Day 17: Nanjing to Hangzhou

We visited the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum today. It was quite interesting to read the Chinese's perspective on the events. The museum reminded me of the National Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. It was overwhelming to see the mass grave of 10,000 people, and all the pictures of the devastation from that time. I'm still not sure how I feel about it all yet. It was a lot to process at the time.

Afterwards, we had lunch at a cute sandwich place run by a Swedish person. They had fantastic fresh baked bread there.. MMM. Afterwards, we went to the bus station and rode for 3.5 hours to Hangzhou. The bus driver was quite intense, honking loudly at any car that got in his way. I felt like he was going to drive off the curb.

Anyways, we arrived safely in Hangzhou. The bus ride was only 114.5 RMB, which is about $16 USD for a distance from Boston to DC, so it was a really good deal. We had trouble, however, finding our hostel. Apparently, the bus station is at the very northern part of the city and our hostel is at the very southern part of the city by West Lake, but our driver was super helpful in helping us find out hostel. He got out many times to ask people for help, and was so friendly. I got to chat with him in Mandarin and learned some cool things. Our hostel is quite the situation. It's really trendy looking and looks like a cool place to hang out. Chinese-garden style with lots of rooms connected by walkways and open courtyards. However, there are cockroaches in the bedroom- we're in a 10 bed room.PS love my Ninja Turtles towel? :) Anyways, we already paid for another night but we might end up leaving for Suzhou or Shanghai tomorrow evening. Oh well. I'm excited to see this beautiful lake everyone keeps talking about. And we're right by the zoo too... I wonder if they have pandas!