Nanjing, the mourning city

We took our first over night trip over to Nanjing, 2 hours away on a high speed train. Reaching maximum speed up to 300km/h (186mph), it was a smooth ride, and for the first time, we have a feel of the magnitude of MEGA structures in China. The size of the train station was comparable to an airport to accommodate for the large crowd that will be traveling annually during Chunyun, or the  traveling season during Chinese New year.

those platforms just seems to go on for ever, imagine this place crowded with people once a year!

Anyways, Nanjing is supposedly the second largest city in the general area after Shanghai. Upon arrival though, it really didn't have the busy atmosphere like Shanghai, instead the mood was much more laid back: a lot less car horns, and much less hawkers trying to get you to buy everything from laser pointers to fake watches.

Perhaps its the old history behind the city, with many tombs around, the remnants of the old Kuomintang party and memorials from the Japanese invasion, it's just hard for a city to be as lively as Shanghai. Or perhaps it was a combination of this and my ties with the Taiwan vs China issue.

Our first stop was the Presidential Palace. Once the capital of China under Kuomintang's ruling, this palace in Nanjing is the equivalent of White House in the US. Sitting almost at the center of the city, the architecture style of the building stood out with characters, in the same time when horses was still used, you may find hand rolled elevators and porcelain toilets in the inside of the building.

the president's office, i tried to look for secret passages but produced no results

back in the days, servants will live here and prepare horses for the officials when asked to

entrance of the Presidential Palace, note the absence of a flag

right outside the palace's garden is the bustling city center of Nanjing

motto for a good citizen: loyal to your country, loving to all and be a peaceful, reputable person. Something many have forgotten

The bunker under the palace, actually used during the Japanese invasion when they bombed the city, picture a few hundred people cramped here for a few hours

After the palace, we moved towards the memorial for the Massacre site, there were mixed feelings; The memorial site radiated with Chinese patriotism and anti-Japanese sentiments. But coming as a "by-stander" it just seemed like a lot of these were over-done, there were graphic photographs inside, and some kids were legitimately scared. Overall though, the presentation was very good, it guided the visitors through the history happening back then, I would say it's worth a visit, and for those who has been to the Holocaust museum in DC, I would say this one is a doppelganger in China with its own twist at the end.

the memorial site for the Nanjing Massacre  (for more info if you wanted)

Inside the museum, a portrait of Japan apologizing to the Republic of China. Rare occasion where you see the flag of my country flying with other "Big Dogs". (Only in occasion like this you will see Taiwanese flags, typical Chinese diplomatic bullying)

To lighten the mood up for the night, we were introduced to what I understood as a young people's favorite hang-out - A "board game room". It was a cramped apartment room in the middle of closed cramming schools (it wad during Chinese Winter vacation, so no one is studying, and yes Chinese people enjoy lives too) and all we did was play board games (duh). We paid by the person, and we could stay there as long as we wanted, they provide some free drinks, and we could also bring our own. Twas a neat atmosphere, people minded their own businesses and there was still enough freedom for us to be loud, I wonder why they don't have places like these in the US...

some hipster clock i couldn't read

adding "club" always make a place look fancy

The next day was reserved for hiking, we walked all over Purple Gold Mountain where they burried people that had nice views....
To start off, we paid a visit to the tomb of Sun-Yat Sen (as Georege Washington is to you as to me, and I don't see him every day on  the money I use), skipped the mausoleum of an Emperor from the Ming Dynasty because we couldn't afford the ticket, apparently it was a big deal though...

at the entrance of the tomb. I realized everything could be turned into a cheery place in China

on the way up, there's a pot with shell damages during the Japanese bombing, left here to remind people to hate the Japanese

view after 392 stairs (no i didnt count it) before finally entering to see the dead guy his statue

 After the tomb, we started our way up to the peak, with the cable cart, but it had just rained before we got on, so the good news was there's no one else on the mountain but the bad news was the terrible fog. Spoiled the nice view, but I'd like to think we just got a special version of the mountain for the day.

entering misty mountain

At the end of the ride, there's nothing to see guys!

