Nanjing
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2008
1
112
130
Trip End
Dec 17, 2008
Nanjing,
Jiangsu,
China
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Anyway, after lunch we headed to the Nanjing Massacre memorial site which was built to remember the terrible massacre of people by the Japanese that happened here in 1937. In this year the Japanese invaded Nanjing which was the capital of China at the time and set about the mass killing, rape and murder of over 300,000 citizens of the city, whilst burning, looting and destroying most of the buildings
Nanjing Massacre Memorial Site
. The memorial was excellent and well worth going to see, the initial hall giving all the information about the massacre with pictures, displays and artifacts. It also had both poignant and interesting features like pictures being projected onto a huge oval frame of each of the victim's faces. A wall that had thousands of lights, one of which would light up to the sound of a drop of water every 6 seconds (the amount of time between each death in the 4 month period) and lastly a huge filing cabinet (about 20m high) that held the name of each victim. After this there was a huge blacked out hall with what appeared to be floating candles in it as a memorial for the dead, a bit Harry Potterish, but respectful all the same. The last area was an excavation of one of the mass graves with the skeletons exposed, amassed on top of each other. Although a bit disturbing it was a stark reminder of the atrocities that had occurred, something we thought that was done really well and would be a really good way of displaying the killing fields in Cambodia. Problem there is, that was an internal genocide and some of the Khmer Rouge are still in power, plus they don't really have the cash. Overall it was an interesting visit and we learned about something we had never heard of before (have you?). Apparently though not many Japanese visit either, because they are embarrassed, scared (retribution), or don't even know about this tragedy, which is a shame as it's a very well thought out memorial.
Nanjing Massacre Memorial Site
After the memorial we took the bus up to Purple Mountain to see the mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, leader of the 1911 revolution, I think he's a non-communist bloke. It was a fairly pleasant walk to the first pagoda through the cypress and fir tree lined paths, but again the sky was very grey and cloudy, not the best backdrop for photos. After the entrance pagoda it was 369 steps up to the mausoleum itself, via steps with a series of platforms between them. What was interesting about these steps was that from the bottom you could only see steps but not platforms, yet from the top you could only see then platforms and not the steps - a weird engineering design, but pretty cool to see. Needless to say there wasn't much to look at in the mausoleum bar the marble coffin, and due to the grey skies not much of a view from the top, which was a shame because it was a great vantage point to see the city.So it was time to return to the hotel, this time everyone opting out of a set dinner and just grabbing something from the supermarket. Earlier we had asked Frank about eating and he was pretty non-committal about there being any decent restaurants near the hotel, yet a 5 minute walk to a place Maud had spotted earlier presented beef tacos and a Hawaiian pizza - bliss !! Not sure what planet this Frank guy was on though, as it was a really nice place (Club Med) with good food and although it was tricky for us to order on our own (Maud having to go behind the bar to point at a diet coke), to be honest I just don't think he could be arsed !! I felt a bit sorry for the rest of the group as they just ended up eating snacks or cup noodles from the supermarket, though nice one Maud for spotting the place to eat.
Comments
Sniffing out a pizza
Always knew Maud's ability to sniff out a pizza at 50 paces would come in useful at some point! Glad you are well, and liked the B Roppongi. Thanks for the card - not opened yet - can't beleive its almost a year already. We are off to Norfolk for the weekend to celebrate!! (If I get Norfolk for the first one, it doesn't bode well for the next 30 years!!!) Enjoy Hawai and the States.
Loads of love
Me