The Pictures

So! The pictures...

the first one is at this park Chessin and I went to - it's an ancient archway from the Ming dynasty - scholars think it led either to a bathroom or some place where concubines were kept. wacky...

The second one is a man at another park we went to who spent his saturday afternoon in a hammock with his hat hanging on a tree. As Chessin put it, "badass".

The third - Sun Yat Sen - China's George Washington. Nanjing has his mausoleum, as well as this statue commemorating him.

The fourth picture is me in the Nanjing Botanical Garden's tropical section. Let's just say I was excited.

The fifth picture is a plaque at the Ming Tomb (a main attraction in Nanjing). It just talks about the exhibit there at the tomb - which is really cool.

The sixth picture is a view of Nanjing from this mountain in the middle of Nanjing Chessin and I climbed. The "purple-gold" mountain is where most of the city's tourist attractions are, and it has a winding, easily climbed cobbled path up it, along with a bunch of much harder, very steep slopes to climb. We chose the steep slope in the middle of the blazing heat and bamboo. Needless to say, we sweat through our shirts. When we finally arrived at the summit observatory, we were the only westerners, and the only people completely drenched in sweat. As if we weren't conspicuous enough already...

The seventh and either pictures are of the food we've been eating at this XinJiang restaurant near our apartment. the first is a spiced lamb "pizza" on nan-bread, along with this tomato and onion salad that is just ridiculously good. The second is some chili-stewed chicken (it makes your mouth completely numb, with a pepper the chinese call "ma"), and some XinJiang rice. This is one of 7 meals that I've won from chessin in the last couple of weeks playing badminton, which is good because this food, by chinese standards, isn't cheap (still about $7 a meal).

The 9th and 10th are from a little park in the city we went (the white horse park), which has some pretty areas, and a very creepy, deserted carnival.

The 11th and 12th are from the observatory on top of the purple-gold mountain.

the 13th is a sign near the nanjing observatory's major telescope (the first major telescope in the east)

the 14th is a cool door - don't really know what else to say about it...

the 15th is an amazing view of the city from the top of the mountain.

the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th are all from our apartment - chessin's room, my room, the view from my room, and the kitchen, respectively.

the 2oth is me eating bamboo. I don't know how the panda's do it!