Nanjing

For the first time in China, I visited a city other than Shanghai. Yesterday, I went to Nanjing, which is two hours northwest of Shanghai by train. It is still in the same province, Jiangsu. Nanjing is a really cool little city, what I mean by little--only five and half million people. Nanjing is next to Purple Mountain, which I spent the entire day on. It was beautiful and it was so nice to get back out to nature after being in Shanghai for almost two months. Purple Mountain has some famous sites, such as the Masoleoum for Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was a well known revolutionary in the 1910s-1920s against the growing Communist power. His forces was eventually taken over by Chiang Kai-shek of the Nationalist party. It shows that Nanjing was a stronghold for Chinese nationalists. Also, Nanjing, especially Purple Mountain was also a site where the Japanese forces took over and killed around 600,000 people, around early 1900s. Many people were buried in Purple Mountain.





Besides learning about Nanjing's history, I took lots of pictures of the amazing fall foliage. I never wanted to leave that mountain. But I know this mountain is only small compared to those in Western China, which I plan to see next year. I will post pictures of Facebook! I would go back to Nanjing, but for nature, not for city. I thought the city was a little blah to be honest, but there is so much nature and history to make up for it. Just not great nightlife or much to do. Also, in Nanjing, I finally got a taste of "real China," as tons of people say that Shanghai is not real China. In Nanjing, I saw traditional Chinese stone townhouses all over and in the true Chinese architecture. There was a much bigger language barrier in Nanjing; I struggled to get around quite a bit. I actually spoke more Chinese than English.