Got back from the "small" city of Nanjing this afternoon (population 5 million) I also found out the Pat's traded Vrabel. Nanjing as I mentioned previously was the former capital of China back in the day, so it has a very rich history. We left Shanghai on Friday morning and drove the four hours (I had to pee very badly for at least two of those), and arrived at the Nanjing massacre memorial hall.

In 1937 (I think) the Japanese invaded China taking over Shanghai, Nanjing and other surrounding areas. When the Japanese forces reached Nanjing the Chinese army seeing that they were no match for the superior Japanese forces had already started to retreat, leaving civillian men, women and children unprotected. The result is the Nanjing massacre, where 300,000 Chinese were killed in a six month period (it's a very gloomy museum). Saw lots of artifacts and skeletons, but it was a good experience overall.

After visiting the museum we were able to check into our hotel, which was a very nice place, and I preceded to take a very long, very hot shower. Had the evening to ourselves and went to dinner with a group of classmates.

Saturday Morning we started by getting on the bus and driving to Sun-yat-Sen's Mausoleum. Sun-yat-sen was the leader of the democratic movement in China and the founder of the KMT which is now the government in place in Taiwan. His tomb is set up in this 'mountain' that you take a bunch of steps to get to, great views from above, except we couldn't really see the city because of the weather.

After that we checked out a Buddist temple, and climbed up a big Pagoda and got an even better view. The best part about this location was it was tucked away in the woods and there was a lot of green space rather than the concrete that makes up all of Shanghai.

Overall good trip (it didn't rain or snow!) had fun hanging out with the classmates and seeing the sites but now it's back to work learning Chinese.

-AL