Part III - Nanjing

(Note: My camera was broken almost the entire time we were in Nanjing. I apologize for the obvious lack of photos.)

We get off the train.
The city seems nice.
Dozens of taxi's pass us.
NOT ONE WILL PICK US UP!
After about 40 minutes of trudging our way around Nanjing, Steve and I were FINALLY able to hail a cab. Our first impression of Nanjing wasn't quite impressive, even if it was based solely on the fact that we were tired from a 4 hour bus ride from Shanghai and couldn't find a taxi to bring us to our hostel. The bus ride was alright, by the way. 4 hours long. Watched one movie about two con men with English subtitles (score!) and another old Jackie Chan movie that was completely in Chinese, but still very entertaining! Irregardless, we finally made it to where our hostel was, and reunited with big ol' Dirk. The hostel was a nice little hideout in the middle of a massive city, right next to a large University campus. The hostel had a courtyard. It was quaint and very liveable.
First order of business? Find something to eat. Now, almost the entire time we were in Nanjing it was rainy and kind of dismal, unfortunately. However, the food in this city was some of the best I've had anywhere in China. There was a small, inconspicuous dumpling shop nearby our hostel that we made friends with fast. Best I've ever eaten in my life, hands down. Plus, the lao ban (boss) of the shop was a pretty cool guy who catered to us very well.
After a quick dinner and a completely unsuccessful attempt at trying to find the ruins of an old part of the city (we looked in the wrong place and found a park instead) we returned back to the hostel to relax for a bit. Steven, Dirk and myself being the charismatic young gentlemen that we are, managed to make friends with some of the other travelers we met in the hostel. Now, two of them were students (foreigners - one from the states, CT specifically, the other from England) at a Shanghai university. After chatting for awhile, and the fellow from Connecticut, Ryan, noticing that Steve and I were PC guys - we all had a weird moment. Ryan is actually good friends with one of my HOUSE mates throughout college (Mike Dodge) as well as a host of other kids from PC that I was good buddies/good acquaintances with! We all hit it off quick with the connection and became fast friends. The world is SMALL, huh?!
So Ryan was told by a good friend of his that there was a great Mexican restaurant called 'Behind the Wall' hiding near our hostel in Nanjing - so we set out on a journey to find said locale. After a lot of wrong turns and mistaken roads, we FINALLY found it almost directly across the street from where we started. And it was behind a wall. Go figure. The Mexican food was delectable. Such a treat. Again, I note, Nanjing - City of wonderful food.
Our next day was spent at the Nanjing Massacre Museum. It was a massive, free museum that was dedicated to the atrocities procured by the Japanese forces to the city of Nanjing during the Sino-Japanese wars in the 1930's-40s. It was so moving to the point where it's almost difficult to explain it in words. The museum was beautifully preserved and served as a chilling reminder of the darkness (killers) and yet light (those who aided) of humanity. I was particularly moved by a whole wing of the museum that was dedicated solely to foreigners who were in China at the time of the Sino-Japanese wars who refused to leave the country (under the heavy suggestion of their home countries) in order to do anything they could for the Chinese people under attack by the Japanese. Foreigners, doctors, nurses, priests, and humble volunteers, hundreds upon hundreds of them, lost their lives just to help a culture of people that wasn't even theirs to begin with. They just wanted to help. The honor that the Chinese gave these men and woman was astonishing to me. Truly graceful.
Alas, we only had a few days in Nanjing, and these ended up being our highlights. We also made it to 'Nanjing 1912' which is a part of town dedicated to oldy-timey restaurants, clubs, bars, and nightlife. It was interesting, but overall kind of expensive - so our stay in that part of town was noticeably short. Although... Dirk was able to find a club that reveled in his ability to dance with locals and get stared at by everyone else around us for awhile. Boys will by boys.
Oh - we also managed to sort out a plan for the rest of our travels. We decided that the best use of our time would be to see a more southern and rural part of China, since none of us had really experienced that sort of China yet. SO - we decided to hop the next bus out of town and into Hangzhou - supposedly a naturally gorgeous city to the south of Shanghai. From there, we would jump on a plane from Hangzhou to Kunming, Yunnan province. There, we could visit around to about half a dozen different possible destinations to check out. So it was decided, the plane tickets were paid for, and we hopped the next bus we could find to Hangzhou!

... But first, a quick note. On the way to the bus station, we managed to find a woman on the side of the road selling food. Now, this is highly common in China, since the Chinese love their snack foods, and it's a nice little industry, selling food. However, the type of food sold (commonly called xiao chi, or 'little eats') usually changes drastically depending on what part of China you're in. For example, they have these egg-bread, crunchy, spicy, tortilla things that they sell in Beijing. Delicious. In Harbin, they have Ice cream and tang hulu (candied chinese fruit on a strick) kind of everywhere. And so on. In Nanjing, the woman was making english muffins (sort of) fresh, off of her little cart, and cooking a full egg into the batter she cooked the muffins on to - then she added a ton of spices,sauces,pastes,and vegetables that I would never understand or recognize anywhere else in the world. And handed it to you to scarf. It cost less than 50 cents, and was quite possibly the most delicious thing my mouth has ever experienced. Ever. I wish I could explain this better, or had a picture of it. I'm still kicking myself for not having taken a picture with the egg-muffin lady. She's probably still on the bus station street corner... I'm tellin' ya. If anyone from a huge food provider or restaurant chain is reading this - there's your next huge sales pitch right there. Don't say I never did anything for you!!

Next Episode - Hangzhou.