Suzhou, China: City of Gardens

Suzhou's other claim to fame is it's gardens. Rather than going to one of the biggest and famous ones, we decided instead to check out two small ones. First was the Master of the Nets Garden.

The garden intertwines living spaces and nature to form a beautiful garden. I wish we could have hired a tour guide. So many folks here were on tours and there seemed to be so much to learn about this history here. Someday, when I'm rich, I suppose...

Then our second garden we headed to was called Lion Grove Garden. This was similar and yet totally different from the Master of the Nets. Again, intertwining living spaces and nature to form a garden, it is similar to the Master of the Nets, but here was a huge labyrinth formed into the rocks. walking up, down, around in, the path through the rocks twisted around in a small area that took ages to escape from. All I could imagine was how much fun it must have been for children, ages ago, who must have lived here or visited here. Oh, the hide and seek games that could be played here!

One day was not nearly enough to explore all that Suzhou had to offer. I wish I could have stayed here a week to see everything! Suzhou is a must see on any trip to China. And if I were to do it again, I think I might have passed over Nanjing and spent all my time here! At least for the sights. Though Nanjing did have some amazing food and crazy cheap massages, so it's hard to say what city is better!

Suzhou, China: City of Canals

For our last full day of our trip to China, we took the train to Suzhou, a nearby city, about 1 hour away by bullet train. One of Suzhou's claims to fame is it's beautiful, ancient canal waterways. The city felt so much cooler than Nanjing where the heat was just stifling. I'm guessing it must be because of the canals.

The one thing I really had looked forward to doing here in Suzhou was taking a canal boat ride. In the end, it was the one thing we wound up not doing (but spent 4 hours trying to do) but on the way we had lots of amazing adventures and saw some beautiful sights. When we finally found the boat we wanted to ride, we had decided that we had seen so many canals it wasn't worth the 150 RMB to rent the boat and do it again from just another perspective.

We ended our day at a lovely little cafe with a kettle of tea and a never ending thermos of hot water to keep the tea coming. We watched as the boats passed by and appreciated the beauty of the moment.

Teacher's Day Loot

Today (May 15th) is teacher's day here in Korea. Sadly, it's not celebrated by giving teachers a day off from work (although this year it's on a Sunday so we don't have to work anyway) but it IS celebrated by exorbitant gifts for teachers. Which I do not protest. This year I didn't expect to get much at all, since I only started 3.5 months ago, but I was surprised by what I did receive. Socks, chocolates, perfume, a flower card and a few little pieces of gum and candy from kids who felt bad that they had no gifts to give me. The presents aren't nearly as good as when I was a preschool teacher, but I can't complain.

A Special Buddha's Birthday

While there was so much going on in Seoul this Tuesday, the forecast of rain made it very easy for the boyfriend to persuade me in to going to Halmoni's house and bringing her to temple for Buddha's Birthday. Halmoni has been very weak in the past year and she hasn't been out much at all, but this month she seems to have taken on new vigor at her age of 93. She even went on one of those sightseeing bus tours for halmoni and haraboji last week. So, she was determined to get up to her temple for the holiday and see some old friends and donate money to the temple.

We brought her up to the temple and we sat with her through the temple ceremony. It is always so surreal to me to be surrounded by the chanting that I can't understand. The bowing and the singing. Actually, when it boils down to it, it isn't so different from a Catholic mass that I'm accustomed to from my youth. Just the surroundings are a bit different. The monk gave a sermon-like talk. I was happy that I understood a fair bit of it, but I didn't understand enough to get "the point" if you know what I mean.

I wanted so badly to take a photo inside the temple so my readers could know what it was like in there, but I figured that was probably the epitome of bad manners, and so I resisted pulling out the camera until after the service. When the service was finished, the attendees followed the monk, walking in a circle around the worshiping hall.

Then many people lined up to pour water over Buddha's head. Then it was time to eat!

As my boyfriend says, the best part about going to temple is the food. Food is seemingly always available at the temple for those who come by on any given day, but as it was a very special day they prepared a big meal for all who came. Keeping with Buddhist tradition of killing no living souls, we of course ate a meal of Bibimbap!

Here is my meal, plus there was lots of ddok (rice cakes) and dwengjangguk to go around too!

As we were leaving, we saw one little activity set up at this small temple. Archery. Somehow in my school years I always missed the lesson on archery and so this was my first time to try it in earnest. I think I did fairly well for my first try, though a little practice would serve me well. You never know when you'll be stranded in the woods with only a bow and arrow for survival.

Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, Nanjing, China

**Warning, Graphic Images**

On the afternoon of our second day we found ourselves at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in Nanjing. This was a museum I had been looking forward to visiting and I was not disappointed. While I don't know a whole lot about Chinese history, I remember learning about the Rape of Nanjing in various history classes and books that I've read throughout the years. Right from the entrance I could see that it was going to be an interesting visit. We were greeted with numerous striking sculptures along the entryway into the museum. 

 The first room lists the names of victims of the Japanese attack that left over 300,000 civilians and unarmed soldiers dead after the siege of Nanjing.

The Japanese Imperial Army spared no one from their brutality as they entered the city. The Chinese army had blocked nearly every exit from the city, so the citizens of Nanjing had no where to run to. Men were rounded up, shot, bayoneted, bodies were mutilated and set on fire. Women of all ages were raped and gang raped, up to a thousand women every night. Many were killed and mutilated after they had been raped, some died from the rape itself.

