Welcome to my world...: Nanjing Weekend

October 18, 2014

I had to wake up really early for the bus ride to Nanjing. This is a trip with students from other schools as well. I got back really late too because I had gone out and luckily my roommate came to wake me up... I packed in a rush and ended up forgetting to bring some things but it wasn't anything too bad, just my PJs, so I had to sleep wearing tights that night instead fml. I slept the whole bus ride and was quite refreshed when we got there like 4 or so hours later. We had a group lunch.

First stop after lunch was the Nanjing Massacre Museum (侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆).

Probably the most morbid photo I'll ever post on my blog ever. I don't know if they're real or not.

It was interesting to see it, but after 15 minutes, I just felt really depressed. Sat down for a while and tried to charge my phone. I squatted in a corner for a good 15 minutes to realize my phone probably wasn't charger >:( It showed the battery thing but it never got to the point where it let me turn it on.

They had HUGE bookshelves of files...presumably one for each victim.

Okay, happier stuff now. Went to Xuanwu Lake (玄武湖) afterwards. It's very crowded, but I recommend it because it's a very relaxing place. Near the front gate are lots of stalls for food, mmm..

Pretty or not?!

Wishes on a tree

Had dinner, and it wasn't until then that I realized how much pork is used in all Chinese dishes... This guy from another program couldn't eat pork and basically 75% of the dishes had pork one way or another.

I thought we'd go back to the hotel after dinner, but we still had one more stop: Confucius Temple (夫子庙). It was huge..you go in and there's a back section..which also has a back section. Multiple rooms in each section place too.

Wishing well type of game. Each bowl symbolizes a certain thing and you want to drop a coin on top of it, but it's hard because once the coin hits the water, it just floats somewhere... I tried it twice as a means of an "offering" just because it's kinda superstitious for me to go into temples, even though the tour guide said there's no religious affiliations whatsoever.

Got bored of the temple, so we walked outside for a bit to explore. There's this river and you can take a cruise on it for 60RMB(?).

Our hotel looked so shady from the outside, but once you got into the doors, it was actually quite fancy. I shared my room with this exchange student from Hong Kong. I'm such a 坏人..I took our only key cuz I went out that night so she was left in a dark room fml. But turned out her ID worked in the electric slot thing, even though it didn't when I tried!

We went out to 1912, where the nightlife stuff is kinda. Had some trouble meeting up with the second group, but finally did. It was just so humid bar, very down low. We somehow met this girl who's studying in Nanjing and she brought us to Mazzo, which is a popular club for foreigners. Also met a promotor randomly for another club, it was kinda shady so we didn't actually go with him to that club since it was kinda far. Supposedly it was pretty popular though because it just opened.

Anyways, it was an interesting experience.. super, super drunk guys at Mazzo. Like you never see guys dance with each other, but they did here. They kept trying to like dance with us too.. not like ON us, but just with it. At some point I kinda wasn't feeling it anymore so I went out for some fresh air and lost everyone in the process so I just went home.

October 19, 2014

Apparently, the next morning, the girls from my program who stayed kept raving about how it was the best night of the trip, ever. Ehh, I don't know, to me it was just like any other night, but I guess things started picking up after I left or something. Fomo T_T

Ya, so the last thing on our agenda was the Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum (中山陵). Very unappreciative for me to say this, but we basically just climbed up the stairs, sat down and relaxed for a bit. Went back down the endless stairs to sit down more. :X