Hey everyone!!
Today is 7/13 which means it is our last day in China! It is bittersweet for sure. It will be nice to go back to where we can speak to people and understand each other. We've met many people here and they are very nice.
We are in Shanghai close to the airport. We took a 36hour train ride back from Kunming after a 7 hour train ride from Lijiang.
Lijiang: It was absolutely beautiful! We skipped going to Dali and lived in Lijiang for a whole week. We stayed in HaKeLong Inn at Old Town where there is a lot of culture and craft shops, cobblestone alleyways, and a giant watermill. We also saw the famous Jade Dragon Snow Mountain from Jade Dragon Pool Park. It was beautiful and the first snow capped mountain I've seen.
I hope I can write a little more but we gotta go! Still not able to get pictures up on Picasa (or anywhere) so maybe better luck in America.
Look forward to being in America. Pray for us safe travel!!
Love,
Diane & Riley
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Wo ye! ni ne?
Hello friends and family!!
Jintian 7 yue 3 hao. We are now in Kunming train station. This is our second trip out of three to Kunming. And we will be in America ten days from now. Not entirely certain when we'll be back in Raleigh but I am missing you all for sure and cant wait to share our stories when we return. Let's see...last I wrote we landed in WuYishan. We both really liked it there. The train ride was exhausting enough to need some time to recover so we spent most of the day sleeping and getting acquainted with the town. It had been very hot with no sign of rain until we left.
1. WuYishan at night- In the morning and in the evening some streets hold the market where people sell fruit, hot food, jewelry, and clothes. It feels kind of like the fair minus the rides. You can get food between 1 and 10 kuai (10 is about $1.60 dollars!). It makes me miss the evening market in Nanjing. We got a watermelon when one of the ladies wanted a picture of her daughter with me. I happily oblidged to pose with her. People are really nice here. And we found jiaozi (dumplings) and boazi (stuffed meat or bean or vegetable bun)! We love jiaozi and boazi but we saved getting bean boazi for breakfast so we told the shop owner that we'd come back next day. Riley and I drew a crowd of curious people when we played Bananagrams. Once we were done we invited people to play some cards with us--ERS. A young girl, an older lady, and an older man joined us. Riley was good at explaining the game that everyone caught on quickly and the older lady had her game on. She was really good and so enthusiastic that we had lots of laughs. She ended up winning, too. An hour or two later they had to leave but we caught the eye of a group of chinese guys and gals (about our age) who invited Riley and I to their table for food and drinks. They offered us beer, chicken feet, and cigarettes although we decline the later. We've never had chicken feet before so it was funny cause we couldn't figure out how to eat it. Anyways, it was an experience. Occassionally a person would take a picture with us.
2. Bamboo rafting- our third day there we finally went rafting on the Jiu Qu Xi (Nine Bend Creek). It is the popular attraction of this town. I miss swimming. The water was sooo nice and cold. Because the creek is shallow the drivers use these long bamboos with sharp metal on the end to push against the rocks. The story of the large rock cliffs is that they used to hold bodies in them. The cliffs have many holes into the surface and that's where once bodies wrapped in silk. How they got there? who knows. Our steering driver was funny because sometimes he would turn around & he wouldn't pay attention that our raft was floating towards a sandy shore, a large rock, and even another boat. Then he would push his way away.
3. To Kunming, we have to take a train first to Yingtan (I'll declare it the dirtiest train station now that I can say I've seen many). Yingtan train to Kunming. We weren't able to get any sleeper tickets and the train is supposed to be 3 day trip from Yingtan to Kunming. Riley and I prepared ourselves with enough meals, drinks, and books to entertain us. My estimation of the amount of people going to Kunming on our train was extremely off. There were more people than there were seats!! Riley and I couldn't, at first, figure out how this was possible. The trip was interesting to say the least---hardcore. After the first day and hardly anyone got off it was safe to assume that a lot of the people were going to Kunming. Once again, Riley and I didn't get a seat together but sometimes he was able to switch with someone to sit next to me. Half of the time, I sat next to the sleepiest guy on the train. I even envied a little how he was able to sleep thru almost everything. It became funny how he slowly would fall then I would push him back up but he would fall again. Everyone else laughed too but he drooled a little on me and he had to go. A father and the cutiest little girl were in the booth across from us. She smiled at me a lot when I waved.
I kept looking at the map everytime the train passed a stop. It's hard being on a train for 36 hours! I was ready to get there. When I just started getting used to wasting away (jk) I saw a sign from the next train station---Kunming!! I was in disbelief but didn't care. I was so ecstatic that I told Riley. We got off with much relief.
3. Kunming: Is a lot like Nanjing, a large city.We didn't really see any sights here but we did find a dvd store and bought many dvds for unbelievable cheap that they're probably ripped. We stayed for a day and night then got our tickets for Shanghai and ShiLing.
4. Stone Forest in ShiLin: Is a two hour train ride away from Kunming. The train is also over-crowded. With one look at the map we can tell a lot of the people must be going to Fuzhou, another big city. ShiLing is a small tourist city famous for it's Stone Forest (ShiLin). We immediately went to the first one--Naigu Stone Forest--once we got off the train. It is quite amazing. The wear on these rocks "karst' makes fantastic formations of stone. Some hang above our heads, some make caves, and their grip makes them easy to climb or sit in. The second day we explored the more popular Stone Forest. It was not secluded like Naigu but it also wasn't exactly like Naigu in style either. The Naigu (or black) is like it sounds a black stone forest. ShiLin however is all gray and it feels like the lair of a James Bond villan. It reminds me of one of my dreams.
5. The Sani: I had to look this up from my China book: Shi Lin is home to the Sani, one of the many subgroups of the Yi minority. They are known for their embroidery, widely available at Shi Lin. There are very beautiful and intricate. Some of the Sani work as tour guides and dancers.
Our next stop is Lijiang. Home of the Naxi minority (Naxi prounounced like Na-shee), and labyrinth of cobbled alleys, wooden houses, cafés and whatever we'll see. If this computer cooperates with me pictures will be up. :) This will help you see what we are talking about. Why are these computers being so difficult??
Miss you all!!
Diane + Riley
Jintian 7 yue 3 hao. We are now in Kunming train station. This is our second trip out of three to Kunming. And we will be in America ten days from now. Not entirely certain when we'll be back in Raleigh but I am missing you all for sure and cant wait to share our stories when we return. Let's see...last I wrote we landed in WuYishan. We both really liked it there. The train ride was exhausting enough to need some time to recover so we spent most of the day sleeping and getting acquainted with the town. It had been very hot with no sign of rain until we left.
1. WuYishan at night- In the morning and in the evening some streets hold the market where people sell fruit, hot food, jewelry, and clothes. It feels kind of like the fair minus the rides. You can get food between 1 and 10 kuai (10 is about $1.60 dollars!). It makes me miss the evening market in Nanjing. We got a watermelon when one of the ladies wanted a picture of her daughter with me. I happily oblidged to pose with her. People are really nice here. And we found jiaozi (dumplings) and boazi (stuffed meat or bean or vegetable bun)! We love jiaozi and boazi but we saved getting bean boazi for breakfast so we told the shop owner that we'd come back next day. Riley and I drew a crowd of curious people when we played Bananagrams. Once we were done we invited people to play some cards with us--ERS. A young girl, an older lady, and an older man joined us. Riley was good at explaining the game that everyone caught on quickly and the older lady had her game on. She was really good and so enthusiastic that we had lots of laughs. She ended up winning, too. An hour or two later they had to leave but we caught the eye of a group of chinese guys and gals (about our age) who invited Riley and I to their table for food and drinks. They offered us beer, chicken feet, and cigarettes although we decline the later. We've never had chicken feet before so it was funny cause we couldn't figure out how to eat it. Anyways, it was an experience. Occassionally a person would take a picture with us.
2. Bamboo rafting- our third day there we finally went rafting on the Jiu Qu Xi (Nine Bend Creek). It is the popular attraction of this town. I miss swimming. The water was sooo nice and cold. Because the creek is shallow the drivers use these long bamboos with sharp metal on the end to push against the rocks. The story of the large rock cliffs is that they used to hold bodies in them. The cliffs have many holes into the surface and that's where once bodies wrapped in silk. How they got there? who knows. Our steering driver was funny because sometimes he would turn around & he wouldn't pay attention that our raft was floating towards a sandy shore, a large rock, and even another boat. Then he would push his way away.
3. To Kunming, we have to take a train first to Yingtan (I'll declare it the dirtiest train station now that I can say I've seen many). Yingtan train to Kunming. We weren't able to get any sleeper tickets and the train is supposed to be 3 day trip from Yingtan to Kunming. Riley and I prepared ourselves with enough meals, drinks, and books to entertain us. My estimation of the amount of people going to Kunming on our train was extremely off. There were more people than there were seats!! Riley and I couldn't, at first, figure out how this was possible. The trip was interesting to say the least---hardcore. After the first day and hardly anyone got off it was safe to assume that a lot of the people were going to Kunming. Once again, Riley and I didn't get a seat together but sometimes he was able to switch with someone to sit next to me. Half of the time, I sat next to the sleepiest guy on the train. I even envied a little how he was able to sleep thru almost everything. It became funny how he slowly would fall then I would push him back up but he would fall again. Everyone else laughed too but he drooled a little on me and he had to go. A father and the cutiest little girl were in the booth across from us. She smiled at me a lot when I waved.
I kept looking at the map everytime the train passed a stop. It's hard being on a train for 36 hours! I was ready to get there. When I just started getting used to wasting away (jk) I saw a sign from the next train station---Kunming!! I was in disbelief but didn't care. I was so ecstatic that I told Riley. We got off with much relief.
3. Kunming: Is a lot like Nanjing, a large city.We didn't really see any sights here but we did find a dvd store and bought many dvds for unbelievable cheap that they're probably ripped. We stayed for a day and night then got our tickets for Shanghai and ShiLing.
4. Stone Forest in ShiLin: Is a two hour train ride away from Kunming. The train is also over-crowded. With one look at the map we can tell a lot of the people must be going to Fuzhou, another big city. ShiLing is a small tourist city famous for it's Stone Forest (ShiLin). We immediately went to the first one--Naigu Stone Forest--once we got off the train. It is quite amazing. The wear on these rocks "karst' makes fantastic formations of stone. Some hang above our heads, some make caves, and their grip makes them easy to climb or sit in. The second day we explored the more popular Stone Forest. It was not secluded like Naigu but it also wasn't exactly like Naigu in style either. The Naigu (or black) is like it sounds a black stone forest. ShiLin however is all gray and it feels like the lair of a James Bond villan. It reminds me of one of my dreams.
5. The Sani: I had to look this up from my China book: Shi Lin is home to the Sani, one of the many subgroups of the Yi minority. They are known for their embroidery, widely available at Shi Lin. There are very beautiful and intricate. Some of the Sani work as tour guides and dancers.
Our next stop is Lijiang. Home of the Naxi minority (Naxi prounounced like Na-shee), and labyrinth of cobbled alleys, wooden houses, cafés and whatever we'll see. If this computer cooperates with me pictures will be up. :) This will help you see what we are talking about. Why are these computers being so difficult??
Miss you all!!
Diane + Riley
Monday, June 27, 2011
Jintian zai jian. Mingtian ni hao.
