On to Nanjing

The gang in front of the Shanghai railway station. The woman on the right is Catherine; she just flew in from the US and is also headed for the Amity orientation so she traveled with us to Nanjing. She has been a participant in the Summer English Program for four summers. The man in front of Bob is a beggar who didn't want to move out of the way for the photo.  Judy is off checking on which waiting room we can use with our tickets.
 

Loaded down with luggage and waiting for the train to Nanjing. Judy is the second person from the left; she has been connected to the Amity Foundation in China since 1992. Judy was a member of our church group, "the Bunch", and did a lot of camping, hiking, and canoeing with us before going to seminary and entering the ministry.
 

Our train was very comfortable; the illuminated sign hanging from the ceiling gave information on how long to the next stop, time in the station, speeds reached, etc. The train got up to speeds of about 130 - 140 km/hr (80 - 85 mph). The trip to Nanjing took about 3 hours.
 

The sign put up by the hotel welcoming us to the orientation conference for the Amity Summer English Program.
 

An electric bicycle I spotted on the street. It has an interesting and practical shelter for the child that gets carried on the back. I have not seen that before.
 

After arriving in Nanjing we had part of a day free before the conference started, so we did some sightseeing. This is one of the gates in the old city wall. Nanjing was an early capital of China and a walled city, but a lot of the wall has been removed.
 

Judy and Nancy are having a good laugh along a section of the wall. Our destination is the Yuejianglou Tower at the top of the hill.
 

The Yuejianglou Tower close up. The tower is not historical, having been built three years ago. It was built in the style of a Ming dynasty tower. According to the local tourism office, this location was the site of an important battle during the Ming dynasty and the emperor wanted to build a tower here, but didn't.
 

The name of the tower, "Yuejianglou", means "View of the river" in classical Chinese. You can indeed see the Yangtze river from here, as this photo shows. The Russians started construction of the bridge across the Yangtze River, but, when relations between the USSR and China soured, they abandoned the project, figuring the Chinese were not capable of finishing it. However, the Chinese showed them, and finished it successfully.

Another sightseeing stop was the Nanjing Botanical Garden, where they had this garden of bonsai trees.