Touring in Nanjing

While we were in Nanjing we did a little touring. To the north of the city is the Zhong Shan, or central mountain, with several interesting areas. We visited the tomb of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, one of the fathers of modern China and one of the leaders of the first republic, who died in 1924. His tomb is very much in the Imperial tradition, with a long walkway up to the actual tomb. The walkway had a lot of steps, especially for old knees:This is the view down the steps, with some of the people in our group: Prof. Jiaoying Shi in the yellow shirt near the center, and Prof. Jim Shen in black to his right (our left). At different points along the path there were buildings and sculptures off to the side, and this one shows Judy standing next to a turtle that originally held a large tablet on its back.If you look closely at the turtle's head you will see what looks like racing stripes; this was probably a very fast turtle!

Nanjing has been the capitol of China in various ways over the centuries, and among those it was one of the early capitols of the Ming emperors. There is an area of Ming tombs on the same mountain, and we visited there the next day. One of the features of these tombs, both in Nanjing and in Beijing, is an avenue with many animals that show the emperor's power. In Beijing they have been replaced by concrete replicas, but in Nanjing they seem to still be the stone originals. Here is Judy saying hello to a camel, and in the distance you can see other animals down the avenue.The overall area of the Ming tombs is very broad and there are many wonderful buildings and walkways; it's not within the scope of a blog to include many more. Just one -- a wonderful small tile shrine in which you would burn papers on which you had written prayers or requests.From Nanjing we went on to Suzhou, and I'll write more on that soon.