This weekend I traveled to Yuzhou and Nanjing for a day of sightseeing. I was accompanied by Jack's son Paul and Mr. Huan's son Jeff. I was glad to go with guys around my age that spoke English, they were easier to talk and relate to. We drove 2 hours to a Yuzhou lake that had a temple and beautiful scenery. Because we went up on a Saturday the area was packed full of Chinese tourists. I quickly learned that sightseeing with Chinese tourists will quickly test your nerves. They were obsessed with taking pictures constantly. It was very tough to get good photos because there were always people in the way. And if they're posing for a photo they won't take a quick shot and let the next person go, they'll spend minutes taking multiple shots to get the perfect picture. It was essentially my worst nightmare: hundreds of my mom all equipped with cameras. The scenery was very nice though and there were pretty flower gardens throughout the lake.

After the lake we made a 1-hour trip up to Nanjing to grab lunch and see some tombs. Lunch was traditional Nanjing cuisine which was good and a little weird. The drinks they served was a type of fermented rice with no alcohol. It was sweet and sour but had an aftertaste that was not very pleasing. My favorite was a dish similar to dumplings that were wrapped in bean curd. The weirdest thing I ate would definitely be duck tongue, which was actually pretty good. After lunch we visited the tomb of Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China. His tomb is up a hill and is very extravagant. To get to the tomb you must walk up a huge flight of stairs surrounded on both sides by forest. The hill in Nanjing was the most nature I've seen since I've been in China and found it very peaceful. The builders were determined to give meaning to every aspect of the mausoleum. Like the tomb is 180m above sea level and Sun Yat-Sen was 180cm tall. It faces north-south for better feng shui. There are 392 stairs and each number represents some fact or Chinese superstition. Each set of steps gets steeper so you have to work harder the closer you get to the tomb. Etc. It made me wonder if the architects actually thought of all these things or people just connected a lot of coincidences to attract more tourists. His actual tomb was really cool though. It was made of marble and about 6ft below the floor so everybody had to look down into it.

The next destination was the tomb of the (I think) first emperor of the Ming dynasty. Although the buildings were very old, they had just been refurbished and looked new which gave it less of a historical feel. The brickwork was very good along the walls of the buildings though. Apparently the emperor had each worker carve their name into each brick they laid. That way if there was a bad brick the emperor would know who's fault it was and would have them killed. Later we learned that people (in ancient times) were not allowed near the tomb. So after the tomb was built the emperor had all the builders killed anyways. After the tomb we walked along another path that had giant statues of animals which was very impressive, especially because they were all carved out of 1 piece of giant stone. What was even more impressive to me was the fact that they got all the stones up the hill in the first place. After walking around all day outside my shirt was drenched from the Chinese humidity. Exhausted, we all slept on the 3 hour drive back home.