Hello everyone,
Jintian 6 yue 27 hao. We found a computer lab here in WuYishan. The internet for google is relatively slow especially for picasa.
Let me catch you up on what has happened so far:
1. Shang hai (above sea) to Huang Shan (yellow mountain): We were able to ask for two tickets in Chinese and get a sleeper train to Huang Shan.It was a 13-hour ride. whew.
2. The crazy van driver from Huang shan: He scared the heck out of me and many other people who boarded the van. All of us were heading to Tangkou- the base of the Huang shan mountains. We found that everyone in the van was a student, too. All but two of them were Koren and knew chinese. Three of them knew english and spoke to us. Riley and I weren't sure we were gonna make it to Tangkou alive so we kissed for our possibly last time.
3. Korean friends: The crazy van ride must have made us bond cause once we landed they invited us to lunch then go whitewater rafting with them. The view of the mountains is stunning. As far as we knew, our camera didn't work so we just soaked in the beauty thru our eyes.
3a. Subject to cultural but cheezy entertainment: Before we could go rafting we walked up to a tiki-like bar where in 5 minutes a guy would peek at us from the stage then walk across. Then 5 minutes later another guy would walk the other way. The music was on and this went down for about 30 minutes. Finally the three guys and five girls danced in ethnical chinese outfits. One guy jumped on a pile of broken glass and another guy sung a song. Finally, they let us go. White water rafting was my first time. It wasn't epic whitewaters but it was very fun and everyone had a good time splashing water and eating mango pops.
3b. The endless steps: We took the van up to the bus station. Bus to gondola. Riley and I shared a cable car with two belgians. They asked us if we forgot to bring our camera and we told them it wasn't working. I pulled it out to give it one more try and it suddenly worked!! Praise God! Now all we have to do is figure out how to upload them. Meeting the group again, we realized just how many steps there are on this mountain. It is full of steps. One seemed to be endless without breaks in the middle. Because of the elevation it wasn't hot but man there's a lot of steps!! We finally got to the top and took pictures to celebrate the victory...even though there were many more to follow.
4. Hostel in the clouds: The Korean students helped us get hotel arrangements before we parted from them. The one they were in was booked and kinda pricey. My chinese is good enough to say "do you have...?" and we were hungry for noodles and some places around didn't have any. Not that there were many restaurants just at the hotels. The hostel was very packed with people. There are about 17-18 bunks in one room and a community bathroom on each floor. The room had one window the size of a cheese single, haha. Riley and I meet a girl, Li Yun and her mom from my rooom.Her parents and her took this trip. They were fun to talk to in Chinese. She knew english but we wanted to practice our chinese.
5. Sundown and 3am wake up: The Li family were shouting sun down! sun down! and called us to go outside with them to watch the sunset. It is very different from ones I've seen as it was very dark with a strip of white and gold. The mountains looked black and the sky was dark dark blue. It was also lightning a little. It was really romatic. So the news was that we were supposed to wake up and leave around 3am. When it came, a lot of people were packing to leave. I woke up to Li Yun's mom snoring like a rake over rocks but Riley said he had worse--a whole room of snoring men.
6. The sunrise: is very beautiful we have pictures. It came out at about 4:30 It gets bright at around 5am. This day our goal was to reach Celestial peak (heavenly peak). I showed Riley a picture that inspired us to go to the peak but I showed him because it was so scary and I was determined not to go. He was determined to get me to go with him. We had a lot of hiking to get there.
7. Then we passed the TaiChi techno monks: We weren't sure if they were monks or not but they were hardcore. They were shirtless, blue pants, and carried a small boombox with techno music. It was cool and music was hilarious.By their pace and the fact that they were going uphill the parts everyone else was going down, we figured they had done this trail many times before and this was nothing.
8. The Carp's Backbone: google it and look at the picture. I'm kinda afraid of heights and you'll understand I was scared to do it. That's where we were going. As we were hitting checkpoints and getting closer to it we hid our bags somewhere safe. Suddenly we see the steepest steps up a mountain, ever. Those steps belong to Celestial peak where the carp's backbone lies. We get to the entrance and the gate is locked. I couldn't go (and I didn't want to go) but Riley was determined and he went around the gate (with difficulty cause it was barb-wired around some parts--like they didn't want people to go---a sign?). It is 1.5km up 1.5km down and Riley was the only one on it that day. I said a pray for him. It is a lot scarrier than it looks in the picture he told me and even more dangerous on some parts of it. Riley made it up and back and has a video and pictures of it. It was really cloudy up there. When people hike around certain parts on HuangShan they hook their locks with their name and date on ropes to show that they've been there.
9. The 18ingredients and the taxi: After walking back to reach a gondola then take a bus to town, we found a Best Western hotel in Wenquan. We spent time taking a good shower then resting. We went to town to find some food instead of eating at the hotel. It was pricy. Restaurants were a long way down the windy road and it was drizzling. A man on the main road convinced us that the restaurant he knew was good and cheap so we went. The food was really good and cheap and the chef explained to us explained to us that the vegetable/herb dish has 18 ingredients in it that he got from the mountain. When we got the check he kept explaining it to us that the vegetable/herb dish has 18 ingredients in it from the mountain that's why it cost more. It was dark and pouring down and we decided to take a taxi back up to our hotel. It was way harder than it looked cause when we asked people they looked confused and said there wasn't one. Finally, one hotel down below did call a taxi for us and we got to our hotel.
10. Huangshan to WuYishan: With help from the hotel desk clerk, we were able to get train times for going to WuYishan. So we took a bus to Tangkou--->van to Huangshan train station. This driver wasn't as scary as the first one but I wasn't any more relaxed on the ride. He was just less risky than the first guy. We got our tickets at the train station then found a restaurant that has jiaozi (dumplings) which is hard to come by in the country it seems. Again the food was great when it came to the check the cook explain to us that we got big bowls (da) and showed us. It was really funny at the end.
With 2 trains and 12 hours we finally arrived in WuYishan and found a very decent hotel. We are planning our next move and our next place is Fuzhou.
Still working on gettting pictures!! Miss you all a lot!!
Love,
Diane
Jintian 6 yue 27 hao. We found a computer lab here in WuYishan. The internet for google is relatively slow especially for picasa.
Let me catch you up on what has happened so far:
1. Shang hai (above sea) to Huang Shan (yellow mountain): We were able to ask for two tickets in Chinese and get a sleeper train to Huang Shan.It was a 13-hour ride. whew.
2. The crazy van driver from Huang shan: He scared the heck out of me and many other people who boarded the van. All of us were heading to Tangkou- the base of the Huang shan mountains. We found that everyone in the van was a student, too. All but two of them were Koren and knew chinese. Three of them knew english and spoke to us. Riley and I weren't sure we were gonna make it to Tangkou alive so we kissed for our possibly last time.
3. Korean friends: The crazy van ride must have made us bond cause once we landed they invited us to lunch then go whitewater rafting with them. The view of the mountains is stunning. As far as we knew, our camera didn't work so we just soaked in the beauty thru our eyes.
3a. Subject to cultural but cheezy entertainment: Before we could go rafting we walked up to a tiki-like bar where in 5 minutes a guy would peek at us from the stage then walk across. Then 5 minutes later another guy would walk the other way. The music was on and this went down for about 30 minutes. Finally the three guys and five girls danced in ethnical chinese outfits. One guy jumped on a pile of broken glass and another guy sung a song. Finally, they let us go. White water rafting was my first time. It wasn't epic whitewaters but it was very fun and everyone had a good time splashing water and eating mango pops.
3b. The endless steps: We took the van up to the bus station. Bus to gondola. Riley and I shared a cable car with two belgians. They asked us if we forgot to bring our camera and we told them it wasn't working. I pulled it out to give it one more try and it suddenly worked!! Praise God! Now all we have to do is figure out how to upload them. Meeting the group again, we realized just how many steps there are on this mountain. It is full of steps. One seemed to be endless without breaks in the middle. Because of the elevation it wasn't hot but man there's a lot of steps!! We finally got to the top and took pictures to celebrate the victory...even though there were many more to follow.
4. Hostel in the clouds: The Korean students helped us get hotel arrangements before we parted from them. The one they were in was booked and kinda pricey. My chinese is good enough to say "do you have...?" and we were hungry for noodles and some places around didn't have any. Not that there were many restaurants just at the hotels. The hostel was very packed with people. There are about 17-18 bunks in one room and a community bathroom on each floor. The room had one window the size of a cheese single, haha. Riley and I meet a girl, Li Yun and her mom from my rooom.Her parents and her took this trip. They were fun to talk to in Chinese. She knew english but we wanted to practice our chinese.
5. Sundown and 3am wake up: The Li family were shouting sun down! sun down! and called us to go outside with them to watch the sunset. It is very different from ones I've seen as it was very dark with a strip of white and gold. The mountains looked black and the sky was dark dark blue. It was also lightning a little. It was really romatic. So the news was that we were supposed to wake up and leave around 3am. When it came, a lot of people were packing to leave. I woke up to Li Yun's mom snoring like a rake over rocks but Riley said he had worse--a whole room of snoring men.
6. The sunrise: is very beautiful we have pictures. It came out at about 4:30 It gets bright at around 5am. This day our goal was to reach Celestial peak (heavenly peak). I showed Riley a picture that inspired us to go to the peak but I showed him because it was so scary and I was determined not to go. He was determined to get me to go with him. We had a lot of hiking to get there.
7. Then we passed the TaiChi techno monks: We weren't sure if they were monks or not but they were hardcore. They were shirtless, blue pants, and carried a small boombox with techno music. It was cool and music was hilarious.By their pace and the fact that they were going uphill the parts everyone else was going down, we figured they had done this trail many times before and this was nothing.
8. The Carp's Backbone: google it and look at the picture. I'm kinda afraid of heights and you'll understand I was scared to do it. That's where we were going. As we were hitting checkpoints and getting closer to it we hid our bags somewhere safe. Suddenly we see the steepest steps up a mountain, ever. Those steps belong to Celestial peak where the carp's backbone lies. We get to the entrance and the gate is locked. I couldn't go (and I didn't want to go) but Riley was determined and he went around the gate (with difficulty cause it was barb-wired around some parts--like they didn't want people to go---a sign?). It is 1.5km up 1.5km down and Riley was the only one on it that day. I said a pray for him. It is a lot scarrier than it looks in the picture he told me and even more dangerous on some parts of it. Riley made it up and back and has a video and pictures of it. It was really cloudy up there. When people hike around certain parts on HuangShan they hook their locks with their name and date on ropes to show that they've been there.
9. The 18ingredients and the taxi: After walking back to reach a gondola then take a bus to town, we found a Best Western hotel in Wenquan. We spent time taking a good shower then resting. We went to town to find some food instead of eating at the hotel. It was pricy. Restaurants were a long way down the windy road and it was drizzling. A man on the main road convinced us that the restaurant he knew was good and cheap so we went. The food was really good and cheap and the chef explained to us explained to us that the vegetable/herb dish has 18 ingredients in it that he got from the mountain. When we got the check he kept explaining it to us that the vegetable/herb dish has 18 ingredients in it from the mountain that's why it cost more. It was dark and pouring down and we decided to take a taxi back up to our hotel. It was way harder than it looked cause when we asked people they looked confused and said there wasn't one. Finally, one hotel down below did call a taxi for us and we got to our hotel.
