Nanjing: 2012 Final Post of China

Finally, that moment has arrived: we are finally to our last post about China!  I pinky promise that I won't mention doing a post about China again. 

We can't talk about being in Nanjing without mentioning Jason's school experience   This was the main reason why we were in Nanjing, because he was at Nanjing University taking Law School courses.  He had an amazing time there with his classes and his classmates from Whittier Law School.  They basically became family after a while and we all did everything together.

A picture of us eating at a favorite restaurant.  

Jason in his class at Nanjing University during a break.   

Here are some views of Nanjing from the Intercontinental Hotel.  It was a really nice hotel close to ours that had a lovely restaurant. 

A view of Nanjing at night.  

Jason eating at the Intercontinental. 

Both of us overlooking the city. 

Here is a view of the Intercontinental from the street.  It was such a beautiful clear day that you can actually see the reflections of the clouds on the building.  Nanjing was hard to get used to seeing the sky so dark and overcast most of the time, because it is known for having poor air circulation.  There was finely a nice day in Nanjing and it was wonderful to have this day. 
 

Our hotel during the summer school program.  The Jingli Hotel. 

This is a picture of the Intercontinental on the left and our hotel that we stayed at on the right. 

This is a picture of how the sidewalks look everywhere in China.  They make these lined walkways so that those that are blind can follow them around town.  I thought that was rather clever of them to do that! 

Here is the base of one of the pillars in downtown Nanjing. 

We had the opportunity to visit the Nanjing Memorial Museum.  This was incredibly hard to visit, not because it was a long ways away, but because it was so realistic.  It was done so well that you were crying and sober by the end.  The nice thing was that it starts out very dark, going over the horrific details of WWII, but as you progressed throughout the museum it became lighter and brighter with hope and encouragement.

 

This is the number count of how many people were killed in Nanjing when it was invaded by the Japanese. 

The craziest thing was how the museum was built.  Apparently they built this museum around a grave site so the outcome of the attacks were so visible that it was terrifying.  Here is a look down into the grave pit. 

The is what the museum looks like on the outside with the cross. 

This was crazy, because these are rows and rows of books containing the names of the people that were attacked during WWII. 

We loved this because it was a huge electronic billboard that had an error popup on the screen. 

Hagen-Dazs was a super fancy restaurant in China with bizarre flavors and eccentric presentations.  

Welcome to the bus system in Nanjing.  Good luck! 

Huh?

Just got my nails done in town. 

One of the sections of Nanjing that we loved was called Fuzimao.  It had this temple dedicated to Confucius.  It was such a different place from the rest of Nanjing because of the canals of water there.  We took a boat ride there that takes you through different historical parts of China with music and dancing areas. 

Here is the Wishing Tree in Fuzimao.  You write your wish on the red ribbon, which is attached to a metal coin, and then you throw it up in the tree and hope it sticks. 

This is what the canals look like at night. 

Our boat ride.

Confucius says, "Don't eat the rocks."

We had some... interesting treats and food out in China.  Thank goodness there was a small snack shop by the hotel that kept us full of recognizable treats. 

We did find good ol' Walmart out in Nanjing.  But if we thought that it would resemble anything of the Walmart's back in the US, we were WRONG!  Just take a look at these pictures and see for yourself. 

Fresh seafood.  Yes, those are turtles on the right. 

Chicken just sitting out in the middle of the aisle. 

Frozen fish. 

Candy.. NOT!  It's actually pickled duck.  

Not sure...

Still not sure...

We had such a wonderful time out in Nanjing and China.  We are so grateful for the opportunities that Jason is having in Law School to meet some amazing people and do some incredible things.  This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, because we know that when we go back to China it will never be the same as this time.  It was such a blast and we want to thank everyone that was on the trip that made it that much better!   

Here is a picture of the Whittier Law School group that traveled out to China.  What a good looking group!  

Guilin and Macau: 2012

It has been a while, but we wanted to give you the update from the last little bit of our trip to China.

Once we were done checking out the Warriors in Xi'an, we jumped on another plane and flew to our smallest stop on our adventure: Guilin.  Now, when I say small I mean a city of 4 million people.  Small, right?  Actually it did feel small because everyone was so spread out compared to the other cities and most people were farmers.  It was such a relief to be in Guilin because we had been in nothing but city after city, which we love, but this was a welcomed change.  I couldn't believe how much I had missed plant life and how green it was there that I found myself taking pictures of every tree and bush.  I will spare this post and not share all of those pictures.  

The first thing we did was to visit the Reed Flute Caves.  These are natural caves that are huge and were used as storage back in the days.  Now they are a huge attraction in China because of how beautiful they are with the stalagmites and stalactites.  We compared it to about 5 Mount Timpanogus caves connected together is about how big this cave was.  

   

Just outside the hike up to the caves.   This sign says "Welcome to the Reed Flute Caves."  

A very dark picture of how beautiful it was inside.  Apparently it is very popular for couples to come to this cave because it is so romantic.  I think we enjoyed it because it was fun to walk around and it was nice and cool there compared to the humid heatwave outside.  

Below are some more pictures from the caves.

After exploring the caves we went to view more of the beautiful countryside.  Guilin is known for fishing on little bamboo rafts with cormorants, or birds that they put a little metal band around their neck so they catch the fish in their mouths but can't swallow them.  Needless to say, we didn't eat any fish while we were there!

Here is some of the beautiful scenery around Guilin.  The peaks are all made out of limestone, and form what is called a karst landscape.  Whenever Jason pictured rural China growing up, this is what he pictured.

This bridge in Guilin is held together with sticky rice and eggs.  It's pretty impressive that it's still holding together.  We actually were brave enough to walk across it, and everything was just fine.  

Can you see us on the raft? 

Don't worry, this isn't the raft we used on the water.  It was just a nice resting spot for a hot day.  

I guess the economy is pretty bad in China is they are having to FIRE the rice and noodles.  

Some more gorgeous scenery in Guilin.  

Our hotel in Guilin was next to this lake with these pagodas.  We had a couple of hours before we left so we walked down and had a romantic stroll by the waterside.  

We stumbled on this bridge made entirely out of glass.  

Our very last stop before coming back home was in the Las Vegas of China: Macau!  It was really odd how familiar it was to be in a place like Macau, since we've spent a lot of time in Vegas, so it was like being a little bit closer to home.  We stayed at the MGM Grand in Macau, so we spent most of our time or at the Venetian.

The hallway at the Venetian.  

My absolute favorite thing about Macau was the butterflies at the MGM.  There was this special room where butterflies flew everywhere and they would just come and land on you like in a dream.  It was free to be in there and you could stay as long as you liked, so let's just say that a few hours went by before I could part with those little beauties!  

These two cities were wonderful and a great way to end our trip.  By this point of our trip we were starting to miss our families and eating with forks, but we were still having an amazing time!  

We just have one more post and then we will be all done with China!