Greetings all!
As I write this the sun is shining brightly, it's a cool crisp morning and we think that Spring is on the way! Yesterday Rod and I rode our bikes in the park for the first time this year and it was so nice to get outside and just ride.
March has been a short travel month..as the title of the blog entry implies...2 weekends, 2 capital cities..1 short weekend in Beijing and 1 long weekend in Nanjing. Our nieces came to visit on part of an organized tour, so we went to Beijing to meet them and stayed 1 night in the same hotel. We didn't visit all of the normal spots in Beijing with them as we had already visited the forbidden city, the summer palace and the Great Wall..so we just enjoyed some time with them, then on our own in Beijing. Here are some pictures of that short visit!
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| We left Shenyang on the high speed train to Beijing...4 hours with a few stops. This time, we made sure we had a 1st class seat! |
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| Rod with Elizabeth, Taylor, and Victoria as they arrived in Beijing, just off the bus from the airport |
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| The family portrait just before the evening meal |
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| Breakfast at the hotel with the hostess |
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| Rod and Sarah in a mall in Beijing with 2 girls from Guizhou province (the greenery in the background is tea bushes, as this is a big part of the economy in that province. The terraced hillside you can make out on the photo behind her is tea bushes..they also have mountains terraced like this with rice fields...it's on my 'to see' list! |
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| The music and tea caught our ear and eye! |
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| A Christian church service in Beijing (in Chinese) |
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| Rod and Sarah on the main shopping street in Beijing |
We had a short visit, but very nice to see our family on this side of the Pacific! They have now arrived safe and sound back in Florida with memories that will last a life time!
The next weekend, I had a 4 day weekend off from work, so we (me--Sarah) looked at the map of China to see where we (I) wanted to go..very few criteria...warmer than Shenyang, nice hotel with a conceirge, not too far to fly and something to see once we got there...so I picked Nanjing.
Nanjing, like most cities in China has a long history...I'm not going to go into it here,but suffice to say it's been around since about 500 BC! It was the home of the 1st Ming Dynasty sometime in the 1300's and stayed the capital of what would become mainland China until sometime in the 1600's before the Qing's took over and moved it to Beijing. Between 1911 (when the revolution against the emperor system) and 1927, the capital moved back and forth between Beijing and Nanjing several times. It was a period of Chinese history where there really was not one government over the country , but several waring factions. In 1927 the Kuomingtang, lead by Chiang Kai-shek (a group fighting to establish the Republic of China ROC with a free economy) brought the capital back to Nanjing. In 1937, the Japanese invaded and occupied Nanjing (the capital was then moved to Chongqing) and eventually, after the end of WWII in 1946 the capital was brought back to Nanjing. That didn't last long because the People Liberation Army (PLA) conquered Nanjing in 1949 and established the Peoples Republic of China (the communist P.R.C China) with it's capital in Beijing. Chiang Kai-sheck fled Nanjing in mainland China with the Kuomingtang and established the Republic of China (ROC China) in Taiwan. The PRC China and the ROC China have kept their respective captials ever since. In the grand scheme of time, looking at their history, it's just a drop in the bucket!
So much for the much condensed Chinese history lesson! Obviously it's not the purpose of this blog...if you want to get a better Chinese history lesson, start with Wikipedia..and follow as many links as you like to learn more!
Anyway, our trip to Nanjing started with selecting our hotel...the Intercontinental Hotel located in the top floors of the 10th tallest building in the world with a nice view over the city.
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| The 10th tallest building in the world and the tallest building in Nanjing, China. We stayed on the 65th floor |
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| A view of the city of Nanjing from our room |
After getting settled and getting some travel advice from the concierge of the hotel, we set out on Saturday to explore the city. We found out that the plum blossom festival was going on, so we headed up to the tomb of the 1st emporer of the Ming dynasty. It is a large park located on a mountain in the city of Nanjing (which meant we could take a taxi to the park and take the metro back!)