10. Huangshan to WuYishan: With help from the hotel desk clerk, we were able to get train times for going to WuYishan. So we took a bus to Tangkou--->van to Huangshan train station. This driver wasn't as scary as the first one but I wasn't any more relaxed on the ride. He was just less risky than the first guy. We got our tickets at the train station then found a restaurant that has jiaozi (dumplings) which is hard to come by in the country it seems. Again the food was great when it came to the check the cook explain to us that we got big bowls (da) and showed us. It was really funny at the end.
With 2 trains and 12 hours we finally arrived in WuYishan and found a very decent hotel. We are planning our next move and our next place is Fuzhou.
Still working on gettting pictures!! Miss you all a lot!!
Love,
Diane
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Women zai Shang hai
Xia wu hao,
This is our last day in Shanghai and there are computers here. This may or may not be my last email from this email address so email Riley if you wish to reach me. Three out of five days we've been here it has rained. Thankfully today is is nice and sunny. Our next stop is Huang Shan where we will start our hiking adventures.
We went to four main spots in Shanghai:
1. Huxingting Teahouse (Old City shanghai): There were many shops to buy things (mai dongxi) and where there are shops there are salespeople in our faces trying to sell umbrellas, watches or purses, and these funny skating things you put on your shoes. But it's funny cause someone will walk by for a while and then stop and suddenly hold out a card and try to sell you something.
2. Oriental Pearl TV tower: It is about 450m tall. The third tallest tv tower in the world I believe. It was a very foggy night when we went making it look eerie from the outside of it but impossible to see the skyline from the inside. We went up to the 250m ball and took a walk on the glass platform. Even in the fog it made some of us nervous to walk knowing we are 250m above ground and all that's between us and the ground is the glass. There is a rollercoaster in the tower and an arcade as well. Riley and I took the central elevator down.
The tower is on the Pudong New Area. There are two sides of Shanghai divided by the HuangPu River: Pudong New Area and the Bund. All of it lights up at night even the boats light up. Even some of the roads have blue or green lights underneath that light up. We went to the Bund again on a day that wasn't foggy and saw the building light up one by one as it got darker.
We could only see half of the world's third largest building in the world (Shanghai World Financial Center---look it up) the rest of it was hidden by fog. We could see the rest of it the next day.
The Bund is old Shanghai. It was considered the heart of colonial Shanghai with hotels, banks, offices, and clubs that were grandiose symbols of western commercial power. The area has been redeveloped for the 2010 World expo. We heard there was a crazy amount of people there.
3. Nanjing Road: It's Shanghai's foremost shopping street located on the Bund. Many malls to shop. I guess I could compare it to New York but I've never been there. There were more people on skates selling skates.
4. Shanghai Museum: Looks on the outside were deceiving as it was very nice on the inside. It is huge with about eleven different galleries of Chinese culture. In the time given, Riley and I managed to get to the jade, landscape painting, pottery, ethnic minorities (different clothing and masks), and furniture gallery. As we took our last group picture outside, ms. kite lady came running by behind the picture taker holding her kite in the air. She saw a great opportunity to sell her kites to some of us because we're foreigners and look like we could use kites. Unfortunately, she wouldn't bargain and none of us wanted to spend money so she sold none.
Our second-month trip will be very different from our first-month trip. First month we went to the popular cities of china, learned chinese, visited gardens and experienced a lot of the business side of china (food, clothes, and transportation). Second month we will experience the more country side of China and see the landscapes.
So far Riley and I love the food! Thank God we haven't gotten sick from the food but we are more careful with what meat we eat. We've had many funny experiences including learning TaiChi dancing with the chinese women aross the river then teaching them salsa, teaching a chinese man who knew no english how to play cards, and stories of the Toast man.
We hope we can find a way to upload pictures and also that our camera works again for this second half of our trip. Please continue to pray for our safe travels!
Love,
Diane and Riley
This is our last day in Shanghai and there are computers here. This may or may not be my last email from this email address so email Riley if you wish to reach me. Three out of five days we've been here it has rained. Thankfully today is is nice and sunny. Our next stop is Huang Shan where we will start our hiking adventures.
We went to four main spots in Shanghai:
1. Huxingting Teahouse (Old City shanghai): There were many shops to buy things (mai dongxi) and where there are shops there are salespeople in our faces trying to sell umbrellas, watches or purses, and these funny skating things you put on your shoes. But it's funny cause someone will walk by for a while and then stop and suddenly hold out a card and try to sell you something.
2. Oriental Pearl TV tower: It is about 450m tall. The third tallest tv tower in the world I believe. It was a very foggy night when we went making it look eerie from the outside of it but impossible to see the skyline from the inside. We went up to the 250m ball and took a walk on the glass platform. Even in the fog it made some of us nervous to walk knowing we are 250m above ground and all that's between us and the ground is the glass. There is a rollercoaster in the tower and an arcade as well. Riley and I took the central elevator down.
The tower is on the Pudong New Area. There are two sides of Shanghai divided by the HuangPu River: Pudong New Area and the Bund. All of it lights up at night even the boats light up. Even some of the roads have blue or green lights underneath that light up. We went to the Bund again on a day that wasn't foggy and saw the building light up one by one as it got darker.
We could only see half of the world's third largest building in the world (Shanghai World Financial Center---look it up) the rest of it was hidden by fog. We could see the rest of it the next day.
The Bund is old Shanghai. It was considered the heart of colonial Shanghai with hotels, banks, offices, and clubs that were grandiose symbols of western commercial power. The area has been redeveloped for the 2010 World expo. We heard there was a crazy amount of people there.
3. Nanjing Road: It's Shanghai's foremost shopping street located on the Bund. Many malls to shop. I guess I could compare it to New York but I've never been there. There were more people on skates selling skates.
4. Shanghai Museum: Looks on the outside were deceiving as it was very nice on the inside. It is huge with about eleven different galleries of Chinese culture. In the time given, Riley and I managed to get to the jade, landscape painting, pottery, ethnic minorities (different clothing and masks), and furniture gallery. As we took our last group picture outside, ms. kite lady came running by behind the picture taker holding her kite in the air. She saw a great opportunity to sell her kites to some of us because we're foreigners and look like we could use kites. Unfortunately, she wouldn't bargain and none of us wanted to spend money so she sold none.
Our second-month trip will be very different from our first-month trip. First month we went to the popular cities of china, learned chinese, visited gardens and experienced a lot of the business side of china (food, clothes, and transportation). Second month we will experience the more country side of China and see the landscapes.
So far Riley and I love the food! Thank God we haven't gotten sick from the food but we are more careful with what meat we eat. We've had many funny experiences including learning TaiChi dancing with the chinese women aross the river then teaching them salsa, teaching a chinese man who knew no english how to play cards, and stories of the Toast man.
We hope we can find a way to upload pictures and also that our camera works again for this second half of our trip. Please continue to pray for our safe travels!
Love,
Diane and Riley
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Funny Facts V: Chinese numbers
Hello,
China fun facts:
1. there was a cat meowing loudly in front of the screen during Fast and Furious 5
2. the cinema is on the 4th floor of a mall.
3. how did the cat get up all the escalators?
4. Diane did tai chi aerobics dance class with some ladies by a Shanghai riverbank park this evening. When we tried to teach them basic cha cha and salsa I started clapping the rhythm and they all started clapping randomly because they thought I was applauding (myself?)
5. I taught one of the dancer's daughters to play cards and the only chinese words I knew were 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and "very good," I also asked her "you what have year?" She said "nine" in English and was good at cards.
6. Nanjing is really big with 6 million people or so. Its downtown seems to go on in all directions. Beijing is huge with 18 million people. But Shanghai (where we are right now) has an urban area around over 15 times that of Nanjing and something like 23 million people. The closest comparison I can think of is LA; New York is much denser but here like LA you can stand and spin around and see skyscrapers in all directions for a long distance.
7. In Shanghai you can stand on a glass floor and look straight down 1200 feet (in our case, through the clouds.) It is a little scarier than it sounds.
8. Often, shopkeepers will grab your arm when you walk away from haggling. When this happens it is okay to put your hand on their shoulder, smile, and say, "in New York, children do not poop on the sidewalk and a fake Rolex costs $5. I will harm you if you do not let go of my wife's elbow."
8.5 If my phone (w/ dictionary) started working again, I could translate that into Chinese for you.
9. Chinese people seem to like all parts of all meat, which sounds really good in theory because there isn't much waste.
10. But somehow, there isn't ever a proportional amount of muscle. I can't help but wonder if China ships all the actual meat to America because here everyone seems happy to eat fat, bones, skin, ears, feet, necks, and stuff. It's sort of a downer as a westerner because most of the "meat" dishes are teases. For example, the fried chicken nugget may be bones or fat.
11. Ping pong is really big here and it is okay to hold the paddle both overhand and underhand. The tournament underhand paddles have shorter handles. Our program director has a beautiful condo in Nanjing with her husband. About 40% of the space is taken up by a ping pong room. She and her husband play 30 minutes a day.
12. When discussing cultural hand gestures with your Chinese friends, have your camera ready. I feel bad for saying it but it was kind of cute when Shero held up her middle finger to us and laughed, saying, "in America, I should no do this?"
A good summation of our urban experience is "every man for himself without hot-heads." I feel safe here with Diane. The more we learn the rules here the more we enjoy ourselves. I'm going through the list of Cc's and I can say that all of you, at one time or another, have been a fond part of our conversation and have been on both our minds a lot. We hope you are well and we miss you. We like being married and are content.
Much love,
Riley + Diane
China fun facts:
1. there was a cat meowing loudly in front of the screen during Fast and Furious 5
2. the cinema is on the 4th floor of a mall.
3. how did the cat get up all the escalators?
4. Diane did tai chi aerobics dance class with some ladies by a Shanghai riverbank park this evening. When we tried to teach them basic cha cha and salsa I started clapping the rhythm and they all started clapping randomly because they thought I was applauding (myself?)
5. I taught one of the dancer's daughters to play cards and the only chinese words I knew were 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and "very good," I also asked her "you what have year?" She said "nine" in English and was good at cards.
6. Nanjing is really big with 6 million people or so. Its downtown seems to go on in all directions. Beijing is huge with 18 million people. But Shanghai (where we are right now) has an urban area around over 15 times that of Nanjing and something like 23 million people. The closest comparison I can think of is LA; New York is much denser but here like LA you can stand and spin around and see skyscrapers in all directions for a long distance.
7. In Shanghai you can stand on a glass floor and look straight down 1200 feet (in our case, through the clouds.) It is a little scarier than it sounds.
8. Often, shopkeepers will grab your arm when you walk away from haggling. When this happens it is okay to put your hand on their shoulder, smile, and say, "in New York, children do not poop on the sidewalk and a fake Rolex costs $5. I will harm you if you do not let go of my wife's elbow."
8.5 If my phone (w/ dictionary) started working again, I could translate that into Chinese for you.
9. Chinese people seem to like all parts of all meat, which sounds really good in theory because there isn't much waste.
10. But somehow, there isn't ever a proportional amount of muscle. I can't help but wonder if China ships all the actual meat to America because here everyone seems happy to eat fat, bones, skin, ears, feet, necks, and stuff. It's sort of a downer as a westerner because most of the "meat" dishes are teases. For example, the fried chicken nugget may be bones or fat.