Many photos are on display here from the massacre. Many photos were taken by Japanese soldiers. Others were taken by foreign journalists and residents of Nanjing. The photo below shows bodies lining the riverside.

Bodies were buried in mass graves. One site found years later is the site where they decided to build this memorial hall. The grave is open for the public to see. Photo below.

The foreigners who stayed on in Nanjing after the siege helped to save thousands of people. They set up a Safety Zone in one corner of the city. This corner was largely spared from bombings and served some protection from the Japanese soldiers. The leaders of the group of foreigners which formed this safety zone was a German clergyman who used his ties to the Nazi party to keep the Japanese out. As the Japanese and the Germans had some sort of pact of non-aggression they largely let the safety zone alone, though occasionally would round up some Chinese and take them out of the safety zone as they saw fit.

After the war, several top leaders of the Imperial Army faced military tribunal and were sentenced to death by hanging. The Royal Family of Japan who seemingly had a lot of influence in the military were granted immunity.

Incidentally, I found this tidbit about one of the "comfort women" who was brought from Korea to China to serve the Army's needs. The history of the Korean comfort women and the history rape of Nanjing are closely intertwined, and so I was happy to see that they recognized this part of history here at the memorial hall.

The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall is conveniently located on subway line number 2 at Jiangdongmen Station. It is also accessible by many buses. I highly recommend checking out this museum if you happen to find yourself in Nanjing. We spent about 2 hours here but we could have spent much more had our feet not been aching. If you are a history buff, you'll certainly want to give yourself a whole afternoon to really explore the place. There is so much to see, and there is a paragraph written for each photo and relic from the war. Admission is free and they are open from 8:30-16:30. Closed on Mondays.

Nanjing City Wall

Our first stop on Day 2 in Nanjing was Zhonghua gate. This gate was the main gate to the city and is absolutely massive. In fact, it is actually several gates layered together, constructed to trap any enemy foolish enough to attack through this gate.

Hidden within the gate are many rooms which were used to store weapons and hide soldiers in the case of an attack. We liked hiding in these to cool down from the blistering heat outside. Inside was like a refridgerator.

The wall is built not with stone, but with clay bricks. Each brick has the insignia of the maker. This ensured the quality of each brick. If a brick was not holding up, they knew who to blame.

Here is a model of the Nanjing city wall. While some has been destroyed over the ages, quite a bit of it remains intact and you can see it as you walk around the city.

When you come up on top of the gate, you can walk along the top of the wall. The entrance fee you pay allows you to walk a few kilometers along the wall with various points where you can get off if you like. Because of the blistering heat we didn't walk very far and then we turned around and went back out through the Zhonghua Gate again. In cooler weather, this would be a very pleasant walk though.

Entrance fee at the Zhonghua Gate is 35 RMB and we felt it was well worth the price.

Purple Mountain, Nanjing, China

 I'm back from my trip to China with lots and lots of photos. I also went to Andong the weekend before so I know I've been absent from the blog for a bit, but expect lots and lots of posts very soon!

Our first stop in Nanjing was Purple Mountain (Zijin Mountain). The mountain is huge and is worth at least one full day, if not more than that if you want to see every single sight on the mountain. We started our day around 10:00 with a cable car up to the top of the mountain. The ride up was nice, but we found there wasn't much at the top so I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to other travelers. 

At the top of the mountain, there was one small park. Besides the nice views there wasn't much to see, and not worth the entrance fee. This Buddha was the most interesting thing in the park. There are much more interesting things near the bottom of the mountain.

We hiked down and found ourselves at the tomb of the first emperor of the Ming dynasty.

The place was huge and quite impressive. We spent about half an hour walking around the tomb area plus more time in some of the gardens. Because we wanted to see the rest of the mountain, though, we missed quite a bit. This part of the mountain alone could be worth a whole day trip. 

The next stop was the Sun Yat-Sen mausoleum. This seemed quite a bit more popular than the Ming tomb. We saw lots of school groups and group tours here. 

The actual resting place of Sun Yat-sen at the top of the mountain was the main attraction here and people flocked to the entrance to get a glimpse of the tomb. I guess when we went it was not a busy day, but we saw an area to form a line outside the tomb for busy days. The actual tomb is not visible, it is located in the doors behind this statue.  

Next stop was the Linggu Temple area. Here there are several sights, it was actually my favorite part of our visit to Purple Mountain. First stop was the Wuliang (beamless) Hall. This hall is famous for it's unusual beamless architecture. 

Then we walked over to the actual temple area and enjoyed the sights here. 

Last was the Linggu Pagoda, a pagoda built in 1929 as a memorial for soldiers who lost their lives in war. We climbed all the way up to the top of this 9 story pagoda for some amazing (though smoggy) views of the city of Nanjing. 

If you happen to be in Nanjing, be sure to stop by Purple Mountain. You can arrive here by subway or bus, and there are hiking trails and bus routes around the mountain.

Admission prices (in RMB):
Cable Car: 35/70 (one way/round trip)
Park at the top of the mountain: 4
Ming Tomb: 70
Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum: Free
Linggu Temple:30