Blogs from Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, Asia - page 32

OK, so we caught the overnight train to Nanjing from Beijing and was in the end suprisingly easy and comfortable. Arrived bright and early to head to the hostel. After successfully navigating the bus and a short walk we came to the right street but couldn't see the hostel. To some amusement in the nearby chinese restaurant (I suppose just 'restaurant' would suffice) where we asked for directions we were presented with a translation, "to destroy, to demolish, to remove"... not a great start. Anyway, managed to find some other accomodation close by so all is well. Nanjing was a nice enough place but the streets smelt a bit. Not too many westerners there either which was a kinda interesting experience. I didn't really think too much of the city, the guide book had described it ... read more

Faut pas aller à Nanjing pour la ville elle-même, à la limite pour la soupe piquante d'un petit restau ou un fruit du lotus au riz sucré vendu dans la rue... Mais pas pour la vielle ville aménagée pour les touristes où les temples sont décorés d'ampoules électriques. Le seul truc qui m'a plu en ville, c'est le temple de Confucius: travaux, bazar et gens qui jouent au badminton, ma vision du confucianism a changé! Faut sortir de cette ville et aller sur la Colline Pourpre et Or, où tombeaux impériaux, palais et le mausolée de Sun Yat-sen (le fondateur de la république chinoises) cohabitent! Mélange des genres! ... read more

As part of my contract, Taizhou College will be giving me as many opportunities as possible to get "out and about" in Jiangsu province. Our first trip was to Nanjing the provincial capital to celebrate the annual Plum Blossom Festival on the slopes of Zijin Shan (sometimes known as Purple Mountain). Our group consisted of Victoria and Bobby (my colleague and her boyfriend), myself, Arthur (my boss) and Vivian (our Chinese co teacher). We were joined and "hosted" in Nanjing by Tracy, one of the Nanjing Normal University teaching staff that teaches in Taizhou during the week. Zijin Shan is the location for many of Nanjing's historical sights: Sun Yatsen Mausoleum, Xiaoling Tomb, Linggu Temple to name but three. However, as the others had visited these previously, this was not to be the focus of this ... read more

Nanjing - 01.02.06 We arrived in Nanjing, a city 3 hours west of Shanghai, in style by travelling on our first double decker train! Choo Choo!! One of the first things we did was visit the PSB to extend our visas, unfortunately we discovered that it would take them almost a week to do this here (think there was a delay due to holidays for the Chinese New Year) so we found ourselves wth some time relax and get to know Nanjing a little better. We wandered for a few days, saw the city wall and visited the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall which is a monument to the invasion from the Japanese during the second world war. The city lost 300,000 civilians during months of brutal fighting and the photos and displays in the hall are ... read more

I forgot to tell you about text messaging in China.Almost every one of the 1.3 billion Chinese has a cell phone,well perhaps not everyone but every 20 something, of which there are millions,has a cell phone and all of them are text messaging ALL the time.Thumbs are flying and messages are shooting through the air waves.During the show last night the conga player was text messaging while on stage!!! People are biking and messaging and Noah and his friends are constantly in touch.It is cheaper than phoning apparently and you would be hard pressed to find someone without a cell phone in his hand... read more