Day 43 After managing to get our bearings the night before we headed straight out. We picked up breakfast on the way which happened to be a chicken burger, it was the first place we passed and wasn't too bad. We jumped on the bus and half an hour later we arrived at the 'The Memorial Hall to the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders' The building was amazingly designed and as you walked in, it almost reminded me of the London Dungeons with its set up, lights and sounds. Once inside it turned in to a normal museum but every now and again it would have a little set up that made it feel more real. The museum explained how Nanjing (the then capital of China) was attacked by the Japanese in 1937 and how 300,000 people were killed in 6 weeks in that city alone. The stories were brutal and heartbreaking, as WW2 broke out just 2 years later the attack on China often gets forgotten about so it was good to learn about something new. We read one horrific witness account from a survivor who after been herded with others to a burial pit by the river, was shot but not killed and then played dead, even then the Japanese tried to finish him off with a bayonet and doused the bodies in petrol and burned them. When the survivor thought the coast was clear, he had to scramble from under burning bodies and escape walking for days to find shelter. The stories of rape are what hit us the most, women of all ages were gang raped before murder and some were taken to 'Comfort Houses' which is where women were imprisoned and Japanese soldiers would go and rape the women, some were raped up to 40 times a night every night, then made to work during the day. Throughout the six weeks it is said 20000 women were raped, people calling this attack 'The rape of Nanjing'. It was also interesting to read the accounts from some of the Japanese soldiers which were quite graphic and stated that they just did what they were told without questions but looking back they can see what a tragedy it was.The tour ended showing some of the mass graves that were uncovered and foot prints of some of the survivors. It was very touching and brilliantly thought out, we were taken back by the layout and structure of the buildings with so much thought and detail put in to the site. We spent the whole morning there then once finished we went for a late lunch. We had read about some palace ruins so went to have a look at them. They were situated in a park and we ended up walking right past them, when we went back to look they just consisted of about 5 or 6 boulders on the floor, not much to look at. There were lots of people dancing in the park so we watched them for a while. The city walls weren't far so we walked to them and climbed on top. We walked as far as we could before coming down on to the river and walking all the way back to our hostel which was about an hour away. It was dark so we picked up some pastries for our tea and sat in the common area, Skyping home and booking our last places to stay in China.