11. Ping pong is really big here and it is okay to hold the paddle both overhand and underhand. The tournament underhand paddles have shorter handles. Our program director has a beautiful condo in Nanjing with her husband. About 40% of the space is taken up by a ping pong room. She and her husband play 30 minutes a day.
12. When discussing cultural hand gestures with your Chinese friends, have your camera ready. I feel bad for saying it but it was kind of cute when Shero held up her middle finger to us and laughed, saying, "in America, I should no do this?"
A good summation of our urban experience is "every man for himself without hot-heads." I feel safe here with Diane. The more we learn the rules here the more we enjoy ourselves. I'm going through the list of Cc's and I can say that all of you, at one time or another, have been a fond part of our conversation and have been on both our minds a lot. We hope you are well and we miss you. We like being married and are content.
Much love,
Riley + Diane
Friday, June 17, 2011
Ni hao. Xie xie!
Hello Mei Guo ren's!! (americans)
We just finished our exams yesterday (6/16) and had our graduation today! All of us did really well; A's and B's. Riley and I hope to continue our friendships with some of the students in our group. It's funny, in the beginning with group pictures, everyone would bring out there camera and someone would take the same picture on each person's camera. After Summer Palace, we realized instead of posing in the same position for that long (and poor camera taker) we just decided to Facebook tag when we get to America. So whenever group pictures are taken now it's taken on maybe one or two and people say "Just facebook tag me".
I found a really good restaurant here. Riley and I went there for good burgers (I couldn't resist!!). The restaurant cleared out and we ended up inviting the owner to play cards Rummy with us. She was compliant and she even schooled us after catching on in a couple rounds. She makes really good Gin-fizzies, too. Since we know how to greet in Chinese we practiced some of it. Her name is Hua Hua ("Flower Flower" she told us). She liked the game and wants to teach her friends.
It is very interesting that many websites in China are blocked: Facebook, many blog sites, youtube. Actually it's hard to find things that aren't blocked. Thank goodness I have a gmail account and google is not blocked. Today is our last day in Nanjing as we will be leaving for Shanghai tomorrow morning. We've gotten comfortable and well acquainted with Nanjing these past few weeks. From taking a day trip with Chen and Cheng laoshi to Fashion Lady by public bus then to the Nanjing Train Station, Xuanwu Lake, and a department store by metro then back to the university by bus. Riley and I really like taking the metro and we've gone-out on our own to the cinema at XinJieKou (were Fashion Lady is at) and the Olympic Stadium (but it was closed that day). Riley and I saw Pirates of the Caribbean and the new Fast and Furious (Fast 5) which was awesome and now Riley has to see the other ones.! First Class is not out yet here but Kung Fu Panda 2.
Riley and I have made two Chinese friends here and they are really nice. Shero is a student and waitress at a restaurant our group went to for drinks one night. She's really cool and she has helped us plan some of our trip for the next month suggesting good places for us to visit. She told us a really funny story about her name and it sticks with me. Ironically, Taneck, we also meet at a family restaurant. It was a different restaurant but he happened to know english and the chef (who was about 12-yrs old, no kidding) needed a translator so he translated for us. He is a post graduate and foreign language teacher. We made friends with him instantely. He described his name as "taneck...you know like the titanic" and we all laughed. We meet Taneck and invited Shero and they took us out sightseeing at lake Xuanwu on Wednesday. We took the metro to the gate of the lake and then took a boat around the lake. They explained the history of some of the sights on and around the lake including the famous Purple mountain. Taneck is a hilarious driver. Riley had been itching to go swimming and once the opportunity came up and Taneck said "yeah the water is clean", Riley jumped in for a swim. haha. In the evening five of us were invited to the home of Liu laoshi to make dumplings. It was really fun and also an adventure as we had a difficult time catching a taxi. Maybe there was a change of shifts but it usually wasn't hard for us to catch a cab. Liu laoshi ended up picking us up. One of the guy's did catch a taxi but it didn't drop him off close enough to her home and he didn't know where he was. All in all, we got to her home. It was beautiful. Her husband is an interior designer. So we learned how to make dumplings, made many many of them, and then we got to eat them!! We also had an egg and mushroom soup. Afterwards, Liu laoshi brought out her photo albums to share with us. Then she invited us upstairs to play ping-pong. She told us her husband and her practice ping-pong 30-minutes a day. So we got to compete with her and with each other. She has some cool techniques and she said Riley was really good at ping-pong.
I uploaded more pictures to the picasa. In China adventures part III & IV. My email won't work here on but if you want to contact me email Riley.
Love,
Diane
We just finished our exams yesterday (6/16) and had our graduation today! All of us did really well; A's and B's. Riley and I hope to continue our friendships with some of the students in our group. It's funny, in the beginning with group pictures, everyone would bring out there camera and someone would take the same picture on each person's camera. After Summer Palace, we realized instead of posing in the same position for that long (and poor camera taker) we just decided to Facebook tag when we get to America. So whenever group pictures are taken now it's taken on maybe one or two and people say "Just facebook tag me".
I found a really good restaurant here. Riley and I went there for good burgers (I couldn't resist!!). The restaurant cleared out and we ended up inviting the owner to play cards Rummy with us. She was compliant and she even schooled us after catching on in a couple rounds. She makes really good Gin-fizzies, too. Since we know how to greet in Chinese we practiced some of it. Her name is Hua Hua ("Flower Flower" she told us). She liked the game and wants to teach her friends.
It is very interesting that many websites in China are blocked: Facebook, many blog sites, youtube. Actually it's hard to find things that aren't blocked. Thank goodness I have a gmail account and google is not blocked. Today is our last day in Nanjing as we will be leaving for Shanghai tomorrow morning. We've gotten comfortable and well acquainted with Nanjing these past few weeks. From taking a day trip with Chen and Cheng laoshi to Fashion Lady by public bus then to the Nanjing Train Station, Xuanwu Lake, and a department store by metro then back to the university by bus. Riley and I really like taking the metro and we've gone-out on our own to the cinema at XinJieKou (were Fashion Lady is at) and the Olympic Stadium (but it was closed that day). Riley and I saw Pirates of the Caribbean and the new Fast and Furious (Fast 5) which was awesome and now Riley has to see the other ones.! First Class is not out yet here but Kung Fu Panda 2.
Riley and I have made two Chinese friends here and they are really nice. Shero is a student and waitress at a restaurant our group went to for drinks one night. She's really cool and she has helped us plan some of our trip for the next month suggesting good places for us to visit. She told us a really funny story about her name and it sticks with me. Ironically, Taneck, we also meet at a family restaurant. It was a different restaurant but he happened to know english and the chef (who was about 12-yrs old, no kidding) needed a translator so he translated for us. He is a post graduate and foreign language teacher. We made friends with him instantely. He described his name as "taneck...you know like the titanic" and we all laughed. We meet Taneck and invited Shero and they took us out sightseeing at lake Xuanwu on Wednesday. We took the metro to the gate of the lake and then took a boat around the lake. They explained the history of some of the sights on and around the lake including the famous Purple mountain. Taneck is a hilarious driver. Riley had been itching to go swimming and once the opportunity came up and Taneck said "yeah the water is clean", Riley jumped in for a swim. haha. In the evening five of us were invited to the home of Liu laoshi to make dumplings. It was really fun and also an adventure as we had a difficult time catching a taxi. Maybe there was a change of shifts but it usually wasn't hard for us to catch a cab. Liu laoshi ended up picking us up. One of the guy's did catch a taxi but it didn't drop him off close enough to her home and he didn't know where he was. All in all, we got to her home. It was beautiful. Her husband is an interior designer. So we learned how to make dumplings, made many many of them, and then we got to eat them!! We also had an egg and mushroom soup. Afterwards, Liu laoshi brought out her photo albums to share with us. Then she invited us upstairs to play ping-pong. She told us her husband and her practice ping-pong 30-minutes a day. So we got to compete with her and with each other. She has some cool techniques and she said Riley was really good at ping-pong.
I uploaded more pictures to the picasa. In China adventures part III & IV. My email won't work here on but if you want to contact me email Riley.
Love,
Diane
Monday, June 13, 2011
Funny facts IV: We miss sandwiches
Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 4:03 PM
All,
Diane and I are well. She is better at Chinese than me but we have fun trying to get the pronounciation right. We have made a friend at a local restaurant and also found real hamburgers near the university. We are rewriting Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" to include smoggy skies and dog dumplings. It's hard to explain. Some days the smog is thick enough to see indoors in big lobbies and long hallways. The dumplings and meat buns at restaurants around our univeristy are really good despite the dog jokes, but sometimes Diane and I start talking about how we miss sandwiches and barbeque and I get a little homesick. All in all we are having a blast and are excited to travel together after everyone else leaves next weekend. We feel more settled in each week more than the last, which basically translates to, "we walk straight into traffic without thinking."
All,
Diane and I are well. She is better at Chinese than me but we have fun trying to get the pronounciation right. We have made a friend at a local restaurant and also found real hamburgers near the university. We are rewriting Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" to include smoggy skies and dog dumplings. It's hard to explain. Some days the smog is thick enough to see indoors in big lobbies and long hallways. The dumplings and meat buns at restaurants around our univeristy are really good despite the dog jokes, but sometimes Diane and I start talking about how we miss sandwiches and barbeque and I get a little homesick. All in all we are having a blast and are excited to travel together after everyone else leaves next weekend. We feel more settled in each week more than the last, which basically translates to, "we walk straight into traffic without thinking."
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Funny Facts III: When in China
Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 4:11 PM
China Fun Facts:
1. jellyfish salad > chicken neck > pig hairs > worms
2. two story hotel room > one story hotel room
3. the smell of chitlins
4. rain + canals + ancient gardens = romantic!
5. man on the phone, please close the door to your squatty potty in the rest-stop restroom
6. man with baby, please keep holding your boy over the trash can so he can finish peeing
7. sweet and sour chicken > sweet and sour bone chunks
8. rain + mountains + tea plantations = romantic!
9. high voltage powerline bundles of 6 cables (Guthrie, I got pictures! The insulators are longer than apartment buildings.)
10. A "cheeseburger" is two buns, cheese, lettuce, and ketchup. What is missing? Order the "steakburger" to find out.
11. We saw the sky yesterday! We haven't really seen it yet with the pollution and some rainy days.
12. There is some great food here too. We are getting our share of green tea, rice, and leeks. But I still dream of sandwiches.
13. One of our teachers says, "just know it!" and breaks the chalk a lot. Words like "forbid," "punish," and "order" are frequently used in the classroom. (we told our teachers that, along with "cock" (rooster,) these words are not good to use in English.
14. Get people with small, distinct fingers to point to menus for you. The "popcorn" (onion rings) wasn't very good.
15. When the man says that the hotel has cards, he means they don't have cards.
16. When the man says that you are forbidden in the restaurant in travel clothes, it means that you can come into the restaurant in travel clothes.
