Upon landing from the "动车" (high-speed train) in Nanjing Train Station, she presented herself as any other Chinese city... an old station full of people carrying all sorts of things and everyone walking towards the same direction but never in an organized manner...We finally got into a cab after managing to squezze really squezze our way into a non-existent queue for the cab... and found the four of us seating in the cab riding towards our first destination - "南京大屠杀博物馆" (Nanjing Massacre Museum). We've got a friendly cab driver, looking so happy to meet chinese immigrants... and was endlessly talking about the rich history of Nanjing and at the same time trying to find out if my poor (or I should say lucky) male friend of mine already had a girlfriend because he had a daughter available for hand of marriage... while I, seating at the back enjoying the city of view of Nanjing.
Nanjing is an interesting city as it was once a capital city of China during the Ming Dynasty. She still has her city walls enveloping those modern high-rise buildings. They have managed to thankfully keep them pretty nicely and incorporated them into the modern structure of the city.
The Nanjing Masaccre Museum was unexpectedly impressive. It was really something that I did not expect- architecture wise and "content" wise. The black marble wall on the entrance was quite similar to the World War 2 Memorial in Washington... all black and engraved with names. It did cross my mind if all memorials are built like this or... anyway they served its purpose pretty w
ell. The museum was totally comprehensive covering the war, how the Japanese entered into China, the Sino-China relationships then, the people who were in the Army, the people who survived, the weapons they used, and lots and lots of pictures of what happened then. I could feel myself having mixed emotions.... angry but sad, a sense of helplessness that the people were feeling... but also a sense of spirit that there were people still fought and there were people that risked their life to save people and hide them fro safety... wonder what I would have done if I was there...After the trip to the memorial, we hurried to lunch. We heard that Nanjing is famous for its 粉丝汤 (soup with vermicelli and duck inerds) - didn't think it was appropriate to eat this though after seeing all the gory pictures at the Memorial. But hey we only have one day in Nanjing so we took some laughter and swallowed our lunch.
With full stomach... we scurried our way to 中山公园 - Sun Yat Sen Park. It is a really huge park with the 种山 (Purple Mountain) as our backdrop. We are in search for the UNESCO listed Ming's Tomb that our friend who has been to Nanjing three times but unable to find... (poor her, you will understand why later...). We bought our 80RMB 门票 and looked at the map for our destination. The park is so huge that I think one won't be able to walk through it in one day... so we had to pick where we want to go this time... and fortunately we discovered that the Peach Blossom Festival was also going on at the same time... (yeah finally Spring is here!).
The path leading to the Ming's Tomb was lined out nicely with statues of horses, elephants, camels, lion like thing... and they all come in a pair, there will be a pair standing first and then a pair sitting down. The animals represent something each (and I obviously can't remember what they stand for... )
After walking through this path, we came across this huge stone in a shape of turtle carrying on his back a tablet. Turtle has always been a symbol of longevity, so perhaps that is the reason that it was there. It was a really huge tablet on his back (could be tablt of wisdow or something).... with writings but they have faded away with age... Centuries of rains and wind and erosion... nice to feel it though with your hand, only to realise later that some parts have been vandalised by irresponsible tourists.
Anyway it was pretty weird, the road to the Ming Tomb kinda ended there. We thought we would find the Ming's Tomb after this turtle tablet... but it wasn't there and we could see that the other visitors were confused like us. So we turned back, made a possible speculation
that we had missed a sign. Somehow through talking and playing a fool along the way, we found a slope lined with lots of trees and from a distance we could see a hint of yellow and red... we were sure then that it was the Ming's Tomb. Serene and enclosed by the trees, I could imagine that there is a stream of water running through it centuries ago..., sadly now they have dried up... We walked about 10 minutes from the entrance and then found ourselves facing a blockade... with "construction in progress" sign. Apparently the Ming's Tomb has been going re-touching for the past few months and the back part is still not done. I had a peek through the holes... and it was something quiet magnificent and it felt grand and holy. Just one problem though, I think the Chinese has re-touched it too well... that it looked like brand new. The yellow paint just looked too glossy and I am sure in Ming's time they did not have Dulux like paint. Somebody should write to the UNESCO about this because I found in quite disturbing. So... my poor friend, looks like we will be back again to see the re'touched Ming's Tomb.The Ming's Tomb was built while he lives on earth. That thought I found quite disturbing... moreover he was very auspicious in looking for the perfect place to build his Tomb. Such a contradiction to the modern life of "Seize the Day!" attitude. However it could have been that he knew there is life after death and this is how he "expressed" that idea.
Well I believe anyway that life goes on beyond life on Earth... and to those who prepares it... Life is Eternal
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