Hello there!
Just this very minute we arrived back home from a long and entertaining three day trip to the provincial capital (and former capital of China) of Nanjing in Jiangsu province, a little bit north of ZheJiang province. We left HangZhou early on Friday morning and travelled by train via Suzhou (where we had a brief 1.5 hour stop over). We stayed in Nanjing on Friday and Saturday nights before returning to HangZhou late on Sunday evening.
Nanjing is a very interesting city. It has had a very tumultuous and turbulent history combined with some spectacular scenery and landmarks, and ranks as one of the most important cities in Chinese history along side other former capitals such as Xi’an and Beijing. Until the 1940s, Nanjing enjoyed the status of capital of the Republic of China, the design of Sun Yet-Sen who led the Boxer Rebellion against the ruling Manchu dynasty.
I’ll write a more detailed journal of our visit during the week (it’s late) but I thought I’d upload a selection of photos from our journey with a short explanation.
Suzhou Suzhou City Walls
Our first stop was in Suzhou, which is supposedly very much like HangZhou (very pretty) and surrounded by lots of beautiful lakes. Admittedly we didn’t get to see that much of Suzhou, but my first impression was that it wasn’t as nice as HangZhou. We visited a large bridge (pictured above, left) and also had a view of some of the remains of the original city wall (above right) although we did not opt to take a boat journey around Suzhou’s main city (too expensive, not enough time). The weather didn’t exactly do the place much justice either. We went back to the train station and caught one of the new “G Trains” which run on an elevated track, inspired by the Japanese bullet train.
The G Train at 333kms/hr The G Train
As you can see from the picture above, these trains fly along. The top speed was easily in excess of 300 kms/hr, the photo above (left) showing the train doing an awesome 333 km/hr!! You can see what these great trains look like in the photo I snapped at Nanjing train station (above, right). The trip from Suzhou to Nanjing was almost 1.5 hours which was way faster than the comparable “D Train” which takes 2.5 hours to do the same journey.
View from the Sheraton Sheraton Lobby
Once we had arrived, we made our way to the Sheraton, which boasts a large lobby (pictured above, right) and very good views (pictured above, left from the 40th floor). The hotel was as you would come to expect from a Sheraton, impeccable, and we thoroughly enjoyed the king size bed we had for the two nights in Nanjing.
The Massacre Memorial The final message: Peace
Our first destination on Saturday morning was the Nanjing massacre memorial which was located to the west of the hotel. Walking along the side of the river (below, left) we made our way eventually to the memorial. You can see a shot of the exterior (above right). The massacre is a massive blot on the landscape of Nanjing’s very long history. Committed just before the outbreak of World War II (during the Japanese occupation of China), Nanjing suffered arguably the most of any Chinee city, with much of the city obliterated and with the death of (approx) 300,000 citizens. I’d say that the event could be counted as one of the single most horrific and inhuman atrocities of World War II (or any war for that matter) and the memorial is a fitting tribute to those who endured the worst kind of injury, pain and death imaginable.
The memorial is very well designed, it manages to both convey the sense of loss and remorse for those who perished whilst at the same time very clearly and in much detail, documents the entire period of time under which the Japanese occupied the city. The sit of the memorial actually sits atop the unearthed remains of three mass graves (not pictured) which was very, very upsetting. I took no pictures inside the memorial, and limited myself to two at the entrance and two at the exit (outside the memorial) out of respect for the fallen. It was a chilling and sobering visit, but an important one as I wanted to pay my respects to both the victims and the brave souls who resisted the barbaric Japanese forces.
Moving on..
Riverside in Nanjing The original city walls
We hailed a cab and went north to take a look at the “Stone City”, which is essentially a really large green park beside the river which boasts excellent views of Nanjing’s original city walls. The park and walls were in excellent condition and unfortunately we were pressed for time and couldn’t linger to enjoy the atmosphere. You can see some of the wall in the photo above (right) which contains a gate.
Night time in Nanjing
Later on Saturday night we ventured out into an older section of town where we saw an old Confucius temple as well as a brightly lit series of canals and various ships and restaurants (pictured above right and left). We took a few photos and perused the shops, before walking back north towards the “Aqua Plaza” which is an amazing retail mall containing large pools of water between levels, and a very interesting architecture (photos below, right).
Shopping in Nanjing
On Sunday we visited Purple Mountain and the Ming mausoleum. The entire park is enormous, and we had quite limited time. You can see from some of the photos below, it was quite an amazing place containing a large avenue of stone animals (below, left), many parks and gardens and the main attraction the mausoleum itself (Ming tower, below, right) which sits high in the mountain.
Stone Animals Ming Tower
Finally we returned to the city and visited the ruins of an Imperial palace (stone carvings pictured below, left) and finally a visit to the former Presidential Palace of the Republic of China, you can see here a picture of Chiang Kai-Shek’s office in the main government building (below, right).
Stone Carvings at the Palace ruins The former office of Jiang Kaishek
That, in a nutshell, was our trip to Suzhou and Nanjing.
Check back later in the week for more details and photos!
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