here's a close up at the top of the mountain. noice

luckily, we found this laughing Buddha to keep our spirit up on the way down

So the weather kinda left a grey spot on the trip, but worry not, the next day we headed out to a hot spring resort town. This resort town was really one of a kind, not only did we have to be cramped like sardines on the bus there,there were almost no signs of this place while on the 1 hour ride. I keep thinking we must have gotten on a random bus that was taking us out of Nanjing and then boom, a random town out of no where pops up and we arrived, threw off the bus with the remaining people clearly going to a better place than us.

the only real sign of this resort town, found carved in a random tile by the bus stop

Regardless, we DID find the right place and it was great, we were there during off season so we got a sweet discount. At the end of the day after all out skin were wrinkled, we were able to rest in the resort's lounge to get "massages". Some lady led 6 of us, all guys, into one room and was suggesting us to all stay there to get a "full service"...
Negotiations didn't go well obviously.... however, they did offer us watermelon before we leave so it was all good....

as you can tell, i gained a couple of more ribs

they should have just offered the watermelons, then we might have gotten the massages

 All in all, Nanjing was quite filled with surprises, and there's definitely more to the city than tombs and fogs. I soon discovered after we left, this gate that we hand went in one night, Zhonghua Gate is the most complex gate structure, and one of the longest gate in the world, according to our friend Wiki (but still).

entrance of the gate, impressive you say?

view of the gate from the top, you may see vaguely the length of the wall

here's a lady catching a break while waiting for the bus, how they rest like this, i dunno, but i definitely have much more to learn...

 Anyhow, as usual, here's the crew. Next up should be the New Year trip and some of my spring break memoirs from Guilin and Fenghuang. School has started so I'd like to say I will have more time, but probably not. Just be patient and all the entry will arrive eventually.

Let's see what's next!

Arts & Craft Museum

The last field trip for our culture class took place in the Shanghai Arts and Craft Museum. Located in the French concession, the museum is tucked away within the busy streets inside a former businessman's mansion not far away from where we had the cooking work shop (consult previous entry).

walked in a walled off property and see this, then to think I was just dodging mopeds on the side walk outside of here...

obnoxious white house

always good to enjoy some sun shine and peaceful times away from the busy city street

Inside the museum were ivory, jade and other precious stone sculptures/carvings. There were other traditional art works such as silk embroidery and paper cutting made by working artists at the museum that were also for sale.

incredible scene of a village on a tusk, accompanied with corbin, not for sale

ridiculous microscopic printing, the figure on the right is the magnified version, still cant read it

carving made out of 1 piece of ivory to showcase craftsmanship

sometimes Chinese artists like to write novels on tiles

Weiqi arranged one of the artists to demonstrate the soon-to-be-lost skills of paper cutting and it blew everyone away. No rough draft, just paper and a pair of scissors, within 20 minutes, she made three pieces for us.

when asked how long it takes to master this skills, the answer was "never, there's always room to improve"

no paper wasted, the paper she cut the figure out of is used as the "frame" of the figure

how to make a dragon within 10 minutes

snowflake paper cutting you say? try to get 4 butterflies out of yours. lul

Touring around, we checked out some artists' workshop and ran into this man who happened to be identifying precious gem stones and was about to cut an ore open. Unfortunately we could not stay and see it... :(

There is apparently a fad for people to scout for ores in many "ore shops" around the mountainous region in China and buy them blindly as a scheme to "get rich overnight". Of course, the real money makers are probably all gone, but there are still occasional winning which is enough to drive this trend.

This piece was identified to be potentially "gem rich" and was polished, about to be cut open

supposedly, good ores are almost see through under strong light

a shot of the artist's workshop, I think we can all agree coffee and tea are what keeps the world running.

browsing around the gallery, aka expensive souvenir store. some jade were going for about 30k RMB a piece. we all need to make a living right

at the embroidery gallery

elaborate head dress used as a stage prop in Peking Opera, the color seen are either made from sewed on gems or feathers off rare birds, none were dyes. lul

Before we leave, there was another artist that made T-shirts for us with our very own design, it's never easy to make decision within the group, and it's even harder with the added translation problem for Chinese calligraphy. Luckily. Weiqi's an expert at this and threw us some good recommendations.