17. When the man says that they have free coffee, he means that they don't have free coffee.
18. If you do not feel well, you must be like the Chinese people and either a) drink more cold water, b) drink more hot water, c) get more sleep, d) don't get as much sleep, e) don't drink cold water, f) drink green tea every day but not all the time, g) wear heavier clothes when it is hot but lighter clothes when it is cool, h) get more fresh air, i) wear a mask when breathing outdoors, j) get excercise, k) don't excercise too much, and l) don't slip in the squatty potty.
19. trivia: when you are playing cards in the 4 star hotel lounge at night and someone starts banging on the kitchen door from the inside, do you let them out?
20. trivia: 150 pedestrians, 75 families on mopeds, 60 families on bicycles, 30 volkswagens, and 5 public busses enter an intersection at the same time.
Much love,
Riley and Diane
China Fun Facts:
1. jellyfish salad > chicken neck > pig hairs > worms
2. two story hotel room > one story hotel room
3. the smell of chitlins
4. rain + canals + ancient gardens = romantic!
5. man on the phone, please close the door to your squatty potty in the rest-stop restroom
6. man with baby, please keep holding your boy over the trash can so he can finish peeing
7. sweet and sour chicken > sweet and sour bone chunks
8. rain + mountains + tea plantations = romantic!
9. high voltage powerline bundles of 6 cables (Guthrie, I got pictures! The insulators are longer than apartment buildings.)
10. A "cheeseburger" is two buns, cheese, lettuce, and ketchup. What is missing? Order the "steakburger" to find out.
11. We saw the sky yesterday! We haven't really seen it yet with the pollution and some rainy days.
12. There is some great food here too. We are getting our share of green tea, rice, and leeks. But I still dream of sandwiches.
13. One of our teachers says, "just know it!" and breaks the chalk a lot. Words like "forbid," "punish," and "order" are frequently used in the classroom. (we told our teachers that, along with "cock" (rooster,) these words are not good to use in English.
14. Get people with small, distinct fingers to point to menus for you. The "popcorn" (onion rings) wasn't very good.
15. When the man says that the hotel has cards, he means they don't have cards.
16. When the man says that you are forbidden in the restaurant in travel clothes, it means that you can come into the restaurant in travel clothes.
17. When the man says that they have free coffee, he means that they don't have free coffee.
18. If you do not feel well, you must be like the Chinese people and either a) drink more cold water, b) drink more hot water, c) get more sleep, d) don't get as much sleep, e) don't drink cold water, f) drink green tea every day but not all the time, g) wear heavier clothes when it is hot but lighter clothes when it is cool, h) get more fresh air, i) wear a mask when breathing outdoors, j) get excercise, k) don't excercise too much, and l) don't slip in the squatty potty.
19. trivia: when you are playing cards in the 4 star hotel lounge at night and someone starts banging on the kitchen door from the inside, do you let them out?
20. trivia: 150 pedestrians, 75 families on mopeds, 60 families on bicycles, 30 volkswagens, and 5 public busses enter an intersection at the same time.
Much love,
Riley and Diane
Ni jiao shenme mingzi
Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 4:10 PM
Hey everyone!
It feels like its been a while since last entry but a lot has happened since then. Riley is a lot better. We are both very well.
1. Ming Gate: Last weekend we went to the Nanjing wall around the old city. We ddin't walk the whole wall (too long!) but we did walk thru some of the tunnels and walked up top to enjoy the view. We meet a student, not part of our group, who majors in industrial design. That was pretty cool.
2. Confucius Temple: It's actually once a temple now a mall strip. We walked from the confucius to the Mandarin Garden Hotel were we had dinner. I tried to try jelly fish but it was almost impossible to chew.
Saturday, we had a three-day weekend were we traveled/stayed in Suzhou and then in Hangzhou. From Nanjing is about three and a half hours to get there and it rained all weekend.
3. Small farm village: I don't remember if there was a specific name for where we went but we walked over the canals and toured former houses of businessmen. Some of the areas (now turned into museums) held the dress wear the chinese wore for weddings. We also saw scupltures made entirely of tree roots. Lions, landscapes, people, etc. We saw a papercuttings shop where the craftsman was so good he freestyle cut without a template. We previously had a culture lecture/workshop where we learned the art of paper cutting to make different chinese designs that we find in the windows of many restuarants here. It was not easy especially without an X-acto knife. So we now respect the skill of the craft.
4. Our tour guide, Anna, must love tofu we figured. A lot of our meals have been 3-5 dishes of tofu cooked slightly different ways. After a point people were begging for some new dishes. I do love the time we get to all eat together and talk around the round table with the lazy susan and people spinning it to find a good dish.
5. Suzhou hotel: the name is somewhere in my possession as I took a hotel toothbrush with me. We were told that the hotel was five-star and two-story rooms. They don't use the star system much in China but the newer the hotel the better. I thought I misheard when she said two-story but it was true. It was very nice. Lux, many student had used to describe the rooms. We had only one night there before moving on to our next place so we enjoyed it while we had it. We had to leave at 9:00am next day. I set my alarm but I don't need it here cause I wake up at 5 or 6am because it gets bright so early in the morning. They had cake and watermelon for breakfast and that made me very happy.
6. Lingering Gardens, Suzhou: It was very beautiful and quite large. We saw more bonzai trees and more rock formations. Some food halls and beautiful pavillions. There were large goldfish and blooming waterlillies. There were musicians dressed in chinese attire. One playing the pipa--famous instrument played only by a woman.
Sunday, it was still raining.
7. Silk Museum, Suzhou: I was really excited that we were going here. We got to see the silk works and the coccoons. They had specimens of each stage of the silk worm. Some kids keep silk worms as pets. They are pretty cute. We got to see the inspection belt, spinning machines, weaving looms, and the webs of silk. The workers were ok with us touching some of the things but I'm sure they were wanting to get back to doing their work. Then onto the silk shop were most of the stuff here was made of 100% silk or mostly silk not like 100% silky. (ex. the different between 100% cashmere and cashmere 100% made in china)
We left Suzhou for Hangzhou. I don't remember how far apart they are but it is a lovely scenic route, changing from city to farm and mountains. It still rains. Anna Lamm joined us for this part of the trip.
8. Hangzhou hotel: I might have the toothbrush from here, too. The hotel was nice and even nicer than the Suzhou one in my opinion cause it had a bathtub. The view of the canal was nice and at night you could see the lights on the building on the other side of the canal. It was lit up like something out of Tron meets Christmas home lights. We boarded the bus at 9:00am when the hotel said they are missing a fork from one of the rooms the guys stayed in. It was funny cause it took 15-30min for the issue to be resolved when the guys said they didn't take it. It turns out they were right. Who would want to take a fork? And why did they make such a big deal about it? haha
9. West Lake: This small city surrounds this one lake and the city is best known for it. Because it is raining all the sales people bombard us as we get off the bus selling umbrellas and plastic panchos. It's funny cause they notice Riley has neither pancho nor umbrella and they target him. It was the most rainy day of all the days of this trip. Our group stayed close because West lake is so big and there are so many people it is very easy to get lost. Also, bus drop-off location was different than the pick-up location. I kinda don't want to get lost in China. We took a boat around the lake and took many pictures there. There is an island in the middle-- Xiaying Island and near it in the water are the "Three Pools Reflecting the Moon" which you can see also on a 5yuan bill. On the other side we saw a large pagoda.
10. Green Tea: The second tea place we went was the place were the actual tea trees were. Driving thru Hangzhou we suddenly started to see high mountains on each side of us with many rows of tea plants from top to bottom. After lunch we stop there and took better pictures. In the tea house the tea lady explained how green tea makes iodine turn pure cause of the antioxidants and it will make your body pure inside too. The tea smelled and tasted like asparagus with water.
Back in Nanjing. Not raining here. I know Riley is happy for his shoes not to be wet and I'm happy for my knees. Aside from that we had a great trip in Suzhou and Hangzhou!
11. I felt bad cause I didn't study for class much this weekend. We had Chen today not Cheng laoshi. Cheng works really fast and its hard to digest all the information. Before the end of class the idea was generated for the whole class to go to lunch together then go to Fashion Lady mall. Chen talked about Fashion Lady and some of the students told her about their favorite restaurant where they point at the menu without knowing what it says and get good food. So it was set we were going to lunch together then to the mall in Nanjing.
12. The Restaurant: I got to write down the name of these places! It's funny cause the Chen and Cheng laoshi were not sure about the restaurant cause it looks sketchy from the outside and the inside but the food actually was pretty good. It's nice that we had lunch with our teacher and also nice that they ordered for us cause they could read the menu. We had rice & green tea (staples), sweet and sour pork, fish with soup, sweet fried corn, chicken and chips and chicken with peanuts.
13. We took the public bus to Fashion Lady then to the metro to the Nanjing train station with a great view of the lake. We took the bus then back to the school. Man, it's crowded.
Well, gotta goooooo! Love,
Diane & Riley
Hey everyone!
It feels like its been a while since last entry but a lot has happened since then. Riley is a lot better. We are both very well.
1. Ming Gate: Last weekend we went to the Nanjing wall around the old city. We ddin't walk the whole wall (too long!) but we did walk thru some of the tunnels and walked up top to enjoy the view. We meet a student, not part of our group, who majors in industrial design. That was pretty cool.
2. Confucius Temple: It's actually once a temple now a mall strip. We walked from the confucius to the Mandarin Garden Hotel were we had dinner. I tried to try jelly fish but it was almost impossible to chew.
Saturday, we had a three-day weekend were we traveled/stayed in Suzhou and then in Hangzhou. From Nanjing is about three and a half hours to get there and it rained all weekend.
3. Small farm village: I don't remember if there was a specific name for where we went but we walked over the canals and toured former houses of businessmen. Some of the areas (now turned into museums) held the dress wear the chinese wore for weddings. We also saw scupltures made entirely of tree roots. Lions, landscapes, people, etc. We saw a papercuttings shop where the craftsman was so good he freestyle cut without a template. We previously had a culture lecture/workshop where we learned the art of paper cutting to make different chinese designs that we find in the windows of many restuarants here. It was not easy especially without an X-acto knife. So we now respect the skill of the craft.
4. Our tour guide, Anna, must love tofu we figured. A lot of our meals have been 3-5 dishes of tofu cooked slightly different ways. After a point people were begging for some new dishes. I do love the time we get to all eat together and talk around the round table with the lazy susan and people spinning it to find a good dish.
5. Suzhou hotel: the name is somewhere in my possession as I took a hotel toothbrush with me. We were told that the hotel was five-star and two-story rooms. They don't use the star system much in China but the newer the hotel the better. I thought I misheard when she said two-story but it was true. It was very nice. Lux, many student had used to describe the rooms. We had only one night there before moving on to our next place so we enjoyed it while we had it. We had to leave at 9:00am next day. I set my alarm but I don't need it here cause I wake up at 5 or 6am because it gets bright so early in the morning. They had cake and watermelon for breakfast and that made me very happy.
6. Lingering Gardens, Suzhou: It was very beautiful and quite large. We saw more bonzai trees and more rock formations. Some food halls and beautiful pavillions. There were large goldfish and blooming waterlillies. There were musicians dressed in chinese attire. One playing the pipa--famous instrument played only by a woman.
Sunday, it was still raining.
