Fly half-way around the world to meet a friend.

Christmas in Sanya, I resolved to spend New Years in another great destination--Nanjing!  Actually, a Chinese friend from the U of M (Minnesota) who I met in SAFA, Sijie is her name, is from Nanjing and came back to China for winter break.  This was my only chance to visit her, because my first day of vacation is the day she flies back to the US.

My hostel was ideally situated in Fu Zi Miao (Confucius's temple).  Here's New Years morning along the canal near the Confucian market area.

To my European friends (Philipp, in this regards, I'm counting Switzerland as part of Europe, despite never joining the EU). Look!  China's got gates (Tor) just like Germany. This is the former city wall, which, unfortunately, had little more to show or offer.

CVS IN CHINA! This will go on Facebook and Keith needs to see it.  Needs to.

Does anyone know of Valentin's wheat bear?  The logo looks like a mix between Franziskaner and Paulaner colors, but I've never seen Valentins in Germany.  I smell a fake.

Here's Sijie and me in Nanjing!  She was a great tour guide and taught me about the history of Nanjing and how it was the origin of the Nationalist party in China, founded by Sun YatSen. (His statue is behind Rick's head)

Sijie enjoying her favorite Chinese candy--山楂 (shanzha) (known as Hawthorne berries in English)--they are on a stick and covered in a thick sugar glaze.  And Sijie, being as proper as she is, took the time to remove the seeds into a napkin instead of spitting them onto the street like the other 95% of Chinese.  Thanks!

As we walked to visit Sun Yat-Sen's mausoleum, there were vendors along the road selling a variety of things, including sugar carvings of the Chinese zodiacs!  Being the year of rabbit, I had to indulge in a  sugar bunny.  Don't forget, this is the year of the rabbit in China, MY YEAR, and I happen to be in China!  Rumor is, I have to wear something red all year long.

At Sun Yat-Sen's Mausoleum, atop a beautiful park, which is very popular in Nanjing.

Probably among the most important thing in China is the food.  What made it even better was to see Sijie thrilled to eat all these things because she hadn't been back to China for 1 1/2 years.  We had egg rolls, sesame red-bean cakes, coconut sticky rice, soup baozi, pork dumplings, and candied lotus roots.

In the Confucian Temple market area, Sijie and I went shopping.  Zoom in on the mad in this picture.  Note the stare?  That's the laowai stare--the foreigner stare.  In every city around China, people will stare at foreigners because we are such an anomaly.  In bigger cities, it's not terrible, as I'm seldom the first foreigner they've ever seen, and they know it's impolite to stare. Yet, farmers who have moved to the city will stare to no end.  Children stare too, as if I'm a zoo animal.  One girl wouldn't even sit next to me on a bench because I looked so different to her.

Sijie and I bargained for everything at this market.  My best accomplishment was a scroll that that woman said 150 yuan, I appeared really upset, spoke in Chinese, and got it down to 30 yuan!  Here the man is making my name chop.  It's a stone that has my Chinese name engraved in the bottom of it; it acts like a stamp.