Day 4 - Nanjing and Suzhou

The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge was the first stop on Day 4. The bridge was the pride of the Nanjing people because it was the first double-decker and double-track highway and railway bride designed and constructed by the Chinese with no foreigner's assistance. The Nanjing Yangtze Bridge is the first bridge to be built across the Yangtze River was completed in 1968. It is 6,722 meters long and has a span of 160 meters.

At the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge visitors' centre, there stood a large statue of Mao Tse-tung. There were also pictures on how the bridge was built and the final celebration when the bridge was completed in 1968. On the top level of the centre, we were able to view the span of the bridge over the mighty Yangtze River.

The giant statue of Mao Tze-tung at the Visitors Centre

The pillars of the bridge forms a good geometrical view

The view of the bridge spanning across the Yangtze River

There was also an art centre at where painting were done a the reverse of a crystal ball or a bottle. Since it was Sunday, the actual artist who drew the magnificent art was present to endorse and take picture of the items that were bought there.



The next stop was a shopping stop at a jade outlet. There were various types of jade jewellery sold there . I was not too keen in jade but my wife bought a few pieces for the children.

After lunch, we went to Nanjing Massacre Memorial. It was gruesome to learn that the Japanese massacred 300,000 residents of Nanjing within six weeks between December 1937 to February 1938. The skeletal remains of mass grave and pictures at the memorial really touched me on how cruel the Japanese were at that period of time. The memories of the massacre still in memory of the residents in Nanjing, that is why there is no Japanese firms set up in Nanjing and Japanese tourist has avoided visit to Nanjing. After the visit to the memorial, we bid farewell to Ah Hoong because we were off to another long journey to Suzhou.

At Suzhou, we have another local guide called Mr Chang (Siu Chang). Our first stop was another temple, the Chenghuang temple.