7. Silk Museum, Suzhou: I was really excited that we were going here. We got to see the silk works and the coccoons. They had specimens of each stage of the silk worm. Some kids keep silk worms as pets. They are pretty cute. We got to see the inspection belt, spinning machines, weaving looms, and the webs of silk. The workers were ok with us touching some of the things but I'm sure they were wanting to get back to doing their work. Then onto the silk shop were most of the stuff here was made of 100% silk or mostly silk not like 100% silky. (ex. the different between 100% cashmere and cashmere 100% made in china)
We left Suzhou for Hangzhou. I don't remember how far apart they are but it is a lovely scenic route, changing from city to farm and mountains. It still rains. Anna Lamm joined us for this part of the trip.
8. Hangzhou hotel: I might have the toothbrush from here, too. The hotel was nice and even nicer than the Suzhou one in my opinion cause it had a bathtub. The view of the canal was nice and at night you could see the lights on the building on the other side of the canal. It was lit up like something out of Tron meets Christmas home lights. We boarded the bus at 9:00am when the hotel said they are missing a fork from one of the rooms the guys stayed in. It was funny cause it took 15-30min for the issue to be resolved when the guys said they didn't take it. It turns out they were right. Who would want to take a fork? And why did they make such a big deal about it? haha
9. West Lake: This small city surrounds this one lake and the city is best known for it. Because it is raining all the sales people bombard us as we get off the bus selling umbrellas and plastic panchos. It's funny cause they notice Riley has neither pancho nor umbrella and they target him. It was the most rainy day of all the days of this trip. Our group stayed close because West lake is so big and there are so many people it is very easy to get lost. Also, bus drop-off location was different than the pick-up location. I kinda don't want to get lost in China. We took a boat around the lake and took many pictures there. There is an island in the middle-- Xiaying Island and near it in the water are the "Three Pools Reflecting the Moon" which you can see also on a 5yuan bill. On the other side we saw a large pagoda.
10. Green Tea: The second tea place we went was the place were the actual tea trees were. Driving thru Hangzhou we suddenly started to see high mountains on each side of us with many rows of tea plants from top to bottom. After lunch we stop there and took better pictures. In the tea house the tea lady explained how green tea makes iodine turn pure cause of the antioxidants and it will make your body pure inside too. The tea smelled and tasted like asparagus with water.
Back in Nanjing. Not raining here. I know Riley is happy for his shoes not to be wet and I'm happy for my knees. Aside from that we had a great trip in Suzhou and Hangzhou!
11. I felt bad cause I didn't study for class much this weekend. We had Chen today not Cheng laoshi. Cheng works really fast and its hard to digest all the information. Before the end of class the idea was generated for the whole class to go to lunch together then go to Fashion Lady mall. Chen talked about Fashion Lady and some of the students told her about their favorite restaurant where they point at the menu without knowing what it says and get good food. So it was set we were going to lunch together then to the mall in Nanjing.
12. The Restaurant: I got to write down the name of these places! It's funny cause the Chen and Cheng laoshi were not sure about the restaurant cause it looks sketchy from the outside and the inside but the food actually was pretty good. It's nice that we had lunch with our teacher and also nice that they ordered for us cause they could read the menu. We had rice & green tea (staples), sweet and sour pork, fish with soup, sweet fried corn, chicken and chips and chicken with peanuts.
13. We took the public bus to Fashion Lady then to the metro to the Nanjing train station with a great view of the lake. We took the bus then back to the school. Man, it's crowded.
Well, gotta goooooo! Love,
Diane & Riley
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Funny Facts II: Special Medicine
Hello!
I have been sick for quite a few days so the fun facts in this email might as well consist of facts I have dreamed or types of medicine I wish existed on my bedside or pollution that shouldn't be in the air. But we are really enjoying ourselves and we hope you all have too.
Diane will be writing more realistic thoughts and narratives so I'll offer my special insights from the last bit of our trip:
1. When bananas go bad inside a plastic bag they sweat and then smell like vinegar.
2. (riddle) if you wash a pesticide-covered kiwi in unpotable tap water, does it help?
3. There is a nursery-sized area in one of the gardens near our city completely full of banzai trees that look older than the United States. I've never seen a single banzai as incredible as any one of the thousands in this garden.
4. Weirdly small amounts of Chinese food can make you dream hungrily of American food, like sandwiches.
5. There are poodles on the street here. They sit with their back legs out behind them.
6. My theory is that Japanese culture borrowed and never returned Chinese manners, so now people kind of slip in front of you in line without any words to express that they are cutting you. Japan is way different, I think, to the point where you can use to much silibance when calling an honored guest "sir" and have to never show them your back or fall on your sword or something. Anyway, there are more manners in Japan.
7. I miss biscuits.
8. And sandwiches.
9. Despite the water here being called "hard" by our tourguides (read: polluted and poisonous,) Diane's hair looks great!
10. The Chinese Internet is like a hairless sled dog puppy. In theory, it is a sled dog, but practically, it can't do anything except ween.
11. If you build a pure white building downtown anywhere in China it will turn brown like a snowdrift.
12. Just because the car alarms are cuter sounding doesn't mean they still don't go off in front of the hotel at 4 in the morning when somebody drives a scooter somewhere nearby (which happens litterally all the time)
13. Just because I have five finger shoes doesn't mean I can magically understand Chinese when people ask me about them
14. If you go to the Ei Sen Club, try not to get pulled up onto the speaker by a very happy Chinese man just in time to dance to Ke$ha and a 9 minute Happy Birthday remix.
15. Be careful when purchasing playing cards that they are not cigarettes.
16. Signing autographs for Chinese students feels like sinning, but I'm not sure?
17. (riddle) Yesterday, we decorated masks (?) with Chinese students from the university, and I wrote YOUTUBE down the bridge of the nose. Is that okay?
18. Pork buns are delicious if you know the symbol for pork and can point to it on a menu.
19. The difference between "yes" and "poop" is whether or not you raise your voice a little at the end. Don't raise your voice at the end.
20. I finished Anathem.
21. I have a nice video of our friend singing along and dancing to The Kings Garden.
22. As I write this, a cute car alarm is going off.
23. Wild kittens sort of bark.
Love,
R+D
I have been sick for quite a few days so the fun facts in this email might as well consist of facts I have dreamed or types of medicine I wish existed on my bedside or pollution that shouldn't be in the air. But we are really enjoying ourselves and we hope you all have too.
Diane will be writing more realistic thoughts and narratives so I'll offer my special insights from the last bit of our trip:
1. When bananas go bad inside a plastic bag they sweat and then smell like vinegar.
2. (riddle) if you wash a pesticide-covered kiwi in unpotable tap water, does it help?
3. There is a nursery-sized area in one of the gardens near our city completely full of banzai trees that look older than the United States. I've never seen a single banzai as incredible as any one of the thousands in this garden.
4. Weirdly small amounts of Chinese food can make you dream hungrily of American food, like sandwiches.
5. There are poodles on the street here. They sit with their back legs out behind them.
6. My theory is that Japanese culture borrowed and never returned Chinese manners, so now people kind of slip in front of you in line without any words to express that they are cutting you. Japan is way different, I think, to the point where you can use to much silibance when calling an honored guest "sir" and have to never show them your back or fall on your sword or something. Anyway, there are more manners in Japan.
7. I miss biscuits.
8. And sandwiches.
9. Despite the water here being called "hard" by our tourguides (read: polluted and poisonous,) Diane's hair looks great!
10. The Chinese Internet is like a hairless sled dog puppy. In theory, it is a sled dog, but practically, it can't do anything except ween.
11. If you build a pure white building downtown anywhere in China it will turn brown like a snowdrift.
12. Just because the car alarms are cuter sounding doesn't mean they still don't go off in front of the hotel at 4 in the morning when somebody drives a scooter somewhere nearby (which happens litterally all the time)
13. Just because I have five finger shoes doesn't mean I can magically understand Chinese when people ask me about them
14. If you go to the Ei Sen Club, try not to get pulled up onto the speaker by a very happy Chinese man just in time to dance to Ke$ha and a 9 minute Happy Birthday remix.
15. Be careful when purchasing playing cards that they are not cigarettes.
16. Signing autographs for Chinese students feels like sinning, but I'm not sure?
17. (riddle) Yesterday, we decorated masks (?) with Chinese students from the university, and I wrote YOUTUBE down the bridge of the nose. Is that okay?
18. Pork buns are delicious if you know the symbol for pork and can point to it on a menu.
19. The difference between "yes" and "poop" is whether or not you raise your voice a little at the end. Don't raise your voice at the end.
20. I finished Anathem.
21. I have a nice video of our friend singing along and dancing to The Kings Garden.
22. As I write this, a cute car alarm is going off.
23. Wild kittens sort of bark.
Love,
R+D
Zao shang hao!
Wed, Jun 1, 2011
Zao shang hao! (good morning)! It is almost noon but as I write it will be "xia wu" (good afternoon).
We have learned so much while in class. About 9 total hours of class and already we can greet, say or ask what day it is, say family names (older brother, younger sister, mom, dad, etc) and have you eaten. We are using what we've learned to help us get around the city and knowing numbers is especially helpful. It's exciting when a local says something and we can respond back well or vice versa! Class is soo funny! The classmates are hilarious and we cheer for each other when someone finally gets a pronounciation right.
The last week we've been free to wander around the city once class ends. A few days ago Riley and I ran into some other classmates and decided to have a study session in McDonald's cafe. Two of the locals overheard us reciting and were kind enough to help us pronounce words. It's nice making friends with the people in our group. Last night (5/26), we were invited by some in the group to go downtown together and find a good restaurant. One of the girls knows Chinese decently and was able to help us order something. It's helpful because very few restaurants have menus in English and some don't even have pictures so it's a gamble to order something without knowing what you'll get. The restaurant we went to serves fried (real!) scorpion but none of us were brave enough to order it. I was too hungry. They have real ice cream here AND real chocolate and Riley and I found a milk bar & bakery yesterday. Milk seemed to be hard to find. .
Xia wu, it is 6/1. Picking up were I left off. Riley and I are making friends well here, mostly from our American group. We go out to find good/cheap restaurants. Some with dumplings, pork/vegetable buns, noodles with egg, or fried rice with egg. There was one restaurant that served fried scorpion but none of us were brave enough to try it.
Last weekend we went to Yangzhou. It's about 2 hours from Nanjing. Our sights:
1. Thin West Lake: It looks more like a river than a lake. It is long and thin. It is very beautiful and breezy. There were many willow tries and we noticed trees with rope wrapped around the trunk. Riley and I guessed that it's either to shape the trees a certain way. It is a very open area. And the architecture of these ancient temples is beautiful. We hung out under the Five Pavillion Bridge for a while but the tour went by really fast because we were short for time.
2. He Garden (pronounced Huh! like a punch in the stomach): It is my favorite place I've seen so far. It's hard to explain but it was very botanical. With lots of rock cave paths, ivy covered walls, stone patterned walkways, etc. They gave us 45 minutes of free time to wander around the place and it was awesome. I took pictures before my camera battery exhausted. I have to put up pictures tomorrow. I have pictures some of last weeks pictures up by the way. Czech them out si'l vous plait.
3. I made a Chinese friend last week while we were at a restaurant. She was a new waitress who wants to be a pharmacist and is going to England. She wanted to practice her english with Riley and me. It was really good.
