Nanjing and More

Ben's Friend Chen-Ming came for a quick visit from Taiwan, so we decided to go to Nanjing overnight last Friday for a visit. Ben's friend's Will and Susan live There. Chen-Ming is a friend from Ben's junior college in Taiwan (waaaaay back) and Will was Ben's roommate in Tang Hall during his first year at MIT as a grad student.

Najing was the captical of China at least twice. Once during the Ming dynasty, and also when the Republic of China (ROC) was formed 1912. (This is not the same as the PRC).

It's was a great trip. Way too much to tell, so I'll have to summarize...

I posted a photo gallery of my trip here: Bill's trip to Shanghai. It's got most of the stuff in the captions. Too much to write.

1) We took a cab to the train station. It was the scariest cab ride of my life! Driver in Shanghai are completely nuts. I was getting used to it, but this guy probably watched a little too much F-1 racing (which is really big over here). He was darting in and out of traffic and narrowly missing pedestrians and bikes so many times I almost...

2) The train station was amazing. There were so many people there. Like a million or something. You say, "it can't be a million!", but think about it. China has a billion people. A million is only like 0.1%, so it's not that much of a fraction.

3) We arrived in Nanjing after about 2 1/2 hours and met up with Ben's friend Will and his wife Susan.

4) After lunch, we were off to a park near the Purple Mountain. It's named that because it has some purple rocks, apparently. I didn't see any.... The first thing we saw was some 800 year-old monuments to the Ming Dynasty.










5) We first went to visit a mosoluem dedicated to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the ROC. It involved a lot of steps, and it was very hot.









6) Next, we stopped by a buddhist temple.

7) Next, we climbed a giant pagoda. Tough climb in the heat, but a great view from the top!
















8) later we had dinner, then we went to a Concert run by Will's wife Susan. It was concert featuring the Erhu. There were many Erhu and musicians of all ages. It was fantastic!

9) The next day, before we caught the train back to Shanghai, we went to visit the former presidential palace of the ROC. It was also the same site as a former regional king's palace in Nanjing.