each of which had a different flower scent. The wine hot spring, disappointingly, was not filled with wine. We wrapped up by sitting in the sauna and then grabbed a car back into town.
Than night we hopped on another bus and headed out to see the city walls. Nanjing is famous for having some of the oldest in tact city walls in the world. There was great view and a bunch of people up on the top flying kites which was really fun. There was also a wonderful sort of quiet tranquility to the place which I rarely come across even in the parks of bustling Shanghai. The authentic awesomeness of the place was a little broken by the massive inflated car on top of the ramparts though. Well... Who didn't want to know about the newest Kia when visiting ancient city walls?
We headed back towards the Hostel and stopped by the Confucius temple. It turns out that the temple was in the middle of the annual lantern festival. That meant that the whole place was filled with ridiculously complicated and completely awesome lanterns. We aren't talking lanterns that hang from the rafters or anything though. These were practically parade floats.
We had grabbed a late lunch that day so when dinner came around we weren't really hungry. We went and walked around the night markets for a while, but the city, like most of China shut down at 10 pm. The boys went back to the hostel, but Megan, Lillian, and I went on Dumpling Quest. We had seen people order in Dumplings the night before and had been wanting some ever since. All the street vendors were closing but finally we found a dumpling chain restaurant. We ran in and ordered just in time. A few people came in right after us and got turned away. I think that we got served only because the lady at the counter was incredibly amused by our existence and our need for dumplings at a few minutes to ten. So we got our dumplings, and then were compelled to stop for fruit on a stick on the way back to the hostel. Who doesn't want about a quarter of a watermelon on a stick for 20 cents?
The next morning was our last day so we started by checking out. We then grabbed some 包子 (steamed buns) for breakfast and headed down to the train station to see if we could check our bags for the day. Fortunately we could, so we dropped our stuff and hopped on the bus. We decided to go out to Purple mountain which is the major scenic spot in Nanjing and also the site of Sun Yat Sen's tomb.
I am going to go on a a quick tangent on the names of major Chinese political figures in Chinese and English. THEY ARE COMPLETELY NOT THE SAME AT AAAAALLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! It makes it really hard to talk to Chinese people. for example earlier this year I went to the tomb of Chang Kai Shek. It took me about half an hour to communicate where I had gone since in Chinese his name is Jian Jie Shi. Now tell me where we got Chang Kai Shek from. Now Sun Yat Sen is closer. I mean, we got the first word right at least. His name in Chinese is Sun Zhong Shan. If we were going to change the names that mich why didn't we just pick something like John or Fred for the English names?
Anywho... I think my new goal in life is to become important enough to get a tomb like Sun Yat Sen's. It is insanely gorgeous. It is up a huge mountain with a view that goes on forever over a massive nature park and then the city sky line.
We were climbing up to the top, but about half way up we stopped to take pictures with some massive bronze urns. Of course, since we had stopped at a tourist attraction that made us a part of the attraction. Five different Chinese family's immediately mobbed up grabbed Megan Lilian and I and started taking pictures. The then started trading us around. I swear there was bargaining, something along the lines of "I'll give your family Lillian if we can have Megan and Zoe for a group shot" "Done." The crowed cleared after about ten minutes and we made a run for it.
At the top was Sun Yat Sen's actual Mausoleum. I guess when they were building the site the Chinese government held a competition. The layout design for the layout of the grounds was won by a Chinese architect, but the actual mausoleum and the statue of Sun Yat Sen went to an Italian architect and a Czech sculpture, which ended up creating a distinctly western looking Sun Yat Sen.
After the Memorial we went through some of the other stuff at the park. They had a massive pagoda in memory of Chinese patriots. It was really awesome becasue you could climb up to each of ten levels and look out. I have taken a bunch of classes where teacher make students do something to try to "change there perspective" usually involving standing on desks or the like. Nothing has ever worked as well as climbing the pagoda. The forst few floors you were looking at individual trees and would clearly see that there were two layers of different types of trees. By the time I got to the top floor the trees looked like a rolling blanket that I almost believed I could walk across.
Next up we went to see a special outdoor music amphitheater. At the amphitheater they cultivated special whit pigeons. There were TONS of them. What I didn't know is that Lillian is terrified of/hates all birds and things that make flapping noises.
There were people who were feeding the pigeons and letting them stand on them. Lillian looked at them start to feed the birds and as a huge flock of hundred of bird lifted off to fly onto the people she kind of yelled out "Why would you feed them? Why? Oh No! SAVE YOURSELVES!!!!" Megan and I almost keeled over cracking up.
Finally we grabbed the bus back to the train station to catch our train home. We had bought bowls of Ramen for dinner on the train. Now I thought that it was physically impossible not to cook ramen correctly. Lillian however, thought otherwise.
Megan, Lillian, and I all had the ramen that you pour the liquid out of and end up with not soupy noodles. So we all added water from the trains hot water dispenser. I guess Lillian went last so the water wasn't as hot or something, because when we all went to pour out the water Lillian said "ummm, guys, my noodles are still hard..." So we decided that she should pour the water out and add new hot water. We could do that because for that kind of ramen we had only added vegetables, not sauce with the water. But when she started pouring the water out she began to "hemorrhage vegetables" They were kind of spraying out with the water into the water machine's filter. At that point we were cracking up so hard we all almost dropped our ramen. She re-added hot water but when the time came and her noodles were finally done she had already poured the water once so the lid was kind of ripped and she hemorrhaged even more vegetables.
We were completely incapacitated with laughter and there was an entire car of Chinese train passengers who just couldn't understand what in the world could be that hilarious about the water dispenser... Which of course only made us laugh harder...
till next time!
