Nanjing

I wanted to travel to Nanjing because we could sleep on the train ride there and also sleep on the way back. We didn't need to book a hotel. The train ride was 11 hours long.

This overnight train was a bit of a shock. We have been in China for about 3 months now, but this was a bit of a scary culture shock to me. Not only were we the only white people on the entire train, but we were in such close quarters with everyone around us. No one spoke English.

Carly, on the other hand, thought it was the coolest thing ever and climbed right up to the top bunk.

Nanjing was the capital thousands of years ago throughout several dynasties and kingdoms. It is a city in the Yangtze River Delta. When we got of the train, we saw the Xuanwu Lake. It is a royal garden lake with the Ming Great Wall. The wall was intended to protect the ancient capital from invaders. We hopped on a boat to travel around the lake. We had Chinese people asking to take pictures with us.

On the other side of the lake, we saw a 12 meter statue of Lotus-Flower Fairy. This area is a large scale performance area in China.

We also walked through some temples and beautiful scenery.

It was less crowded here and very peaceful.

After leaving here, I wanted to see the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. But, unfortunately, it was closed. All we saw was the statue.

We walked through the Nanjing museum and saw how silk is made. We ate at kind of a nasty restaurant. We weren't even sure what a lot of the food was.

We then went to the Sun Yatsen Mausoleum. It is the mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yet-sen, the father of the Republic of China. It is located a the Purple Mountain. It is considered the holy land of Chinese people.

Lastly, we went on a treasure boat along Qin Huai River.

We saw many antique buildings with white walls and black tiles. There were strings of lights and red lanterns.