Blog Ping-Pong

Well the Great Firewall of China is back up again and I'm having trouble logging onto my beta version blog II.
So the only way to post right now is to go to my first blog and do it here.
It seems to be working fine...For now.

What a pain!!

Anyway, Aaron, Adam and myself went to Houzhou and Nanjing this past weekend.
We spent the night hanging out with the teachers in Houzhou first...We couldn't catch a bus to Nanjing because we got a late start from Changxing.


Remember Jake?


We got up at 6:30 the next morning and went to the bus station and took the 3 hour ride to Nanjing....Big city!

It's located on the Yangtze river...I've been hoping to see the Yangtze for a while.
the Yangtze is huge...It kind of reminds me of the Mississippi river.

When we first got into town we took a taxi to a bridge that crosses the river. We were a bit hungry so we stopped at this little street vendor for a bite.



It was kind of rough looking but the food was good.

I was a little nervous eating here...It wasn't exactly the cleanest place in town.

But the food was really good...I sprung for lunch.
All three of us ate for$1.50.














Here's the kitchen....Like I said...It was rough!

Then we took a walk through a park to the bottom of the bridge.















An elevator took us to the top of the bridge...And presto...We're on the Yangtze river.




Aaron and Adam.



What an incredible view! There is a temple right in the middle of the picture...You can see the point on the hill. Well that's where we went the next day


This is the park we walked through to get to the bridge.


Adam and myself.

This is some kind of fishing platform below.



It is a huge bridge.




It took a good 30 minutes to walk across the bridge...And 30 back.

We were all looking for books to read...In English. Not one English book in Changxing. Aaron finished a couple of books he bought a few weeks ago in Houzhou so he lent them to me. Adam suggested we go to a University to look for books in their bookstore so we ended up at Johns Hopkins University in Nanjing. Only problem was, no bookstore.

This is one beautiful campus!



I guess this statue looked thirsty?

It's a nice city but not much different than any other city I've seen here in China.





Later on we checked into our hostel and went out on the town.


Another neat hostel!






Night life.




Confucius temple.


You have to love a city with water.

Happy shiny people having fun.

Then we had dinner at a hot-pot place. Each of us had our own little hot pot.

After walking around for a while we headed back to the hostel and relaxed for a bit when we met this nice girl from Sweden. She lived in Hong Kong for a year and was just traveling around China by herself now. This just proves how safe it is to travel in China.

The next morning we got up about 6:30 and headed to the temple.

After a few pictures.

The temple at the base of the mountain.

This HUGE statue was at the entrance.

The three Amigos....(or stooges?)

And there were people everywhere doing Ti Chi.

Even with swords....I bet he's never been mugged!

Then as you walk in the park to enter the temple you could hear all of these birds singing. Then I realizes that they were coming from the birds in these little cages that were hanging all over the place. The locals would bring their birds here and sit around and chat and listen to the birds.

I almost bought one of these.

At the top of the mountain...The Temple.

All I can say is...WOW.

I can still feel the pain in my legs from the walk up.


It was quite a hike to the top but well worth it!

So I took a little break.

No problem for these young bucks.

It was absolutely incredible!




Aaron is crazy about old stuff...He loved this place.

It was early so we missed the big crowds but there was still a lot of little tours going on.



And a group of people doing some kind of spinning top Ti Chi.



Another great view!





It was early so the morning haze hadn't quite burned off yet.



And lost of artwork.



The inside was just as awesome.

With a great museum. Aaron could have spent the whole day there.
But we had to get back home.

We did manage to find a bookstore in town where Adam and Aaron bought some Chinese language books...I'll buy them from them when they are done.
Adam took two years of Chinese in collage so his Chinese is pretty good.
I need to start with the books that Aaron bought...Beginners Chinese.

Back at the bus station ready to catch the bus home to Changxing.


Once again another wonderful adventure in China!

Jim