As he was painting, I couldn't help but think how many art work he needed a month to maintain livelihood and I bet he loved us tourists because all we ever asked for is simple translations, and anything goes, provided we don't read Chinese...

At the end, we went with "Purdue University" because the Boilermaker pride is deep within all our bones

Funny side story here: After the field trip, we were encouraged to make our own paper cutting and then by chance, the class was asked to be interview by a local Shanghai newspaper (because we are a big deal now), some of our work were even featured on the news paper (for lack of other things we had), you may find the article here.The English version is here, yes i translated it so don't be surprised about the bad grammar and let me know if you can't access it.

In all honesty though, these skills were all very impressive, the fact that there are unpractical craftsmanship like these that exists proves that how high of a place the Chinese civilization had placed for aesthetics and visual entertainment, although some skills are dying as modernization becomes more and more relevant, museums like these serve as a good indication and it's comforting to know that there are still focus on preserving this part of the culture.

Pudong, a modern take of Shanghai

Today we will take a brief look at a few spots in Pudong and see Shanghai's modern beauty. If you didn't know already, Pudong is the financial area of Shanghai, it is typically the first image of Shanghai that comes to mind. You know, the one with the Oriental Pearl Tower (if you're still not sure, check the previous entry)

a small model of the district, basically a concrete forest

Our first stop is the China Art Palace, formerly the Chinese Pavilion of the Shanghai World Expo in 2010. It has now been converted to a Chinese contemporary art Museum that also features other temp exhibits. (basically an art museum). It was free to get in, apparently you needed to reserve tickets ahead of time but we were handed tickets at the entrance by the guard so hey, good deal!

official name for this type of architecture is called dougong but i prefer an upside down pyramid

No fasteners or glue needed, easier than IKEA furniture!

Inside the museum is probably one of the best environment I've been in since I got to China. With significantly less people, and insightful caption in both English and Chinese, the museum was much more enjoyable. The exhibits featured traditional Chinese art forms, sculptures, and some other peculiar expressions from modern Chinese artists. There were many pieces of Mao, and if you ever get the chance, count how many of them included him smoking cigarettes.

sometimes i dunno the difference between art and decoration

can you tell it's a lotus plant?

everyone wanted a picture with chairman Mao, and every other person wanted to touch him, which was then accompanied with a shout from the security guard

very soothing to not have people yell and constantly pushing

here's an interesting one. Meeting Nixon, until Jeremy pointed it out, I didn't notice how the Chinese men got taller than they should be

modernization doesn't happen overnight, traffic was still just as bad...

a gigantic, chrome lotus. because art

outside the museum are pandas...someone please tell me why they get everyone else excited, seriously...

After the museum, we went ahead and tried to visit the former expo site. It was really quite disappointing, at least on the outside; a large, cleared out strip of land with scattering buildings unless you get tickets to enter the pavilions.Tickets were 90 RMB and I was too cheap. There were some construction going on, apparently they are remodeling the Expo Ground and reopening the whole site again sometimes in 2014. the only pavilions available that day to see were Nepal, Italy and Saudi Arabia (there might be more but I didn't check)

I did took a couple of photo for souvenirs tho....

classic Chinese sign placement: no car behind road blocks. okay, sure

Here's a better view of the Expo ground from a close by Arena

proof of visit and evidence of smog

at the end of  Expo blvd

Next on our list was the Science and Technology Museum. This was just the name of the metro stop... the truth was, we were really here to find some merchandise at the fake market directly outside the metro stop. No pictures this time because it wasn't easy to sneak photos there, and it's probably not that interesting until you start haggling with the vendors.

Above the stop however, was some nice buildings and Century Park, the largest park in Shanghai. but guess what, it required tickets for entry, so we passed and just shopped. Enjoy some of these concrete forests photos provided by Brian though....

view outside the metro stop

standard city decoration

the science and technology museum, was closed when we get there. Soon though, the farmer shall visit...

So what's next? how about some arts and craft?

I promise it will come within the next 24 hours!