4. One of our chaperones (kinda) had her last day with us on Friday. She works at NCState and speaks Chinese very well. For her last night there we went out for dinner, drinks, and to 1912. This was my first time taking a taxi. 1912 is a strip of clubs and we went to one that had many many red chandeliers. I felt like I was in the scene of Moulin rouge minus the dancers. It was sooo crowded in there. We thought we saw some people playing Liar's Dice but we weren't sure.
5. Three of us from the group, went to church Sunday. It was a pretty big church and the entrance to the church says "Jesus Loves You". They had hymn books and we sung some songs (sorta) but the tune we did recognize "Ode to Joy" and "Jesus Loves Me" and sung along. The sermon we understood 10% a little was in english and we knew that the sermon was about love. That's about it. But we plan to go next Sunday.
6. Yesterday 5/30, we had a meet and greet with the Chinese students of Nanjing University (the new campus). We played funny games that involved the loser being punished=sitting on a balloon to pop it. It's funny cause chinese people are so happy to meet Americans and they would grab us to take a picture with us.
7. Our group is hilarious and we definitely want to keep in touch once we get back to America. There are a number of people who are pretty cool.
8. I'm taking care of Riley cause he's sick. He's really cute when he's sleeping though. A lot of people weren't feeling well today. It might be the pollution.
9. Chinese is hard to learn. Somedays we feel like failures and some days we feel very good about our progress. It would be hard to learn if tone-deaf or spoke in monotone cause different tones could be the difference from saying joke to digest. Some days we are really silly and thank goodness our teachers are patient with us. Laoshi (lao-sure) means teacher. Pengyou (paeng yo) means friend. Xuesheng (juway-sheng) means student. One of the students sang "you are my sunshine" to the teacher cause to us her chinese name sounds like Sunshine (her name is Chen Xia). It made her blush.
Feel free to write us! Pictures are on picasa (this email account). Gotta go!
Love,
Diane
Zao shang hao! (good morning)! It is almost noon but as I write it will be "xia wu" (good afternoon).
We have learned so much while in class. About 9 total hours of class and already we can greet, say or ask what day it is, say family names (older brother, younger sister, mom, dad, etc) and have you eaten. We are using what we've learned to help us get around the city and knowing numbers is especially helpful. It's exciting when a local says something and we can respond back well or vice versa! Class is soo funny! The classmates are hilarious and we cheer for each other when someone finally gets a pronounciation right.
The last week we've been free to wander around the city once class ends. A few days ago Riley and I ran into some other classmates and decided to have a study session in McDonald's cafe. Two of the locals overheard us reciting and were kind enough to help us pronounce words. It's nice making friends with the people in our group. Last night (5/26), we were invited by some in the group to go downtown together and find a good restaurant. One of the girls knows Chinese decently and was able to help us order something. It's helpful because very few restaurants have menus in English and some don't even have pictures so it's a gamble to order something without knowing what you'll get. The restaurant we went to serves fried (real!) scorpion but none of us were brave enough to order it. I was too hungry. They have real ice cream here AND real chocolate and Riley and I found a milk bar & bakery yesterday. Milk seemed to be hard to find. .
Xia wu, it is 6/1. Picking up were I left off. Riley and I are making friends well here, mostly from our American group. We go out to find good/cheap restaurants. Some with dumplings, pork/vegetable buns, noodles with egg, or fried rice with egg. There was one restaurant that served fried scorpion but none of us were brave enough to try it.
Last weekend we went to Yangzhou. It's about 2 hours from Nanjing. Our sights:
1. Thin West Lake: It looks more like a river than a lake. It is long and thin. It is very beautiful and breezy. There were many willow tries and we noticed trees with rope wrapped around the trunk. Riley and I guessed that it's either to shape the trees a certain way. It is a very open area. And the architecture of these ancient temples is beautiful. We hung out under the Five Pavillion Bridge for a while but the tour went by really fast because we were short for time.
2. He Garden (pronounced Huh! like a punch in the stomach): It is my favorite place I've seen so far. It's hard to explain but it was very botanical. With lots of rock cave paths, ivy covered walls, stone patterned walkways, etc. They gave us 45 minutes of free time to wander around the place and it was awesome. I took pictures before my camera battery exhausted. I have to put up pictures tomorrow. I have pictures some of last weeks pictures up by the way. Czech them out si'l vous plait.
3. I made a Chinese friend last week while we were at a restaurant. She was a new waitress who wants to be a pharmacist and is going to England. She wanted to practice her english with Riley and me. It was really good.
4. One of our chaperones (kinda) had her last day with us on Friday. She works at NCState and speaks Chinese very well. For her last night there we went out for dinner, drinks, and to 1912. This was my first time taking a taxi. 1912 is a strip of clubs and we went to one that had many many red chandeliers. I felt like I was in the scene of Moulin rouge minus the dancers. It was sooo crowded in there. We thought we saw some people playing Liar's Dice but we weren't sure.
5. Three of us from the group, went to church Sunday. It was a pretty big church and the entrance to the church says "Jesus Loves You". They had hymn books and we sung some songs (sorta) but the tune we did recognize "Ode to Joy" and "Jesus Loves Me" and sung along. The sermon we understood 10% a little was in english and we knew that the sermon was about love. That's about it. But we plan to go next Sunday.
6. Yesterday 5/30, we had a meet and greet with the Chinese students of Nanjing University (the new campus). We played funny games that involved the loser being punished=sitting on a balloon to pop it. It's funny cause chinese people are so happy to meet Americans and they would grab us to take a picture with us.
7. Our group is hilarious and we definitely want to keep in touch once we get back to America. There are a number of people who are pretty cool.
8. I'm taking care of Riley cause he's sick. He's really cute when he's sleeping though. A lot of people weren't feeling well today. It might be the pollution.
9. Chinese is hard to learn. Somedays we feel like failures and some days we feel very good about our progress. It would be hard to learn if tone-deaf or spoke in monotone cause different tones could be the difference from saying joke to digest. Some days we are really silly and thank goodness our teachers are patient with us. Laoshi (lao-sure) means teacher. Pengyou (paeng yo) means friend. Xuesheng (juway-sheng) means student. One of the students sang "you are my sunshine" to the teacher cause to us her chinese name sounds like Sunshine (her name is Chen Xia). It made her blush.
Feel free to write us! Pictures are on picasa (this email account). Gotta go!
Love,
Diane
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Goodbye America. Hello China
Hi friends and family,
It is May 24th, 3:46pm.
We finally were able to get a place with internet in the Nanjing Normal University computer lab. We are doing well. Thank you for your prayers.
It is May 24th, 3:46pm.
We finally were able to get a place with internet in the Nanjing Normal University computer lab. We are doing well. Thank you for your prayers.
So much has happened since our last email.
We have traveled much from flying Raleigh->Chicago->Beijing. Then in Beijing taking car, buses, boat, and walking to many different destinations. Since arriving two days after our group, we missed some sights but there were still many sights we saw before taking the sleeper train to Nanjing.
Beijing Sunday:
1. Summer Palace: one of the ancient temples were the Dragon Lady lived and ate about 100-course meals a day that can feed about 10,000 people one meal a day. And you may be thinking she must have been fat. No. It's interesting trivia for the day. The place was very crowded as it's only open in the summer (thus called Summer Palace). I had to be pushy with an old lady just to get into a bathroom stall just to give you an idea.She tried to squeeze her way into the stall the same time I did. Summer palace is very beautiful palace nonetheless. We took the boat to cross the Kunming river.
2. Beijing Olympic Stadium and Aquatic Center and IBM building: We hope to send pictures of them. We got to a quick stop by there but we got pretty close to it with our own eyes and they are very grand. Chinese architecture is very unique. Everywhere someone is trying to sell us something.
3. New City Jewerly: China main source of freshwater pearls and they say that's why the water is not good for drinking (even worse than Mexico we learned!) Riley and I drink a lot of water in America but when you want to drink water here you have to get bottled water. I've never seen real pearls and none that weren't white. Here they all the 4 colors: white, pink, lavender, and dark purple. The lavender is my favorite. Trivia: Five year old oysters contain 15-20 pearls in many different colors! Five-yrs is young. Older oysters=more pearls.
4. Dr. Tea: The art of tea. We tried Lycee, Golden, jasmine, black, and white teas. They taught us how to sip and taste them. Black and Lycee are very good and good for you. Trivia: it seems there are more KFCs here than McDonalds.
5. Temple of Heaven: similar style to Summer Palace. Roofs, painting, greenery. The main temple round and very high up with a great view of the city. It's hard to believe its made of wood build without a single nail. It's hot here but windy. Not nearly as hot as it usually is.
6. Silk Market: One of the largest markets in China. We learned how to haggle and it was hilarious. The place was indeed large but well organized. The vendors (many clothing vendors) are mildly to very aggressive when it comes to getting you to buy from them no matter what cost. It's safe to assume that the clothes are knock off brands so it was ok to haggle for a cheaper cost and there were many vendors selling the exact same thing. Turns out I was a decent haggler and Riley was pretty impressive. He even managed to get one lady to match the price he asked, then when he walked away she grabbed his arm with an even lower price then lower. Same thing happed at the denim corner and they followed him around the store. Our group gave us a tip that the sellers tend to do that as they did their first day trying to sell knock off Rolexs. Turns out the best way to refuse something is to ignore and walk away. They notice when people take interest. It was a very fun and knowlegable experience. Trivia: 1 dollar=about 6.4 yuan, 100dollars=64 yuan. 100 yuan= about $15.89
7. Restaurant to try Peking Duck: It's the favorite food in China. The room was tight to fit 22 people but its fun to have community. In China it is customary to have many plates of different dishes whereas in America it is large plates of a fewer dishes. So the variety is wider but smaller in size.The peking duck eaten with thin tortillas and duck sauce. It tastes like fried turkey to me but no one know what that is.
That's all for now. gotta goooo!
Love,
Diane
Funny Facts I: Great Firewall of China
Hey everyone,
This is the first chance Diane and I have had to get internet access. There is not so much wifi here so emailing from my phone probably won't happen as planned. Diane and I are writing simultaneously so you can get both sides of the story. Blogspot and facebook and much else is censored here but we may be able to post pictures via picasa. We are in the computer lab right now and will have minimal to no internet access once we finish here at the university in June. We are getting a local phone and number soon and will be able to recieve tastefully infrequent calls from the US.
We are having fun and are glad that we finally got a plane flight. Our hotel/dorm here at Nanjing University is clean, comfortable, and pleasant and we are sleeping well even on the night train. I was worried the train bunk wouldn't be long enough but I slept great. We are still tired early and waking up around 4:30 - 6:30ish but our meal times are pretty normal. The food so far has been really good. Our first morning I tried pigs ear. The 17 other students are really friendly. Most are from St. Augustines and NC State.
The time zone difference is 12 hours from Eastern time. We are a calendar day ahead of you. Diane and I are working on written letters to send home, too.
Fun facts:
1. Nikon camera manual is censored online. Is it that much more insidious than facebook?
2. Babies here walk around with split pants so their bottoms show.
3. Chinese tourists in Beijing like jumping into our photos and ask to take pictures with some of us, especially the black people in our group.
