This morning, after our breakfast in the hotel, we took a taxi to Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall.
The Massacre happened in 1937 when the Japanese occupied Nanjing which was the capital city of China then. In a short period of a few week, the Japanese massacred about 300,000 Chinese.
The extreme brutal act had marked a history which is not able to forget and forgive by the Chinese until today.
At the entrance, there are sculptures carries messages of stories which made us uncomfortable.
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| It says only death can wash away her filth. |
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| The names of the victims. |
Then we reached the site of "the mass Grave of 10,000 Corpses". It's the actual mass buried site of about 10,000 corpses. I saw my mum's tearful eyes when she saw the bones of young children. And I also felt my mum's sweating and cold hands.
We were getting very uncomfortable as we proceeded further. Next, we found ourselves in the exhibit hall where there were lots of photos and videos showing how brutal the Japanese really were. These images and stories really made us cringed and recoiled. Mum even covered my eyes at some scenes and I could feel her quicken steps. There was even competitions of killing Chinese being held. She just couldn't take it anymore and hurried me along and we were out of the hall. There we sat down and waited for Pa for a long time.
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| Learn from the past!
In order to shake off the uneasiness and to bring our spirit up, we went into a silk factory just opposite the hall. There we witness some world class woven master piece!
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After that, we hailed a taxi to take us back to our hotel where we had our lunch before we went to the train station for our train to Hangzhou.
A feel of Nanjing street!
And so after we checked out from the hotel, with the help of the hotel , we took a taxi to the railway station hoping to catch the earliest train to Hangzhou. Unfortunately the tickets were sold out and the earliest train was in the evening!
With a few hours to kill, we took a short train ride to a shopping mall nearby as suggested by a local people. As usual, the train was very full and when we were there, the mall happened to be a of a high end mall selling high end stuffs. Moreover, someone had to keep an eye on the luggage as we couldn't be dragging the luggage in the mall.
Anyhow, no one was in the mood of shopping at that moment, especially after an unpleasant train ride. So we just sat by the road with the luggage, what a waste of time!
Yes, we love Red!
Finally, it was time to board the train to Hangzhou. When we reach Hangzhou, it was already late. The station was very crowded and the queue for taxi was long. We were forced to accept a private van offer.
The driver said that he knew the way when we told him the name of our accommodation that night. But once we were in the town area, he said he wasn't sure about the way. He was driving around and told us that we had to pay him more. As it was getting really late by now, mum told pa to just pay and ask him drop us someway nearby.
Finally, he stopped the van and told us the direction to the hostel. It was dark and deserted as we dragged our luggage walking in the alley. It was only when we saw the signage of the hostel that we were able to let our guts down. |
| It was warm and welcoming! |
It was mum's idea to stay in the youth hostel as we had not stayed in one before. The hostel is small and there was no lift. We had to take the luggage to the 3rd floor where our room was. We had a bath room attached room which is clean and quite comfortable but the room is extremely small. Along the way, we saw the shared bathroom at the first floor which is quite clean.
Anyway, we finally able to take the shower and settled down to rest.
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