Today is the last day of our staying in Shanghai. Before we take off to Nanjing, we had our 1st reflection meeting at the hotel. The purpose of this meeting is to give participants an opportunity to share their feelings & learnings so they can apply them in their future teaching plans. We were divided into 4 groups & did a small group discussion first & the representative of each group presented the summary to the entire group. Many positive suggestion and some constructive criticism were expressed. Overall, it was very productive meeting. We ended the meeting with a poem that Greg, a teacher from Vancouver wrote during the reflection time which I am going to share with you here.
Comfort Station
I climb the narrow stairway, as so many man before me
I touch the cold, hard wall and in an instant I feel..I hear...I see..
In my mind I see
semen splatter, blood splatter
In my brain I hear
screams, pain, heart breaking, tears
In my heart I feel myself shaking, ripping,
my knees ready to give out
There is no comfort here
Thank God for the people around me to catch me if I fall
After the reflection, we got on the coach to go to Nanjing, our next destination. The must list before we get on the bus was to use washroom in the hotel. George, our travel guide told us there won’t be any good (?) restroom along the way to Nanjing-I wonder if there is any good public restroom in China at all. I haven’t seen them anywhere so far. Some of us including myself are restraining from drinking tea to avoid unpleasant public washroom. This is the biggest downside of the trip.
We arrived at the restaurant in Nanjing after almost 3hrs of bus ride. We are scheduled to explore the nature of Nanjing this afternoon. We went up to the purple mountain by gondola (more like a ski lift) & went to Dr. Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum. Sun, considered to be the "Father of Modern China" both in mainland of China and in Taiwan, fought against the imperial Qing government and after the 1911 revolution ended the monarchy and founded the Republic of China. The purple mountain was more like the size of Blue Mountain-maybe slightly higher- but the entire mountain was covered with thick trees. The local people will climb up the mountain in the morning to exercise. It was amazing that they preserved the forest in the middle of fast developing city. The architecture of Dr. Sun Yat Sen Mausolum was amazing. There are 392 stairs to climb up to the top but you can only see a few stairs when you look down from the top.
It was another scorching hot day to do any physical activity. Some of us gave up climbing the stairs & decided to sit in the air conditioned cafe. I made fun of their inactivity but I must agree that the beer we drank at the bottom of the Mausoleum was an absolute getaway in a day like this (39 plus humidity).
The hotel we checked in was quite fancier than the one in Shanghai. The room was much bigger with modern deco & had a thick duvet. George, our travel guide told us that this is a brand new hotel & hasn’t been rated properly yet. We may not be able to stay here next year if this hotel gets higher rating than 3 stars which will most likely happen. Anyway, we are fully benefiting from unsettled infrastructure of Nanjing. However, some of us weren’t too thrilled about fully exposed bathroom glass wall which you can see through literally everything..Only thing I can say is that I am glad that I don’t share the room with anyone else. It is a quite interesting concept..
Anyway, I am enjoying this unexpected luxury for the next three days. Good night everyone!
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