Vacation all I ever wanted, Vacation have to get away!

10 day vacation: Part 1-Nanjing

The adventure continues. I’ve had the last week and a half off of teaching for the Chinese national independence week and went on quite the adventure. It all started Friday afternoon when I and the other four people in my group hopped a train to Nanjing. It was quite the adventure. After about an hour long train ride we made it to Nanjing and hopped the subway to the zhonghuamen station which was supposed to be closest to our hostel. After getting off at this station we asked for help so that we could be sure we were following the right street. Once we found this street we set off walking on the sidewalk among several trees in search of our hostel. After a bit of a walk we crossed the street and found the industrial park that was the location of our hostel. After another couple of minutes we found the entrance and wandered until we found the location of our hostel. After checking in and dropping off our stuff we asked the front desk clerk about good places to eat and took his advice and set off in search of food. After awhile we were able to find the location he had described and get enough food to hold us. Afterwards we headed back to the hostel but on the way there at the zhonghua gate we happened to run into some impromptu karaoke. So we stopped and watched and listened for a minute then headed to the hostel and called it a night.

          After getting ready the next morning we talked to the clerk again, trying to get an idea of where we should go and what buses we should take to get there. We headed out into town and found some inexpensive and good street food for breakfast just before getting off the bus and heading up the purple mountain for the actual national holiday. The mountain was swarmed with people and we explored most of the mountain. We saw many things such as the mausoleum of dr. sun yat-sen one of the many celebrated Chinese people. We also saw an exhibit dedicated to this man entitled the man of the century. Afterwards we headed back down the mountain, stopping a moment to enjoy the soft grass, and the surrounding beauty, along with a bridge or two. When we made it back down the mountain we headed in a different direction and saw the pagoda, a beautiful one, 9 stories tall. Once we were done there we contemplated food but the food was so expensive on the mountain we headed back down and hit up the location we had visited the night before.

          Still in Nanjing the next day we saw some palace ruins and explored the area a bit. After which we attempted to go to the museum which is a museum dedicated to the Japanese invasion that was a sort of Chinese holocaust but the line was so long and it was raining that we decided we could wait a day and so we headed over to a lake to see what we could see. Once we got to the lake we decided we were hungry so we headed the other direction and found a mall where we could get some food for strength. We took awhile deciding but eventually all had some food in our systems. Once we were satisfied we headed over to the lake to explore and see what we could see. We wandered around the lake for awhile just to see what the area had to offer. We explored some of the trails and the architecture and just goofed off a bit. After awhile it began to get dark so we explored just a little bit more and then headed out. By the time we were done we were starving so we headed back to the same place we had been the previous two nights and gorged on food before heading back the direction of our hostel. On the way back we explored a little and then we headed to the hostel and called it a night.

          As this was our last night in Nanjing and we had a late night train we decided to sleep in. So we slept in at our hostel until around 10:30 then we got up and got ready for the day. We packed up all of our stuff and check out of our hostel. After we had checked out with all of our possessions on our back we headed out to get some breakfast/lunch. We went to some of the street vendors and got our food then headed over to the subway. We hopped on the subway and headed over to the museum that we hadn’t made it into before. We got in line then waited a couple of minutes and finally made it inside. We walked through the museum seeing all that we could see and taking in everything. There was so much to take in, but the museum didn’t seem as somber as we thought it should feel. It felt like they were trying to give you as much information as possible. Almost everything that was displayed had a paragraph with it and they didn’t really let anything speak for itself. The museum was huge and went on forever so after about 2 1/2 to 3 hours we finally made it out of the museum. Once we were done at the museum we gave ourselves a break from lugging everything around. We headed over to the mall in our area we had passed several times called aqua city and we got food from subway and sat down to give ourselves some time to rest. After we finished our subway we got some ice cream(which was a common theme and happened several times on our vacation) most of us from dairy queen, but I settled for the cheap stuff from McDonald’s. After we were done with our ice cream and felt well rested after being able to put our stuff down we headed over to the zhonghua gate. As we were headed in we saw several people dancing as happens oftentimes at night in various locations around china. These people were doing a sort of line dance so we watched for awhile and a couple of our group joined in. We let them have their fun for about a half an hour or so then we paid the entrance fee and headed onto the zhonghua gate. We explored the gate for a bit and reveled in all that we could see. After a little while on the gate we ran into some other people from the states and spent awhile talking to them about China, etc… Once we were done we had only a few more minutes so we headed the other direction on the gate and explored for a little while longer then we took the subway to the train station and found our spots. After which we took turns exploring a little bit and getting food from the kfc in the train station and waiting for our train to leave. Eventually it came time to board our train so we headed over to board. …. To be continued in part 2.