随着心情流浪

I guess 90% of the people are fond of traveling. When an opportunity comes for us to see a new place and meet new people, we will be looking forward to that new experience. That’s probably the reason why tourism has become a big industry in many countries since the last century.

As teachers, we are blessed to have long holidays which I don’t know why we should have, but of course I am very happy about that. This is also greatly envied by many people involving in the other fields. They now begin to raise their voices of banning the long holidays for teachers or to argue of stop paying teachers when they are having their holidays. I don’t have too much interests of argue with them.

Last week I traveled to Nanjing with some of my colleagues to attend an English teaching conference. Funny to say the conference lasted only one day. The schedule of the conference said there would be some famous scholars and professors giving lectures about how to teach English. But I didn’t think I could gain a lot from the lectures. So I don’t mind telling the truth I didn’t go to the conference at all. I would rather see the city myself first. Later, someone who’s been the meeting told me it turned out about 80% of the people went sightseeing instead of staying in the stuffy hall to listen the lectures.

However, it was not a good time to see the city. The whole city was just like a hot steaming oven. A local lady on an air-conditioned bus told me the monsoon season was just finished and it came to the hottest time of the year. Nanjing was also one of the four hot ovens in summer China. The humidity was far beyond what I had imagined and which almost drove me crazy. I don’t know how the southerners could stand such a hot weather. Exposed in the hot air, I was sweltering all day long.

Anyway, Nanjing was a great city in my eyes. It is also among the list of the six ancient cities in China. It offers people a lot of history, especially the history of Ming Dynasty and modern history. We mainly visited the Dr. SunYanson’s Mausoleum which I think is the highlight of Nanjing’s Tourism and Ming Emperor’s Mausoleum named Mingxiaoling. The presidential Palace was also a nice place which make me know more about the Dr,Sun. I want to specially mention the people there. The people are very nice there. If you are asking directions, they are very helpful. But when they begin to speak the dialect, Iit sounds not very nice, like arguing with each other with high pitched voice.

Sorry to say I didn’t bring back many souvenirs. Nanjing is famous for a kind of colorful stone named Yuhua Stone. It looks very pleasing to eyes if you put them in your fish tank. Because it was very heavy, I just give up of getting some. The pickled duck is a local delicacy, but I didn’t not try. I don’t know why.