There's That Wall Again

On the last day of our 3 day weekend, we tried to go to the Nanjing Massacre Museum, but it ended up being closed on Mondays. We were able to see a few statues from the outside. From this and from talking to another group that went two days before we could tell that this wasn't a happy memorial. The events at Nanjing during WW2 were brutal and the Chinese don't seem interested in forgetting the details. After the Nanjing Museum was found to be under construction the day before, it was a bit disappointing to miss out on this too. When you can't speak the language, things like this tend to happen though.

Next we went to Xuanwu lake to visit some parks. The lake has three islands that form a ring in the center and the whole area serves as a public park. We crossed through a section of Nanjing's old city wall to enter the lake area. This wall has been preserved in multiple sections and it seemed to pop up in the background no matter where we went. 

The lake was beautiful, the park was beautiful, the weather was not. It was supposed to be around 50 degrees for our weekend, but the weather took a turn and it was low 30's and raining instead. We've noticed a theme with Chinese parks and gardens; they all seem to be on an entirely different level than what we're used to from America.

The park had a large amphitheater that faced the lake. It's built to hold 3000 people and has equipment to project a movie on a screen of water shot out of jets in the lake. I'm sure there are some nice events here when the weather is nicer. 

Many times while we were enjoying views of historical sites we would notice a skyscraper or office building off in the distance. These ancient temples are often placed in the middle of the city which produces some interesting views.

We left Nanjing at 3:00 that day to take a 2 hour train ride back to Shanghai. The train we were on was spacious and hit a top speed of 270 Km/hr (168 mi/hr). Travel around America would be a lot easier if they built some high speed rail lines through major cities.