NANJING

Although we have been in China while sailing on the Yangtze, Nanjing is the first port of call. Nanjng is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in history as it has been the capital of China on several occasions. Here we are able to see how different the Chinese are from the residents of Korea and Japan.  The first thing we notice is how curious about us they are.  We are met with security guards and custom officials, but also cameras and TV interviewers.  Here is my husband as he disembarks the Orion II in Nanjing.  Once the formalities were completed we headed off to the see the sights.  First we climbed to the top of the mausoleum of Sun Yat Sen.  As you may know he was the first president and founding father of the Republic of China.  He is referred to as the "father of the nation".

After this we visited the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum which is the tomb of the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the Ming Dynasty. The construction of this Mausoleum began and 1381 and ended in 1405,
                                                                                                              
                                                                                     
Nanjing has given us the first real taste of Chinese food as we experienced a truly memorable banquet with over 20 dishes served.  Finally to see all that is Nanjing we toured their wall and enjoyed the first taste of shopping in China.  The Nanjing wall was built over 600 years ago.  Each brick is the same size because of a worker did not meet the requirements he was killed.  This certainly encourages careful craftmanship.