4. The tap water isn't safe to drink. Many toilets are holes in the floor (but not ours in the hotel/dorm, thankfully)
5. We saw a split pants baby today with a plastic bag hanging off of his private part.
6. Chinese tones are hard to say without sounding angry and our teacher tells us if we sound too angry.
7. McDonalds has no biscuits. English muffins < biscuits.
8. It has been 60s-70s here in Nanjing but last week was almost 100 and we expect the temperature to be equivalent to Raleigh.
9. There are mosquitos and ants but the mosquitos are smaller.
9.5. There was one of those hotel room lurker mosquitos just like Mexico City, bro! It woke us up so many times!
10. We found an exceptionally beautiful moth on the ground this morning, like two leaves and a tiny magnolia bud. We saved it by moving it to a tree where the little golden birds that sound like they are laughing can eat it.
11. The sky starts getting light before 5
12. The university gym on this campus has 4 options: outdoor track, outdoor basketball, indoor tennis, and indoor badminton.
13. I don't really want to play badminton.
14. Drivers, bikes, and pedestrians on Beijing highways treat all speeds and paved land like a big log flume. Horns > blinkers > headlights > helmets > seatbelts.
15. The music here isn't nearly as bad as Mexican Banda.
16. Modern cities are full of 3rd world-like shanties and apartment buildings. Countryside farms are smaller rectangular plots that look like they are tended by couples rather than machines.
17. Pigs ear is crunchier than it seems when you prod it.
This is only what we've seen so far but hopefully it starts to give a picture. I did get a picture of the baby pants but can't figure out how to send it yet.
Love,
Riley
This is the first chance Diane and I have had to get internet access. There is not so much wifi here so emailing from my phone probably won't happen as planned. Diane and I are writing simultaneously so you can get both sides of the story. Blogspot and facebook and much else is censored here but we may be able to post pictures via picasa. We are in the computer lab right now and will have minimal to no internet access once we finish here at the university in June. We are getting a local phone and number soon and will be able to recieve tastefully infrequent calls from the US.
We are having fun and are glad that we finally got a plane flight. Our hotel/dorm here at Nanjing University is clean, comfortable, and pleasant and we are sleeping well even on the night train. I was worried the train bunk wouldn't be long enough but I slept great. We are still tired early and waking up around 4:30 - 6:30ish but our meal times are pretty normal. The food so far has been really good. Our first morning I tried pigs ear. The 17 other students are really friendly. Most are from St. Augustines and NC State.
The time zone difference is 12 hours from Eastern time. We are a calendar day ahead of you. Diane and I are working on written letters to send home, too.
Fun facts:
1. Nikon camera manual is censored online. Is it that much more insidious than facebook?
2. Babies here walk around with split pants so their bottoms show.
3. Chinese tourists in Beijing like jumping into our photos and ask to take pictures with some of us, especially the black people in our group.
4. The tap water isn't safe to drink. Many toilets are holes in the floor (but not ours in the hotel/dorm, thankfully)
5. We saw a split pants baby today with a plastic bag hanging off of his private part.
6. Chinese tones are hard to say without sounding angry and our teacher tells us if we sound too angry.
7. McDonalds has no biscuits. English muffins < biscuits.
8. It has been 60s-70s here in Nanjing but last week was almost 100 and we expect the temperature to be equivalent to Raleigh.
9. There are mosquitos and ants but the mosquitos are smaller.
9.5. There was one of those hotel room lurker mosquitos just like Mexico City, bro! It woke us up so many times!
10. We found an exceptionally beautiful moth on the ground this morning, like two leaves and a tiny magnolia bud. We saved it by moving it to a tree where the little golden birds that sound like they are laughing can eat it.
11. The sky starts getting light before 5
12. The university gym on this campus has 4 options: outdoor track, outdoor basketball, indoor tennis, and indoor badminton.
13. I don't really want to play badminton.
14. Drivers, bikes, and pedestrians on Beijing highways treat all speeds and paved land like a big log flume. Horns > blinkers > headlights > helmets > seatbelts.
15. The music here isn't nearly as bad as Mexican Banda.
16. Modern cities are full of 3rd world-like shanties and apartment buildings. Countryside farms are smaller rectangular plots that look like they are tended by couples rather than machines.
17. Pigs ear is crunchier than it seems when you prod it.
This is only what we've seen so far but hopefully it starts to give a picture. I did get a picture of the baby pants but can't figure out how to send it yet.
Love,
Riley
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Our first adventure starts at the airport
Already we're on an adventure! Getting married means that the airline isn't happy with diane hagan vs diane hagan bunn so we're working on changing the name on the reservation which is being negotiated in Chinese. If you get this, we'd appreciate prayers that we get on our flight.
We were just asked if we brought our marriage certificate to the airport. No. We forgot that important travel document.
Love,
R+D
We were just asked if we brought our marriage certificate to the airport. No. We forgot that important travel document.
Love,
R+D
Monday, May 16, 2011
...then we shall fight in the mud! -Warrior Dash
Riley, Judy, and I stayed to Franklin, NC this weekend (May 13th - 15)
Judy and I participated in the Warrior Dash in Georgia on Saturday.
This 5K race consisted of 11 crazy obstacles that include jumping fire, army crawling in mud, climbing over a 10-foot wall, crawling across cargo nets, crossing muddy 3-4-feet waters, and more. We've been planning to do this event since December when we decided to register (the location was the closest to us and the registration cost was cheaper).
I emailed Judy to see if she would be interested in doing a race like this with me in hopes that it was just crazy enough for her to say yes and that we could do something fun together before I got married. Even though the race was after Riley and I got married, Judy and I spent time together training for it up until the day of the race.
I think we did it for the viking hats. They're awesome.
Day of the Race:
I don't remember how many people attended Saturday but everywhere we looked were people in costumes. It was fun to see what outfits people came up with from vikings to feline cat ladies to ninjas to the hulk. We meet 'the doctors' on the shuttle bus on our way there. They had their scrubs and caps. Judy and I had made some funny outfits, too.
These were our obstacles in the order we approached them:
1-The Swamp- it was pretty gross 3-4 feet deep. They like to get you wet and muddy from the start! And our hairs showed up.
2-Road Rage- climbing over junkyard vehicles.
3-Barricade Breakdown- a series of 4 over & under climbing barricades and swooping under barbed wire. A little more challenging
4-The Warrior Wall- the 10-foot wall which was at first intimidating but Judy and I took it pretty well.
5-Tire Tread- was pretty easy for Judy and I to figure out
6-Cargo climb
7- Chaotic crossover- like cargo climb but a cargo crawl.
8-Arachniphobia- a tangled web obstacle with slingshot cables. Judy's least favorite obstacle as some people stepped on the cables and they bounced back up.
9- Blackout- crawling through dark trenches. It was a very low tentlike structure. we admit- it was pretty dark in there!
10-Petrifying Plung- It was this crazy water slide!! We went down it by rows at a time. Unlike your typical waterslide experience people here don't wait til you're at the bottom, haha. So Judy and I slid down it like bullets. I realized I couldn't slow down and ran into a guy, then Judy ran into the same guy!! It was really funny!
11- Muddy Mayhem- We army crawled under the rope and barbed wire. Riley could see us at this point and was glad we cleared this obstacle well. Some people got themselves stuck hitting the barbed wire cause they didn't see it. That explains the shirts stuck on there! The pit was hard to get out cause it was very slippery and there was nothing to grip on. It took me a few tries but I wasn't the only one.
12- Menacing Minefield- a series of floating waterlogs we had to climb over..
13-Warrior Roast- lastly the enfamous fire walls. Judy and I had just enough energy to jump over it together. They're actually higher than they look and you can definitely feel the heat and smoke.
We crossed to finish line warriors!
Tips:
>Best way to train is to run
>Other ways to train are strength training like being able to lift yourself up with your arms. The course involved a lot of it and from me, my arms and shoulders are the sorest part of my body right now.
>Do the race with a partner or a team. Its definitely more fun when there are others experience with you and encourage you thru the course. Judy and I noticed teams and partners everywhere.
>Make a costume. It is a lot of fun!
>Make it a trip. Cause you might get really tired afterwards or want to celebrate afterwards.
We want to do this next year and would like to recruit a team of warriors. Will you join us?
Judy and I participated in the Warrior Dash in Georgia on Saturday.
This 5K race consisted of 11 crazy obstacles that include jumping fire, army crawling in mud, climbing over a 10-foot wall, crawling across cargo nets, crossing muddy 3-4-feet waters, and more. We've been planning to do this event since December when we decided to register (the location was the closest to us and the registration cost was cheaper).
I emailed Judy to see if she would be interested in doing a race like this with me in hopes that it was just crazy enough for her to say yes and that we could do something fun together before I got married. Even though the race was after Riley and I got married, Judy and I spent time together training for it up until the day of the race.
I think we did it for the viking hats. They're awesome.
Day of the Race:
I don't remember how many people attended Saturday but everywhere we looked were people in costumes. It was fun to see what outfits people came up with from vikings to feline cat ladies to ninjas to the hulk. We meet 'the doctors' on the shuttle bus on our way there. They had their scrubs and caps. Judy and I had made some funny outfits, too.
These were our obstacles in the order we approached them:
1-The Swamp- it was pretty gross 3-4 feet deep. They like to get you wet and muddy from the start! And our hairs showed up.
2-Road Rage- climbing over junkyard vehicles.
3-Barricade Breakdown- a series of 4 over & under climbing barricades and swooping under barbed wire. A little more challenging
4-The Warrior Wall- the 10-foot wall which was at first intimidating but Judy and I took it pretty well.
5-Tire Tread- was pretty easy for Judy and I to figure out
6-Cargo climb
7- Chaotic crossover- like cargo climb but a cargo crawl.
8-Arachniphobia- a tangled web obstacle with slingshot cables. Judy's least favorite obstacle as some people stepped on the cables and they bounced back up.
9- Blackout- crawling through dark trenches. It was a very low tentlike structure. we admit- it was pretty dark in there!
10-Petrifying Plung- It was this crazy water slide!! We went down it by rows at a time. Unlike your typical waterslide experience people here don't wait til you're at the bottom, haha. So Judy and I slid down it like bullets. I realized I couldn't slow down and ran into a guy, then Judy ran into the same guy!! It was really funny!
11- Muddy Mayhem- We army crawled under the rope and barbed wire. Riley could see us at this point and was glad we cleared this obstacle well. Some people got themselves stuck hitting the barbed wire cause they didn't see it. That explains the shirts stuck on there! The pit was hard to get out cause it was very slippery and there was nothing to grip on. It took me a few tries but I wasn't the only one.
12- Menacing Minefield- a series of floating waterlogs we had to climb over..
13-Warrior Roast- lastly the enfamous fire walls. Judy and I had just enough energy to jump over it together. They're actually higher than they look and you can definitely feel the heat and smoke.
We crossed to finish line warriors!
>Best way to train is to run
>Other ways to train are strength training like being able to lift yourself up with your arms. The course involved a lot of it and from me, my arms and shoulders are the sorest part of my body right now.
>Do the race with a partner or a team. Its definitely more fun when there are others experience with you and encourage you thru the course. Judy and I noticed teams and partners everywhere.
>Make a costume. It is a lot of fun!
>Make it a trip. Cause you might get really tired afterwards or want to celebrate afterwards.
We want to do this next year and would like to recruit a team of warriors. Will you join us?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)