{"id":77,"date":"2019-06-12T04:58:54","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T09:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/?p=77"},"modified":"2019-06-12T04:58:58","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T09:58:58","slug":"first-day-in-nanjing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/2019\/06\/12\/first-day-in-nanjing\/","title":{"rendered":"First Day in Nanjing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After\na long 15 hour plane ride to Hong Kong. Stepping off the plane I did not know\nwhat to expect. I knew that I was going to experience a completely different culture,\nbut I really was not ready for it. When we first landed in the airport in Hong\nKong, I was taken away by how large it was. The terminals seemed to stretch for\nnearly a half mile, so far that you could not even see the other side. We\nlanded around 5am in Hong Kong and the airport was nearly empty so I was\nconfused as to why it was so massive. This quickly changed a few hours later\nwhen thousands of people flooded the terminals from all different parts of the\nworld. Everyone was going on about their business and had their own agendas. One\nof the most interesting stores I found when exploring the airport was a shop\nselling all sorts of dried goods. Some of these items included chicken wings,\nfish, scallops, and chicken feet. I later found out that you can put these\ndried items in soups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After another 3 hour flight to Nanjing, we finally had\nreached our destination. We left the airport and got into a van which took us\nto the hotel. The weather was extremely hot and humid and I was not used to it\non the first day. The road from the airport to the hotel was where I got my\nfirst views of Nanjing. I was impressed by how clean the highways were and how\nmuch nature was spread throughout the city. When you think of large metropolitan\ncities, you do not tend to think there will be trees and flowers everywhere. There\nare large parks and lakes throughout the city that give it a very green and\nbeautiful appearance. They have managed to place large modern skyscrapers in\nwith parks which is what I found most impressive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we reached the hotel, we decided to take a walk\nto see what the streets were like. There was so much life in the streets as\npeople were walking everywhere and having conversations. Many people ride\nelectric scooters to get around the city. These people seem to be natural at\ndriving them with the way they are able to weave in and out of traffic and\naround the sidewalks, sometimes having 2 or 3 people on the same scooter. At one\npoint I even saw a man with a small dog on the back of his scooter! The most interesting\nsight I saw was a man on a bike selling goldfish and plants. This is nothing I would\nhave ever expected to see, as I did not think fish takes would go well with a\nbicycle. Somehow he managed to pedal around the streets with goldfish in the back.\nLining the streets were shops that were selling all kinds of goods from food to\ncigarettes, even pets. Outside of the shops were vendors selling fruits and vegetables.\nIt\u2019s as if the city never sleeps because something is always going on at some\nhour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salt Lake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            <\/strong>The second day we went to a reconstruction of a classic\nChinese town around a salt lake. There was about a 45 minute drive as we left\nthe main city and traveled into the mountains. Once we got off the bus you\ncould see a real Buddhist temple far off in the distance. This temple was at\nthe very top of a large mountain and looked like it was straight out of a\nmovie. As we headed into the park we could see from the distance a full city\nfilled with ancient Chinese buildings. This combined the style of ancient Chinese\nbuildings with modern interiors. The town was very beautiful and when you\nwalked down the streets you were immersed in the town. It was as if you\ntraveled back to ancient China. They had actors preforming shows and dressed in\ntraditional Chinese attire. You started to imagine what life would have been\nlike in the ancient world and how difficult simple tasks would become. We had a\ngreat tour guide on this trip who explained a lot of the history of China and\nhow it evolved into what it is today. I enjoyed this trip because I was able to\nlearn a lot about China\u2019s deep history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After a long 15 hour plane ride to Hong Kong. Stepping off the plane I did not know what to expect. I knew that I was going to experience a completely different culture, but I really was not ready for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":832,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/832"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/china-summer-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}