Last Night In Nanjing

Since I returned from Taiwan I have not had much to do other than get my belongings ready for travel to Yunnan as well as visit some of the sites in Nanjing I have yet to see. One of these was the famous Purple Mountain. So on Monday my friends Maggie, Kevin, Walter, Kleaver and myself all went on a hike. Because Saturday and Sunday were so clear and beautiful we figured Monday morning would be a perfect day to go to the peak of the mountain and look over the city, but of course it started raining late Sunday night, so our view was pretty bleak. But the forest on the mountain side were still gorgeous.

I am currently sitting in a cafe awaiting my friend Brandon to gather his stuff and we will meet at a friends house before departing on our 40+ hours train ride to Kunming, Yunnan Province. We arrive there 9am Sunday morning and get to hang out for a day and a half before taking another 8 hour train to Lijiang.

Last night was our final dinner with friends. We had planned on going to our favorite Turkish restaurant, but we got there to find it was closed, and is usually Never closed!!! Oh well, we had Indian instead.

One thing that made my last night in Nanjing so wonderful is that it snowed. Might not sound that great to some folks, but I have never seen it snow in my life. I have seen snow on the ground but never ever have I seen it fall from the sky, and it was just magical!!!  As a kid i remember cutting out snow flakes from pieces of paper, but I never really appreciated that Each and Every snowflake is an actually 6 pointed star!!! It was Crazy!! I build wee snow men form the snow build up on the hoods and trunks of parked cars, I practices my Cricket pitch with snowballs!!! I was so happy.

That is all for now. My next post will be from Lijiang, Yunnan, China!!!

Take Care!!!

Base of Purple Mountain

From left is Walter, Kevin, Maggie, Kleaver

Cleaning out Buddha's ears

Standing in the snow outside of a closed Istanbul Cafe.

Eating dinner in an open Taj Mahal.

Eden, Brandon, Eleanor.

Bilal and Ali

Erin and Bilal

Other Ali and Shiraz

Me and crazy Baris from Turkey.

Mexican Food in China

Mexican food in China is very hard to find, pretty much non-existant. If you do happen to find it, it is very expensive, or not even real Mexican food. One place called "Taco" is said to be Chinese Mexican Fusion Cuisine, which is just fried rice in a shell and called a taco. It is disappointing to say the least, especially when my Californian diet is nothing but Mexican food, and I have been stripped of that food staple for over eight months. It brings me much pain. BUT tonight my friends and I were determined to get our Mexican fix. It has taken a little while of searching, but we finally tracked down all the ingredients needed to make our own Mexican at home. HOORAY!!! Not only that, but at a foreign food import store where we got the refried beans and cheese (both items are very hard to find in China. Avocados are also very hard to come by in China, but we managed to find them) I also found a bottle of wine from Paso Robles, just an hour north of my hometown on the Central Coast of good ole' CA. The smile on my face will not be coming off any time soon. 

Photos of Nanjing

Greetings Everyone,

Happy New Year!!!
新年愉快，万事如意！！！

My semester at Nanjing University finally came to an end a little over three weeks ago. Final examinations included two weeks of writing essays and giving presentations about Geography, Media, and Life all in Chinese. I was very happy when it was all over. I spent my vacation back in Taibei, Taiwan hanging out with all my old class mates from the summer semester as well as the Taibei bike polo squad GloryC. I'll write more about Taiwan in a post later this week.  I spent the last few weeks before winter vacation taking lots of photos around town to give folks an idea of what the city is like. Here they are;


                                                            THE CITY

A view out of my back window. On the roof tops are
solar powered water heaters. Lots of cold showers
 on those days without sun.

Everyone makes home-made sausage in the winter. This is my neighbor's hanging out side my front door.

Nanjing City Wall (Ming Dynasty 1368a.d.) Bricks were
provided by citizens as a tax. Each brick had the name and
address of the person that donated it just incase the brick did not
meet the standards that person could be found and punished.

Nanjing City Wall

 Xuanhu Men. Eastern gate into Nnajing.

Xuanhu Lake, directly outside of the Eastern gate.

Bike Polo at Nanjing University.

Fruit shop behind Nanjing University.

Outside an old Hotel.

Metro  地铁

Shanghai street.

Small pavilion on Nanjing University Campus.

Big cauldron on Nanjing University campus.

Community bulletin board behind campus.

Each morning all over the city old men would line up
cage after cage of birds for sale.

PEOPLE

My roommate Jude on the Right, then three
teachers Dong Laoshi, Zhang Laoshi, and
Jin Laoshi (Ivy). On Nanjing University campus.

Zhang Wenbo on the Left, he was student aid in the office.
My friend Brandon Yeh on the Right will be moving with
me to Yunnan in February.

Road side bike repaire shop. Next door is a road side plant shop.

Nathan, Zhang Wenbo, Me at the bowling alley.

Me, Darius, Viv, Vera, Amy. All of the students from
San Francisco State University studying at Nanjing University
this semester. This is at our Thanksgiving dinner.

Viv and Jude


   

ZIFENG TOWER. Zifeng Tower is the 7th tallest building in the World and the second tallest in mainland China. It was a great landmark while exploring the city.

Looking West out my back window.

Looking South over Xuanhu Lake.

Looking North from Nanjing University.

Looking West down my street.

Bike Trip To Jiangxin Zhou

Greeting Everybody!!!

So I spent most of Saturday afternoon biking around an island on the Yangze River called Jiangxin Zhou 江心洲， it literally means the island in the heart of the river.  Going to Jiangxin Zhou is a great way to separate oneself from the noise and commotion of Nanjing City. The first time I visited was about 5 weeks ago, some classmates and I visited a local art student friend of ours. She told us she moved to the island to set herself in a very calm atmosphere so she could complete her art works in peace.

I was surprised to find exactly how big the Jiangxin Zhou is. It took me about 1 1/2 hours to bike around the entire island, I did top a few times to take photos and patch flat tires. For the most part it was uninterrupted biking, something that is very uncommon in this hectic concrete jungle called Nanjing.

The island its self is very beautiful. All the streets are lined with trees and the scenery is made up of colorful farmlands and fishing boats on the coast. In the center of the island are the small city centers. Below are all the wonderful pictures and a great map.

I think in the back of my head the main reason for taking this small biking adventure was just to make a map of it  :)  Black dotted line was the route I rode, red number correspond to the photo!

1.    On the bridge heading to Jiangxin Zhou 江心洲。

2.    Trees line all the streets.

3.    Small crops dot the landscape.

4.    Over looking a small orchard. In the back round is a reminder how close to the City these islanders are.

5.    Heading south along the western coast.

6.    An abandoned tree-fort looking house.

7.

8.    The main dock on the western coast of the island.

9.    I'm not sure what the are harvesting in this aquatic farm, but those are all Sprite bottles floating in the water.

10.    Shipyard, or a ship graveyard. These two behemoths were being taken apart.

11.    Over looking more crops.

12.    A lovely little beach on the south end of the island.

13.    A temple on the southern tip of the island

14.    The Southern tip of Jiangxin Zhou.

15.    Looking east, in the back round is the mainland. This looks like a floating dock for a small fishing operation.