Today we got up early (for a Saturday anyways) and hopped in two or three different buses to finally make it to the 'city center'. In about the same time as it takes to drive from Salem to Sandy (a little over an hour) we can get from our apartment to the heart of Nanning, termed 'the city center' by all of our hip college students. Its the main area of Nanning, filled with shops and malls and parks and...McDonalds!!! We were craving McDonalds all morning and were hoping to even get there in time for breakfast (pancakes and eggs and hashbrowns, hmmmmm) but the bus took longer than we planned and we got there after breakfast time at 10:30 (breakfast ends at 10:00 here because they sometimes eat early lunches). But we were craving McDonalds so much and hungry because we hadn't eaten anything, so we decided to have lunch at 10:30 and man was it good, as you can tell by my face:
After McDonalds we wanted to just walk around and explore the city center. They were lots of malls and different side streets with shops and we had a great time people watching. It was Saturday, so there were a lot of people downtown, I think shopping is a very big deal for them. Plus, Renmin Park (People's park) is also at the city center. Renmin Park is frequented by the older generation of Nanning Chinese and there are many activities for them there. In the park, the men smoke and play different card games and Mah Jong. Also, there was music playing and people were dancing. At first it was a ballroom/tango type dance and we stopped and watched the dancers for a while. Then it turned into an electric slide/techno/tai chi type dance and we had a great time watching 60 year olds keep up with the beat. We even saw a guy dancing and smoking at the same time, maybe trying to counterract the effects of the cigarette?
The city center
We sat down to rest and realized that may have been a mistake. We began to feel like the animals probably due at the zoo as 90% of the people that walked by would take a four to five second look at us and stare. The other 10% probably just didn't see us. We decided just to smile and make due, we even took some pictures of them as they walked by, why not?
We didn't rest long and we were back to shopping. The stores were mostly shoes and clothes and I think they was a competition to see which store could play their music the loudest. Each store we passed had huge speakers and was playing their own song, so it was a little loud, but silly and we enjoyed it. Also, we stumbled upon and wedding dress fashion show in front of the McDonalds we had eaten at earlier. We thought we were being stared at! At least they were getting paid though:
After we spotted the golden arch again we were craving some ice cream. They have these 24 hour walk thru type things that sell different kinds of icecream like floats, REAL chocolate icecream cones and icecream cones with flavored swirls...I got grape!
We also found at neat store with some Chinese dining and tea sets and we bought a nice tea set with some money that my parents wired us for my birthday. Thanks Mom and Dad! We're really excited to have you all over for real Chinese tea and use our China Tea Set:
Tonight we went out to Zhongshan Lu (Middle Mountain Road) which is famous for its BBQ restaurants with Chris and Hua, some friends and teachers, for the final birthday celebration. Now when we say BBQ, its not the steak and chicken type, but more of a grilled spicy sauce cooking just about any kind of meat or vegetable you can think of. This was what we pictured China to be like. Large crowds and lots of outdoor cooking with tables and places to sit. We really enjoy spending time with Chris and Hua because, not only are they great friends and a lot of fun to hang out with, but they know the city well and of course, they speak English! So we had a great time and saw all kinds of different things we COULD have eaten, if we had chosen to: pigeons, fish heads, squid, vegetables of all kinds. In the end, we settled on beef, pork ribs, shrimp, oysters and a green leafy vegetable. It tasted great! We think it would be a big hit in the states:
Can you find the fishheads in this picture?
Kealy's eating pork ribs and I've got the vegetable thingy
Our good friends Chris and Hua
After the BBQ we went to the cinema to see if they were playing an English movie, but no luck, so what do we do on weekends in China...we went and got our hair washed! It was fun with Chris and Hua because we could talk to the people giving us the hair wash because they could translate. They laughed at how tall we were and the girl that did my hair said I was the tallest person she had ever seen and the girl doing Kealy said she loved her hair and her eye! I agreed with her.
It was a great day full of lots of interesting sights and fun moments. We'll get more pictures from today on the blog in the next few posts, but we wanted to share with you what we have been up to. Its 1 AM here and I'm going to get up at 4 AM to listen to the Wolves football team beat up on the Western Washington Vikings and also hopefully hear my brother break the ALL-Time record for TD passes by a quarterback at WOU. Congratulations bro and GO WOLVES!
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
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