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| Sarah in the plum blossoms |
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| Plum blossoms on the hillside of the Ming dynasty tomb |
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| Rod and Sarah in the plum blossoms |
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| A pagoda on top of the plum blossom hill |
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| A view of the many plum trees on the hillside from the Pagoda |
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| The walk of the protective animals on the way to the tomb |
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| Rod beside one of the animals |
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| Rod climbing the steps to Sun Yatsen's memorial ...lots of steps...at least he didn't have the load the lady next to him had! |
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| A view from the top of the Sun Yaten memorial |
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| Sarah on the top of the memorial steps and hill |
After a full day exploring the Plum blossoms , Ming Tomb and and Sun Yatsen memorial, we were tired...but still wanted to see the city at night...so off we went to go to the old section of Nanjing around the Confuscious temple area. Given the name of Confuscious, I was expecting a peaceful garden with old architecture...well, I was wrong! There was some old architecture (all rebuilt after WWII), but mostly it was touristy shops with lots of lights and bling! We were recommended to go to the river and take a boat ride, (after a long day walking, anything riding sounded good to us, so off we went!
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| Confusious temple in Nanjing at night! |
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| Bling on the riverside |
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| Dragon lighted wall in Najning on the canal |
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| Riding the boat on the riverside in Nanjing |
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After a full day, we were pooped out and took a more liesurely approach to our next day, so we started with the memorial to the Nanjing massacre. This is a somber place...in a period of 6 weeks, it is estimated that 300000 people were killed in Nanjing by the Japanese. There was a pit where > 10000 corpes were found and on this site a memorial was established. Some of the bones still in the ground are exposed to be seen and keep the momory alive. I read the book The Rape of Nanking which give me a whole new insight into the battles in Asia of WWII. I was either not paying close enough attention in World History class (surely the case) or it wasn't covered (pretty sure of this too), but in any case, after living here, I have a different outlook on WWII from the Asia perspective. Below are some of the photos from this memorial.
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| The large statue of a woman holding her small child, reaching to the sky at the entrance to the Memorial museum |
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| One of the statues as you walk into the memorial |
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| The pit of 10000 corpses lies below the rocks |
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| Rod and Sarah in the Garden of Peace at the Nanjing Memorial |
After the memorial, we were not in the mood to explore, so we came back and rested and went again to the river area that night..this time we played around and got our picture taken in the Chinese costumes...
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| Rod and Sarah playing around in Chinese costumes in Nanjing |
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| Rod and Sarah at the river area in Nanjing |
The last day, we only had the morning to explore, so we made the best of it and started early! We started at the city wall entrance at the lake, took a riding tour around the area, then walked on the city wall to the temple at one of the other wall entrances.
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| One of the Gates through the city wall in Nanjing | | |
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| Walking on the City wall in Nanjing (much easier than the Great Wall of China!) |
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| One of the park areas around the lake in Nanjing |
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| Another with Rod and Sarah on the City Wall of Nanjing |
At one of the city gates,there is a big buddhist temple, so we went in to visit and look around.
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| The buddhist temple in Nanjing |
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| On the city wall, there is a dispaly of cannons, here's Rod beside the cannon with the temple in the background in Nanjing |
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| The center of the temple at Nanjing |
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| Always good to go to the buddhist temple shopping area...got a blessed necklace! |
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| We lit the incense sticks at the buddhist temple |
After walking around the city wall, and temple we went back to the hotel area and noticed a little pagoda just peeking out over a wall, so we stopped to explore one last thing before we left the city...so glad we stopped!
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| The little pagoda area across from the 10th tallest buidling in the world in Nanjing! |
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| Rod and Sarah at the Pagoda..the hotel is in the background |
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| The pagoda garden, so peaceful in a big city to find this little gem! |
So that's about it for our travels in China for this weekend. Blessings to you all andThank you for your continued prayers and thoughts as we near our 4 year anniversary of living here...yes, 4 years...amazing how the time has gone by!
Rod and Sarah, the dynamic duo living in Shenyang, China!
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