Nanjing - walls, bodies, iced milk teas and the works.

Last week we went to Nanjing (Nanking) - a city which has been the capital city several times. It is famous for still having intact Medieval city walls (many of the other cities in China have lost theirs) as well as the Nanjing/Nanking massacre - when the Japanese invaded China and massacred 300,000 civilians in 6 weeks - including children and the elderly.

We went on a bullet train and had a great time.

The 700 year old city walls -

Outside the Confucius Temple - you can hang a red ribbon on this special tree for good fortune or a blessing -

The area we stayed in around the temple was gorgeous at night - here is the river dock where you can hire a boat to go on a night tour. On the wall opposite were two golden dragons, and the area is for pedestrians only - full of restaurants and tourist shops. Very nice.

Inside the huge memorial to the Chinese killed during the massacre - this is the entrance hall - a diffeent picture of a victim appears every few seconds on the far wall. One amazing statistic was that to kill that many people in 6 weeks meant that one person was killed every 12 seconds over that period.

Here is Evan with an iced drink from our most lovely drink place ever - CoCo! We do enjoy an iced zhen zhu nui char (milk tea with pearls) and an ancient city wall wander - highly recommended. Behind him is one of the gates through the city wall - we are outside at the moment.

One one of the islands in the lake in Nanjing - red ribbons ... must be to do with good fortune (always is) - so there you are. Plus another CoCo - so life is good - good fortune and a CoCo!

Back in the memorial hall - while the massacre is not acknowledged by the Japanese, and is not in Japanese history books, some Japanese do come to Najing to pay their respects - one hall has thousahds of origami paper cranes - a colorful, but sad, sight.

Guan Yin, goddess of mercy, in a lotus and lily field in the lake.

The memorial hall is built on one of the mass graves from the massacre - in one hall, you can actually see the remains of many of the people who died - in the place where they were buried. Information signs explain how the individuals died - a 6 year old child shot in the head, and old lady with her neck severed - gruesome. A sad sight, but it seemed important to us to see it and try and understand it.

This week, we are back in Shanghai - today we are off to the huge park near Pudong for hiking and picnic-ing. Work is going fine, as is Chinese language learning. We now know how to swear in Chinese - that's been handy.

We are stating to think about what next ....!!!??? as well as plan more of the details for our upcoming trip to Guilin, the Dragon's Backbone and Chengdu. Before that, it is the Dragon Boat Festival in Shanghai. We are also hoping to have some visitors in September!

All is well in Shanghai!