We started the day off with breakfast at the hotel. Afterwards, we took the bus to the Nanjing massacre museum and memorial, where we learned about the killing of 300,000 Chinese people prior to the Second World War. Next, we traveled to the Nanjing wall and rode bikes on the 35 kilometer path on the wall. We obviously couldn’t travel all 35 kilometers with the time we had but some of us got close!
After we biked the city wall, we left the gates of the city to walk across the street to the Bao En museum. The Bao En museum was an old Ming Dynasty temple destroyed by the Taiping Rebellion. In the museum, we saw the ruins and artifacts from the temple. In the middle of the museum there was a large pagoda built by Emperor Zao in honor of his parents. We climbed the pagoda to the ninth floor where there were 360 degree views of the entire city.
After we climbed the pagoda, we headed to dinner. The meal consisted of salted cold duck, many chicken dishes, and shrimp. After dinner we got on the on the bus and drove towards to the National Examination Museum. The museum was the place where the best scholars in all of China would gather to take a test. The test was to determine the top three scholars, who would become advisers for the emperor. The museum was filled with thousands of ancient scrolls from all centuries. As we entered the museum we went underground to the chambers where the scholars would take the test. They would take the test underground because the surface was too loud.
After the museum we visited the the Nanjing night market. We had an hour to explore the market, but it was not nearly enough time to explore every street. At 9:25 we all gathered and went to the hotel for some much-needed rest!
— Zach and Sean