After Sun Yat-Sen’s tomb, we went to see the Ming emperor’s tomb. Again, I direct you to Wikipedia, but Ming was a dynasty, so that’s all you actually really need to know. This was MUCH bigger than Sun Yat-Sen’s tomb (more people, you know? ) hence the billion more pictures. And, a lot of them are of the same thing, but at varying distances. Sorry, you’ll have to humor me, I’ve already waded through a lot of these for you. All of the buildings (except the tortoise one) were actually gift shops, it was really disappointing! We thought we were going to get to see some tombs (and so did you probably, ha) but every time we walked in, people were just selling stuff. We think the tombs were under or in the last building, but we weren’t positive.
Behind the last building there was a sign that talked about seeing the “Treasure Mound” so a group of us hiked up a ridiculous amount of painfully small stairs, only to see a really beautiful amount of trees, but no treasure, or further instruction. And actually, we didn’t follow the other path down the opposite way we climbed up because we needed to meet everyone else at the bus, but in the end, we suspect the whole “mountain” we climbed was the treasure mound. …right.
I missed a lot of information about the animals because I kept helping people climb onto the back of them to get good pictures (no I didn’t do it myself, shocked aren’t you? And yes, the Chinese do it themselves so we weren’t being really disrespectful). Mainly they got put up for various reasons by the Ming emperors. I think I remember reading that the camel was supposed to signify the prosperity of the western region and the safety of the people or something like that. Great explanation, huh?
Actually, the coolest thing I learned was that lions must be in balance at all times (so say the Chinese) so female lion statues have their paw on a lion cub, and male lions have a paw on a ball or a rock, so there are two in front of a ton of buildings around here, one with a paw on a ball and one with a paw on a cub, so everything is in balance.
After the tour of the university, our group (sans Nanjing University students) went to some sites around Nanjing. First was the tomb of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. You’ll probably find a better, more interesting and comprehensive summary of his importance to China on Wikipedia, so I’ll let you go there. There were so many stairs! But, it was cool to see so much history! I had read about Dr. Sun in one of my books for a class here, so it was cool to put everything together. They wouldn’t let you take pictures inside the mausoleum, or the dome where the actual tomb was, but it was AWESOME. There were great mosaic ceilings, and the dome was marble (almost as good as AC) and there he was, in the center, it was awesome.
We had so many pictures taken of us! The Chinese people just love people that stand out in a crowd, so they can take a picture of them. Literally, in every picture you see, if there are any whiteys, it’s our group, and no one else. Actually, there was this other couple there, but you’d be able to tell them out of a crowd… yowza. Anyway, a guy in our group started taking pictures of all the people taking pictures of us, hahaha. We took a group picture at beginning of the stairs and some guy sneaked in and took a picture too, but we didn’t think much of it. Then, by the time we got back to the bottom, he had already printed it up in this Splash Mountain style paper holder and was trying to sell it to us. A bold yet effective business plan I suppose. All the tourist shops on the way to the ticket booth to get in were yelling at us in broken English to buy their goods. No one’s been rude or too physically aggressive so I’m actually not really concerned about it, yet. I think Chinese culture kind of prevents too much intensity to foreign guests so I think there’s a certain degree of safety in that.
Today we had an opening ceremony with the Nanjing University professors that are overseeing our stay here. Then we met a bunch of students that we got paired with to see the rest of the University and Nanjing with for a few hours. I got paired with Li Li, a graduate Environmental Management student. Her undergraduate degree was in hydrology. How awesome is that?! She was very optimistice, she wants to work for the Chinese government after she graduates so she can help fight the pollution covering China, it was so awesome to hear her talk about it! Right now she’s doing research with some other students and a professor, comparing some software the EPA uses and what China uses. She showed me her office and the EPA manual she was wading through, but she said it was interesting to her, so more power to her!
She wasn’t studying English, but it was very accurate and clear, I was impressed! I told her how lazy I was, that I didn’t know a second language, but she said English was good enough, haha. She showed me the library, her dorm, and a few of the buildings. We ate lunch in the cafeteria (called the canteen) ate the end of our tour. Li Li was very nice, very interested in America, and very informative about China/Chinese university life. We exchanged email addresses and she offered to show me around Nanjing later during my trip. Wa hoo for friends! Actually, I feel like I really did luck out because I heard other people’s students either weren’t as good at English or weren’t very excited to do the tour.
