Tourists in China

Spencer has to take a sort of "history of Nanjing" class this semester, and as part of that we get to go on field trips to some of the cool places in the city. Last week we had the first of the six planned trips to Purple Mountain, or more specifically to Zhong Shan Ling (the mausoleum of Sun Zhong Shan) and Ming Xiao Ling (the Ming mausoleum), both resting sites to very famous historical people.

After a very quick look around a museum, we went to visit Zhong Shan. He was kind of the George Washington of China. And he has an amazing place of rest.

The entranceway

After going through the entrance there was a decent walk up to the next building. Like, over half a mile of a walk. But it was pretty and green and the weather was nice, so we didn't mind too much. But we finally made it to the main attraction.

The stairs. Three hundred and ninety-two of them. No worries, I'm like Rocky Balboa. At least, I played his theme music in my head as I dragged myself up the stairs. I thought about trying to run up them, but, you know, there were a lot of people and everyone would look at me funny and it might have seemed disrespectful since we were at a memorial site after all. But I promise, it had nothing to do with the fact that running up those stairs would probably have killed me. Nothing, whatsoever.

Either way, I still felt like Rocky when I reached the top.

The mausoleum was actually kind of beautiful, and the view was amazing. We couldn't go into the room where his actual coffin is, but it has awesome entryway.

LOVE the ceiling.

Most awesome door handles of all time.

After we were done exploring there we walked for forever (ok, maybe not forever, but we didn't know we were going to have to walk for a half hour so it felt like forever) to get to the Ming tombs.

The grounds were beautiful, but the overall visit was less impressive than the first stop. Apparently a great emperor and several of his sons are buried here.

The coolest part were the animal statues, they have six different animals (4 of each) that line the long pathway that leads up to the tomb entrance. The elephants were my favorite.

The leaves are changing and it's beautiful!

We enjoyed seeing a little more of the city that we now call home. And we are excited to see more of it in the future.