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.

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

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

...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?