I will address the title in a minute. First, today was our first day in Nanning and I have to say it is probably one of the prettier Chinese cities I have been in. Maybe it is just the area, as our hotel sits on the edge of Nanhu Park. However, on our extended adventures through the city later in the day (Thank you, Bobby Hamm), most of the downtown area is very nice. In addition, the traffic here is incredibly civil! The most US like traffic we have seen in China to date!

Since we didn’t get in bed until after 1AM, we slept in this morning, almost sleeping through breakfast. The buffet ended at 10:30 and no one really even stirred until 9:30. We ran around trying to get everyone ready and out the door and walked into the restaurant at around 10:15 .. just in time.

After that we went for a walk along the lake that is a part of Nanhu Park. It was a beautiful Sunday morning here and many people were out enjoying the weather.

As is typical with Chinese parks, there were areas for people to exercise along the way.

We stopped for a minute to take pictures of all my girls. However, Riley has now decided again that she does not like her picture taken so you can see her tucked behind on the left side!

We went into an open area that looked like they were preparing for some sort of festival. A lot of areas were roped off as crews were planting and watering all of the landscaping.

I had the girls take a picture of Kelly and I since this is as close as the two of us have been lately. Because of all the people we have with us, the cheapest option is to have two separate rooms. That means she sleeps in one and I sleep in the other. Not the most optimal of living arraignments.

There were many areas where musicians and singers were performing Chinese opera. We stopped and listened to this group for awhile. I am no great connoisseur of Chinese music, but it seemed pretty good!

We walked down to the Nanhu Bridge, which was a pretty structure that went across the lake.

I was able to coax Jessie into taking a picture with Brittany.

We crossed the bridge and went to the other side.

Riley felt that the sun was just TOO hot today!

We made our way back up the other side of the lake, enjoying the weather and stopping at one point to buy some water from a local vendor.

As we crossed back over the lake, I took a picture of our hotel from the bridge.

Jessie decided that she was going to copy Riley, which happens fairly frequently!

So, as to the title. Bobby told me how easy it is to get a taxi and go to Wal Mart! Cheap and easy! So, Brittany, Riley and I went down to the front desk and asked for a taxi. It took FOREVER! Seriously. We waited for probably 20 minutes for a taxi to show up. Once it did arrive, we were quickly whisked over to the Wally World for our shopping extravaganza for a very reasonable $2.

Once we exited the Wal Mart with all of our arms full of stores, the adventure began. First, we had to find a taxi that would take us back. That SOUNDS easy, but it was not! Taxi after taxi told us that the trip was too cheap and they couldn’t afford to take us. We should take a bus. Right. Two non-chinese speaking white people with a china girl that speaks no English. We would probably have ended up in Shanghai!

So, we decided that we would start walking back to the hotel, which started out pretty well. There was one tricky spot, but we started seeing signs for the Nanhu Bridge, and since that was close to home we headed in that direction. Things seemed to be going so well when we hit the lake … or what we thought was the lake. It was actually a river. Ooops. I kept thinking that as long as the lake was to our left, we would eventually hit the hotel. So, we started walking farther and farther from our hotel.

We are staying in a hotel with a huge green ball on the roof! How hard could it be to see that! But, when I still didn’t see it after many minutes, we went into a hotel and asked directions. Riley was a lot of fun and helped with trying to communicate things the people we came in contact with. The hotel was more than happy to provide me a map and directions … for $5CN. Great. Half the price of the cab that wouldn’t take us.

The problem with the directions that they gave us was that they were wrong! We started moving farther away from the city! And it was getting dark!! We started walking into an area that was the main downtown area and it was rather dark and unpopulated. We came across a restaurant and asked again for directions. They told us to take the bus. Whatever. A nice old man tried to help us out and for a minute Brittany and I thought he was going to drive us in his own car! And, the sad thing is, we would have willingly gone! In the end, he pointed us to a busier street to hail a taxi.

On that street the Taxi’s just ignored us, but we saw an “international” hotel. They should speak English there, right? Nope. But we found a very nice doorman there that worked for quite awhile to finally find us a taxi that was willing to take us home. I happily paid the doorman $20CN and the cabbie $20CN, for a total of four times what the cab ride should have taken me.

A few hours after we left we finally came home. But, two things came out of the night. One, Brittany and I had a really fun time with Riley. Kelly and I have wondered how we did this with Ali without a translating child with us. But tonight I realized that it isn’t that hard. You talk to them in English, they talk to you in Mandarin, and the two of you work things out! The second thing was that we roll pretty well with international travel now days! I remembered being in China the first time in a city that had no white people in it and no people who spoke English and feeling very isolated and alone. We are in that same position now, but it feels relatively comfortable. We can make it work. We have done this enough that we are actually becoming somewhat good at it!

So, I am thankful to Bobby Hamm that I got the time to spend with Riley tonight and to enjoy what a fun little girl she really is. Each of these girls is special and unique and it helps to spend a little one-on-one time to realize what their personality really is.

Cameron