weekend in Nanjing

April 6th
After a long and tiring weekend in Nanjing I am going to try and blog my weekends happenings. Please excuse my lack of sleep 
Friday
This weekend is the Qingming Festival so there is no class on Monday! With the long weekend ahead, my friend Zoe was wanting to travel to Nanjing (former south capital) to visit. Nanjing is about 5 hours away by bus, but things would be very busy with the holiday. After Zoe had all of the plans worked out, she asked Mike and I if we would like to join her… and of course, we couldn’t refuse  After I was done teaching, Zoe and Mike met me downtown to go to the bus station. However, at dinner I asked if everyone had their passport…. Zoe didn’t! So she had to catch a taxi back to the dorm to get it… Mike and I headed to the bus station and much to my surprise Robert and Wei Ling had decided to join us! (the Chinese wife.. so helpful) Sadly, Zoe missed the bus, but she didn’t miss much of anything else..
We got off the bus around midnight, and the taxi took us to the hotel. Actually, the taxi dropped us off in front of a hospital, so Wei Ling called to find the hotel. Zoe had booked the hotel from the Lonely Planet Guide (a really good book used for traveling??), so I didn’t understand what was going on. A woman came and led us to the hotel. This was one of the scariest walks of my life. The hotel was down a dark alley where there are usually shops open during the day (It’s called a Traditional Street.. bargaining place basically). We got the hotel entrance, there was a sign that said “30 yuan for 3 hours,” and it wasn’t the best looking place… in other words… think of why people would only want a hotel for 3 hours……. Without another place to go, we decided that we had to stay, but we would leave first thing in the morning. I didn’t want to lay down on the bed at ALL, and we made them change sheets, but they still didn’t look very clean.. Needless to say, I was so tired, I fell asleep fast.
Saturday
First thing I thought about when I woke up was getting out of the gross bed and into a shower.. however the shower head was broken so it sprayed water on the wall and not on the person in the shower.. We left the hotel right away, and spent most of Saturday trying to find a hotel and then we just walked around and shopped at small stores on the Traditional Street and then we got massages that night.
Sunday
On Sunday we visited the “Dr. Yang Sun’s temple” for the day. The bus ride was SO packed and long and hot (emphasis with the and). When we got there, the place was huge, and beautiful but not what we expected… After all of that walking we decided to go and get another massage  Massages are cheap and wonderful here.
Monday
Monday was very uneventful.. except for the ride home. We decided to take the train because it is typically nicer, and you could do your homework on a train. Since it was the last day of the festival, they didn’t have any spots open on the train until Wei Ling told them that we were Americans. Almost immediately, the train magically had just enough seats for us! We had seats, which was very nice, but there were so many other people that we constantly trying to steal our seats. The train was also delayed, so it took 10 ½ hours instead of 6.. We got back around 5 AM Tuesday morning, and I had class at 8:00 