Our first ten days in China

Hello again!

Here's what we've been up to this past week and a half when not working on our chopstick skills (i.e., eating).

We arrived in Shanghai and traveled on the world's fastest trains to Nanjing, where Brian's friend from high school now lives.  Andrew and his family helped us get our bearings and took us to Purple Mountain and Confucius' temple.

When the Crooks' went back to work and school, Brian and I tried our hand at navigating the city.  Nanjing is where the Nanking Massacre occurred during WWII.  It was a horrendous event during which Japanese soldiers brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of citizens.  There's an amazing memorial/museum honoring the victims, survivors, and allies on the site where 10,000 victims were "buried."  We spent several hours there and then went to Ming Xiaoling's tomb that afternoon, which was surrounded by beautiful gardens and statues. He was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty and the only Ming emperor buried outside of Beijing.

Next, we took the overnight train to Xi'an.  (Thank goodness for www.seat61.com.  I took a picture on my phone of a sample ticket on the site and pointed out what we wanted since the customer service rep didn't speak any English and we don't speak any Chinese.) Xi'an is China's oldest city and just a short bus ride from the Terracotta Warriors.  Each figure represents an actual warrior and archaeologists believe it took three years to complete each likeness.  There are thousands of warriors, so it should come as no surprise that it took forty years to complete the Terracotta Army for Win Shi Huang's mausoleum.

From Xi'an we took a quick trip to Hua Shan, home to one of China's five sacred mountains.  Before we got to the trail we had to walk through a group of about 40 women doing their morning exercises (sort of resembled prancersizing) and a Daoist/Taoist monastery!  The mountain's white stones combined with the fog made the three hour climb the most peaceful hike I've ever done.  It was incredible to actually see the clouds below us once we reached the top.  Brian also became a local hero when he climbed down into a dry river bed to retrieve a girl's cell phone.  As a thank you, she and her friends serenaded us with songs in Chinese.
 
And now we're back in Xi'an and getting ready to depart for Lanzhou.  As soon as I can figure out how to get pictures off my camera and onto my kindle or phone, I'll make a photo album.  We warned you that we're technologically challenged!!