Before lunch, but after the buildings, we went around Nanjing because apparently Li Li didn’t want to show me anything else of campus. We stopped to get drinks at a little shop, and all the signs on the front were only of milk tea. Someone had told me that there is 2 kinds of tea in China, one which Mormons can have and one which we can’t. So, not wanting to be rude or burdensome, I guessed milk tea was the good one, and got chocolate milk tea. There were some fruity milkshakes but they were almost double the price, and I didn’t want to be rude. Li Li ordered her drink, then we started walking again. The drink initially did taste like watered down chocolate milk, but the after taste was really bitter, I’m sure reminiscent of tea (I’ve never even had herbal tea before). All of the sudden Li Li exclaims “OH NO! Our professor told us you can’t drink tea and I completely forgot!” I laughed and told her it was alright, that it was good, so this once wasn’t a big deal. Once she calmed down, I asked her what she got. She got orange juice. …Needless to say, I didn’t want to be rude so I choked down the rest of my tea.
The hotel I’m staying is called Jin’s Inn. …It just sounds sketchy to me (probably because it rhymes) but whatever. It’s 20 minutes from campus, but they serve free breakfast every morning and sell bottled water in the lobby (can’t drink the water in China so it’s really convenient not to have to go to the store every time I need to brush my teeth) so I can’t knock ‘em too much. There’s only one English speaking receptionist, but I know how to say “bottled water” and “thank you” in Chinese (courtesy a returned missionary in the group who went to Taiwan) so I’m covered. The breakfast was DELCIOUS! Dumplings, some pastry type stuff (minus any sweetness, Chinese aren’t very into sugar), and some other great Chinese food. Oh, hot Tang was the drink, haha. It wasn’t terrible, just different, it just made me laugh. If it’s not tea, it’s coffee, and if it’s not coffee, whatever it is, it’s watery and boiled. Better than unboiled or unfiltered water I suppose.
I have one roommate, and we’re switching every 2 weeks. Wired internet access in the room, a North American outlet so I don’t even have to bother with my international adapters, and a 110 volt outlet in the bathroom so I don’t have to worry about my power converter! What a gem of a hotel! Oh, and AC, the most important of all. The beds are HARD as ROCK because that’s how the Chinese prefer their furniture. I didn’t notice it last night due to jet lag, but I’m sure the hardness will bother me shortly. Oh, and we got those sweet disposable slippers!
The bathroom is actually a lot better than I expected! Everything was clean when I came in and there are new towels every day, and this particular toilet CAN take toilet paper, so I’m in the lap of Chinese luxury. It’s been hard to remember to not brush my teeth with the sink water, so either I’ll get sick or I’ll get immune, I dunno.
I’m ALIVE! Heads up, blog posts will correspond to picture albums. Smart, huh? Anyway, my flight broke down like this: I flew from Seattle to LA to Seoul (South Korea) to Shanghai. I then took a train from Shanghai to Nanjing. I was supposed to take a taxi from the Nanjing train station to the hotel, but it actually went down that I took the subway from the Nanjing train station to Nanjing University, then walked 20 minutes from Nanjing University to my hotel (with a 45 lb roller bag and a 25 lb backpack on...at 6:30 in the evening…in hot/humid Nanjing climate…).
I’m still not sure why we didn’t take a taxi from the Nanjing train station, the Nanjing students were working it out in Chinese so it was over my head, but I can tell you that you have to get a permit/contract/whatever to be an official taxi from the airport/train station/wherever and people try to go into the station and sell people on coming to their “taxi”. All very sketchy, we were warned about it before we left BYU. Anyway, there were so many people harassing us to use their “taxi” when we got to the train station. One lady followed us down the corridor and stairs to the ticket booth of the connecting subway station, it was ridiculous. The taxi situation from the end of our subway trip was a little odd, too long and uninteresting to explain and really based on a misunderstanding, but in the end, we didn’t want to keep standing on the street, dodging scooterists and crazy drivers, so we walked 20 minutes to our hotel. My shoulders still ache from the stair climbing with my luggage, but I’m going to check into getting a Chinese massage soon.
Note! I was never alone during the course of the trip. I caught the Seattle flight with one person, caught the LA flight with another person (total: 2), caught the train with two other people (one was a Nanjing University graduate student, sent to help us greenhorns, so total:4), caught the subway with another Nanjing University student (now that’s two students, total:5), walked home with one less BYU student, who had gotten a taxi with a separate Nanjing University student, total: still 5.
The Nanjing student that met us said his name was Wenbo Zhang but that we could call him William. …Watch “nail salon” by Anjelah Johsnon on YouTube if you need to figure out why that’s funny. Regardless, he was VERY nice, and so helpful, and he had to leave Nanjing at 3:30am to meet us in the airport on time, and then turn around and go right back to Nanjing with us, so we were so very very grateful. We couldn’t have made it without him, it was a pretty intimidating day, and we were exhausted by the end of it. I learned lots of cool stuff about Chinese university life from him, we talked on the train ride, but I won’t bore you. He got to practice his English and I got his email address so I can get an escort wherever I need to go around town. Good deal, I think.