Up at 7am, we headed straight for the station. This was a particularly painful 7am for someone reason. We got there early so were able to insult Chinese culture by getting a McDonalds breakfast.
The train journey itself was exciting, as it went at up to 350 km/h, taking around an hour. It was clean and modern and made you cry slightly inside for the state of our country. Once in Nanjing, we got the tube, which had also had a novelty of little RFID token instead of paper tickets. Train geekery.
After checking into the hotel, we left for the museum about the most of famous event in Nanjing's history - its raping. The Rape of Nanjing refers to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Chinese - a popular estimate is 300,000. Having taken heavy losses capturing Shanghai in the late thirties, Japanese army commanders were told to head for Nanjing which was the Chinese capital at the time. The troops were apparently not altogether keen, so they were told that if they were good boys and attacked the city, then they could rape and loot to their hearts content.
The museum was even more depressing than you would expect - some achievement. The mistake was to try and drill the details of the massacre from so many different angles that it became tiresome. It was truly shocking but far too long. There were impressive statues and big gardens at the end, but by that point we wanted it to all be over.
When it was, we went to a famous temple in the city centre, which was actually a bit shite. There was however a massive bell that you could ring and made an excellent noise. Simple things for simple minds. Nearby we climbed the city walls, the biggest intact walls in the world and spectacular with it. Next to the walls we did some archery, the guy explaining how to do it essentially using mime. It was fun and all thirty of our fingers remain intact to this day.
After cleaning our repulsive, sweat-ridden bodies, we looked for somewhere to eat. We took a taxi to a place that sounded good but was in fact a 30 second taxi ride. We opted for a place offering German food where I had a fairly substandard Jager Schnitzel with spatzle made by someone who doesn't know how to cook spatzle. But it was six quid, and there was a humorously dodgy covers band were playing in the restaurant so overall it was a win, especially when it turned out that none of us got food poisoning.
We took a couple of hours sleep in preparation for the 2:30 kick off of Holland vs Uruguay. Heading back to the same area we walked past a girl being almost carried by two men and wondered what the night had in store for us. We went into the least suspicious club we could find and had a beer to wake up. Actually, Marisa had a coke. This place was not like any club you have seen before. There were security guards in helmets and a really happy and lively atmosphere. There was no hint of ego or trouble, it seems the reason that I tend to despise clubs might be because they are full to the brim with scum looking for trouble.
It was a great place to watch the football because the liveliness and friendliness, and the not-that-terrible music they were playing. There was lots to look at in every direction, be it the locals, the security, the Colonial feel to the place; I don't think I can capture it actually. Holland won too, which made it even better because Marisa was very pleased despite having had four cokes by this point. Ouch.
A vile KFC finished the night off superbly. We saw a huge insect on the floor there that the supervisor exterminated with her boot.
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