Some time in Nanjing

Confucious Temple area
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After not getting much sleep on the sleeper train, Dr. Cai woke us up really early so that we could prepare to meet the camera crew that would be following us around for the next 9 days.  Evidently, we were the first group to ever take a study abroad trip to the Jiangsu Province, so the Tourism Bureau wanted to document everything to promote study abroad there in the future.

Our first day in Nanjing we went to the Confucious Temple, which was right across the street from our first hotel.  We also went to the Nanjing Massacre Museum and a Broque Museum (a museum about how they made the embroidered silk garments for emperors).  While at the Confucious Temple, we ate a 16-course traditional Nanjing meal.  Most of the dishes were good, but I absolutely HATED the stinky tofu.  While walking in the Confucious Temple, a man walked up to me and handed me his son, who must have been about two years old.  He then started taking pictures of me holding his son.  It was a little awkward, but mostly funny.  The Nanjing Massacre Museum was very moving.  I had tears in my eyes at one point while looking through all the pictures and testimomials.  I had no idea of this historical event because in U.S. History, during World War Two, the atrocities that we hear about are those of the Holocaust taking place in Germany.  The Broque Museum was interesting--We got to see some workers making the silk embroderies in a traditional manner.  In an 8 hour workday they only make 6cm of progress.  They gave us a silk dress fashion show, which was fun.

Confucious Temple area
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May 14 we spent at the Jinling Tourism School for cooking class.  They gave us a very warm welcome and we enjoyed cooking corn-shaped fish and three-flavor tofu.  In the evening we went to KTV, which we expected to be like a karaoke bar in the U.S., but what you do is rent a room and sing karaoke with your friends.  It was still a lot of fun.

On Thurs., May 15, we went to a strawberry farm and picked our own fresh strawberries.  Living on this type of farm must be very hard work for very little profit.  It is scorching hot in the greenhouses and the strawberries were for sale for very cheap.  The strawberry farmer wore many layers to protect her skin from the sun, which must have made it even hotter for work.  After the strawberry farm we went to a tea farm.  This seems like it is equally as hard work, but at least the tea is not grown in greenhouses so it's not quite as hot while harvesting the tea leaves.  We saw a typical Chinese Tea Ceremony in the afteroon, just after lunch.  While we were at the tea farm, the tea farmer let us look around his house.  It was interesting because the kitchen was a completely separate building from the rest of his house.  It was a very humble residence.

16 course meal
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On May 16, we went back to Jinling Tourism School for another cooking class.  This time we learned how to make Kung Pao Chicken.  Ours was delicious but I accidently put too much soy sauce in it so the color was too dark.  In the evening we got dressed up and went to the Jinling Hotel which is a Chinese brand that is equivalent with U.S. 5-star hotel standards.  We listened to presentations of several different restaurants in the Jinling Hotel.  There is an Italian Restaurant and also a Japanese Restaurant.  We saw a Japanese Tea Ceremony performed by women in kimonos.  The Jinling Hotel is very nice and is very cheaply priced.  To stay a night in a standard room costs about 700 RMB or about $100 USD.  Not bad at all!  The Jinling Hotel gave us a big welcoming dinner which was a large buffet and everything was very delicious.  I had a long talk with Mr. Alexander Li, President of Jinling Travel.  He is a very nice man and is also the boss of our tour guide, Lee.

cooking class
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May 17 was a free day so we decided to go to the Nanjing Zoo.   Part of our time there was fun, but some of it was very depressing.  We played in these giant clear beach ball like things.  They were big enough to fit us inside and we were in a little pond of water and were rolling around and doing flips and stuff.  Afterwards we saw some giraffes and one panda.  The panda was just laying there sleeping.  We then walked around to see some other animals.  All of the animals were just laying around, none of them were active.  We walked by the bears and there were people throwing garbage at them.  It was so sad.  That would never be acceptable in the U.S.  We saw the same thing when looking at the monkeys.  At that point we decided to leave.  We took the metro to Hunan Rd.  and walked around a little bit and then back to the hotel.

strawberry farm
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May 18 was a rainy day, but I still had a lot of fun.  We went to Slim West Lake, a Han Tomb, and Ge Gardens.  I loved being in a boat traveling around Slim West Lake and seeing all the buildings that were built solely to impress the emperor.  We saw the empress' tomb when we went to the Han Tomb.  It was built with wood that was 4000 years old.  The pieces were fit together almost perfectly even though the tomb had been moved from its original location.  The Ge Gardens were interesting because the main focus of them were the rock structures that had been moved from the sea to the garden.  The Chinese are very imaginative and were pointing out animal shapes in the rocks.  The Garden was divided into the four seasons.

delicious strawberry that i picked
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May 19 we went back to Jinling Tourism School for another cooking class.  We cooked boiled dumplings.  I was pretty bad at folding over the dumpling dough and making it look nice.  The dumplings tasted amazing though.  In the afternoon we went to the Jiang Xin Zhou Agricultural Museum and a Grape Farm.  The Ag. Museum was interesting... It felt like we were at recess in grade school again.  We were playing all these old traditional Chinese games.  We were then walking around the Museum and at 2:28 pm there was a moment of silence for the earthquake victims from a week earlier.  The entire country stopped for 3 minutes and we heard the air raid sirens.  Later on the news we saw footage of what went on in more populated areas.  All the cars in the streets stopped and people got out of their cars.  Everyone honked their horns for 3 solid minutes and no one said a word.  I cannot believe how truly united the Chinese are as a people.

tea ceremony
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May 20 was another day at the Jinling Tourism School to cook sweet and sour pork, but I got sick.

Wednesday, May 21 we went to cooking class again and learned how to make a Shallot Oil Pancake and Fried Dumplings.  Then we went to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Mausoleum and climbed the 392 stairs to get to the top.  We went to the Lingu Temple and saw wax figures about the history of China and Nanjing and we also went to a Ming Tomb and saw giant stone animal carvings.