Where to begin. I think at the beginning. We left the apartment on Saturday afternoon to travel to the Shanghai Railway Station. Of course, weather will play into this tale, and the drizzle that was starting to fall turned to a fierce downpour just when we were trying to get a taxi. We considered taking the metro to the Rail Station, but we had a lot of stuff and the rain was pretty bad. We did get a taxi with the help of the building security guy. Yay security guy.

We met up with our friends Ray and Alexis (Alex flew to Nanjing from Hong Kong and met us there). The train was fun and went quickly. It was only 2 hours. We were in second class going and first class coming back. The only difference was that in second class, they don't check your tickets, so people try to sneak in and sit in nicer seats than the ones they may have purchased. Which means any time you get up, you will likely return to a stranger in your seat. You can reclaim your seat easily enough, but I did not love the whole ritual. I did not leave my seat. We got off the train and it was total madness. Thousands of people seemed to be getting off trains at once and we were slowly pushing our way to the taxi line. Once there, we had to wait a while before we got a taxi, and there were these very rude people (not that many) that decided not to stand in line like the other thousand or so of us. It's just like shoulder riders on the highway. These men and women just tried to shove in to the front of the line. I was not having it. We had 3 kids, lots of bags and we were waiting our turn. People behind us were yelling at us to not let people cut in (as if we were the issue?) but nonetheless I put up a blockade with my umbrella and other people got wise and started to keep the line from being invaded. It was a tense time, and when a guy who failed to penetrate my guard attempted again with people behind me, another foreigner took this guy's bag and threw it (eeek) off to the side. The man who was the line cutter went a little nuts and started screaming and it got loud, but we weren't involved, and we got our taxis and went on to more pleasant surroundings.

Ahhhh. We finally made it to the lovely hotel, Nanjing Softel. Alex was there, and after settling into our rooms, we went off to the Night Market and had an interesting dinner with many local foods. I say interesting, because for me, it was a tough meal. Alex spent part of her childhood in Nanjing and was very familiar with the city and the local food. She ordered a big meal with many famous local dishes. Salty duck was one of them. This was a hit among the adults, though the kids didn't seem to love it. It was not surprisingly quite salty. We also had a soup made with Chrysanthemum leaves. Supposedly good for you. Not super (or should I say souper) flavorful, but fine. Alex ordered a fish, and they brought the fish by to meet us before preparing it. He looked much better when he was dressed for dinner. The fish was wild and caught in the Yangtze River. There were 2 dishes involving snails. The kids all tried it. Alexis loves it and ate the most of anyone. My kids were both very brave and each tasted it but did not ask for seconds. I was a total wuss. Just could not do it. Never have been able to and may never be able to. I have my food limits. Worms, bugs, snails. Same category to me. Mark loves escargot. My dad enjoys it. I'm sure with butter and garlic, anything can become edible. It's really more about the WHAT than the how it is prepared. I did try the stinky tofu--another local dish. The name is very true to the dish, as it is smelly and apparently tofu. This was unlike any tofu I've ever seen....smelled like a ripe cheese. I did not enjoy it but I did try it. Then there were some tamer dishes, like chicken, sweet and sour pork, spinach and garlic. Everyone had plenty to eat. I know Mark loved the food and raved about it afterwards.

Later on Saturday night, we went on a boat ride around the Night Market area and saw the Confucian Temple and a lot historic looking building. The boat ride reminded me of Disney's "It's a Small World" without the theme music. There were all sorts of recreations of historic scenes along the boat ride representing different periods in Nanjing's history. The kids enjoyed it.

I was not feeling very well, but I got through that first night and we got up the next day to meet for breakfast at the hotel. A nice buffet, where the kids ate for free (woo hoo) and the prices were way cheaper than any hotel buffet back home. Ray and Alex arranged for a van and driver to take us around Nanjing on Sunday. This was great since otherwise, we'd be in 2 taxis and also we traveled around to some pretty far places. Renting cars with drivers is not that hard and it's not too expensive in China. We'll probably do it in other cities we visit. We went to the Zhongshan Park in Nanjing (we live near Zhongshan Park in Shanghai!). Zonghshan is named after Dr. Sun Yat-sen. I was a little embarrassed at my lack of historical knowledge so I did a quick bit of refresher study after we went to the park. We saw Sun Yatsen's Mausoleum and the hike up this mountain to get there was long and steep. It was architecturally very pretty and interesting.

Once again we were local celebs. This time, though I was asked to pose for pictures too. I said "me? you want me? you must mean my kids. you don't want me in the pictures do you?" But they did. This woman threw her arms around me, like I was a mannequin. She was seriously using me as a prop for her photo. Somewhere, I am on some Chinese woman's blog and the photo must have a fun caption like "look at this curly headed American woman I found in Nanjing!" Seriously, it still shocks me to find how fascinated people are with us and our different appearance.

We then went on a shuttle to another park that was connected to the first park. We were really up high in the mountains and the views were very pretty. We stopped for a "snack" which turned into a feast...plates of dumplings, soup with clear noodles and duck liver and duck blood (I'm just reporting). I ate the noodles out of the soup, and some broth, but not the liver and blood. The kids had fun running around, doing some activities and we watched a live musical performance in the park. I assume it was for the holiday celebration.

I stayed in Sunday night, but the rest of the gang went out for what else, pizza! Ahem. I ordered room service and had this yummy noodle soup with cabbage and a tiny bit of pork. I also had about 6 cups of tea while I tried to heal myself with lots of fluids.

Monday we went on another boat ride on a lake and then spent a couple hours at the park going on rides and playing carnival games. We tried to avoid the games, but the kids LOVE to try their luck and want to beat the odds. Life lessons. We told Nathan that if he tried, and lost like he most likely would, he could not get upset or we'd never let him play these games again. He threw beanbag after beanbag and though had some great attempts, did not knock down any stuffed dogs. He smiled and said "that was FUN!" to make sure he didn't lose his chance to ever play again. The woman running the game thought he was cute and GAVE HIM the prize. So much for the life lesson! It was pretty funny, actually. Not the life lesson we were going for, but there is a lesson related to being charming and well-liked that he may have mastered.

We ended our time in Nanjing with a very cheap meal at a local restaurant. We had noodles, dumplings and some sort of spring roll type things. Very tasty, and crazy cheap. Then we were off to the train to our first class seats. Nobody sat in our seats, and we made it home safely, but we were a tired, sweaty group.

A woman we talked to at a park in Nanjing told us that the moon festival is similar to our Thanksgiving. It's about being grateful and being with family. I think we celebrated it well by spending it together and doing family stuff all weekend. That's it. Nanjing in 3 days. Good trip.