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."
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