Nanning

NANNING

So after the interesting airport arrivals, we finally got to our hotel. This is such a posh hotel, I think it even rivals the Marriott!

It has a pretty decent work out area, an outdoor pool that feels indoor (except for the telltale mosquito bites), a decent breakfast buffet (you can tell they are trying, but everything has pork in it, so I’m pretty limited to stale rice krispies- but at least the milk is kinda cool- and fruit).

Our first full day (it may have been the second day, I can‘t remember), a group of us went to the movies, we saw Hankcock. It was in English with Chinese subtitles. We had full intentions to go back to the movies the next day to see Narnia, but we got there, and despite advertising the showing, the playing schedule, and the film itself, they told us the last showing ever of the movie was the day before. Oh well…

I want to say our second night here we celebrated Matthews birthday! He turned 13. So the cast/crew/musicians had a pool party thrown by Mathews’ mom. She got us pizza (which was pretty decent, though I think she had ordered something like 25 pizzas, and when I say they came out one at a time, I mean one came out like, every 10 minutes, they were literally making them one, sometimes two, at a time) and she had excellent cakes. The kids (and adults!) were having water fights in the pool, and since there were squirt guns, the water fight continued long into the night, and didn’t always happen in the pool.

The next day, many members of the group went to the waterfalls that border Vietnam and China. I did not end up going, they left at 730am and had a 4-some off hour travel there, then left around 4pm and had a 4-some odd hour drive back. It sounded really daunting, like a long day, so I passed. I hear the waterfalls are just absolutely amazing to see, but I was just tuckered out and couldn’t see myself going.

I stayed back, watched some movies, read by the pool, went to Walmart, then had dinner with some crew guys.

I’ve been working out in the hotel gym every day. I’ve been doing several miles at a time, but while it’s ended up feeling great, I think I need to bring it back down to only two miles or so. The machines here measure in KM as opposed to miles, but it’s a lap machine and each lap is a quarter mile, so I’ve been doing a lot of laps, for sure, but I think I may have been overworking myself too soon. During one of my workouts, this young asian couple came in, and started working out. They clearly weren’t actually trying to work out because spending a few reps on each machine is not going to do the trick. She also did the bike for about 2 minutes, the elliptical for about a minute, then got on the treadmill next to me. She started to run my speed and made it for about half a minute, before fording herself to go slower. She actually stayed on the treadmill for a few minutes, longer than I’d seen her on anything else.

I’ve wandered the mall a few times, bought my first pair of crocs, on sale, of course, so they were a bit cheaper than in the US, and were sold by an authorized Crocs store, so they are real.

I can’t say I’ve done much of anything exciting here.

Last night we opened the show here in Nanning. The theatre is old, gross, moldy… it’s infested with mosquitoes (handy mosquito kit I bought, glad it wasn’t a waste!), and there have been rat sightings in the dressing rooms and bat sightings in the house, during the show!

Today I didn’t do much. I was going to relax away the day, so I slept in until 9am or so, then went to breakfast. I came back up and watched some tv (bad movies on Star Movies), and got ancy, so I went to the gym anyway. While I didn’t run fast, I ran long, and worked on stamina today, so while I didn’t run anywhere near 4 miles, I went for about 40 minutes. Quite a few cast members had the same idea, and I joined an unofficial workout group. It was actually a lot of fun. I hear they go usually around 11am, so I may rearrange my workouts so that I can be there then. While I was doing well on my own, I feel like I definitely pushed myself harder because they were there. This is odd for me because if you know me well, you know I hate working out when I think I am being watched, but there was something about being in a supportive, friendly environment like that, full of friends. Really made me want to push myself.

Then I changed to go to the pool, but had majorly cooled off by then, and felt the water was just too cold to get in. But not wanting to be cooped up in the room, I still hung out by the pool, and even began drifting away while outside, but I kept feeling like I was getting bitten by mosquitoes, so I covered myself with a towel, but then I was really hot, so I began to head inside.

By then, a few of the young girls had come out to the pool and one yelled, ‘hey, why is (someone I won‘t name) getting off a bus?’ So I turned and looked and saw an entire busload of people getting off a bus. Knowing there was no show matter going on, I became curious, and immediately learned that they had been on a trip to the local caves. This is disheartening to me because over the last several days, including at the show last night, I’d asked several people if they would be interested in going to the caves with me the next day, to have them give an emphatic “no” or another excuse as to why they couldn’t go… And then to see them coming off a bus that had been to the caves...

On the other hand, quite a few people were left out. I don’t know if I should feel better or worse that others that I assumed would be included were excluded as well. It’s weird. I mean, a bus was chartered, so it’s not something that was thrown together at the last minute, and people I had specifically asked and told no were on the trip. It’s a weird feeling, especially considering that I organized the last major bus trip.

But we attempted to get on with our day. Sarah went off to Clay’s room for some bible study and prayer. I joined them at the very end, and appreciate the small prayer they both included for me in their prayers.

Sarah and I then headed to the fast food ramen noodles place, hoping to get carry out. I was intending to bring my own ramen that I can make in the hotel room (and only costs 1.30 yuan, which is about 35 cents, versus the 19 yuan, or just under $3, they charge), but wanted to get out of the hotel and walk around.

But we got there, and for whatever reason, today, they would not let Sarah do take out. So we took a seat, and she ordered, and while we were at the table, she asked for to-go containers, which she got. Who knows why they couldn’t just pack it for her from the kitchen, but apparently, you have to sit at a table if you want to get carryout.

But we made it to the theatre, and all is well.



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Well, a small group of us decided that we still wanted to go to the caves, and Ketner organized a small group trip, 9 of us ended up going (we were prepared for 12, but that’s ok), and we drove off to the caves.

We all got student prices (which is funny because only 3 or 4 of us were students, but they held up drivers licenses haha and I had my BDC student ID), which was 20Y ($3), and off we went.

We were sent on a guided tour that was entirely in Chinese, we were with about 5 other guests who were Chinese. Our guide was great. She didn’t speak much English, but she very quickly learned “Let’s go!” haha it was funny.

So they start off the caves tour with about an hour of this kitchy cultural tour atop the caves. I got much of this on video and in pictures. They sang for us, several times, they did a warrior dance or something, gave us some kind of weird rice dishes, showed us how to make fermented rice alcohol, and we did some kind of pole jumping thing that I sucked at.

But it was a lot of fun!

After about 45 minutes to an hour of this, we finally got to the cave area, but we had to wait for a new guide, and for some reason, they kept us waiting and waiting, but we were on a time schedule, so us crazy americans just took off without the guide. She was not as much fun as the first guide and didn’t in any way try to accommodate us. The caves were very dark and very wet.

But we forged along with the guide close behind. They had this really cheesy lighting thing that pretty much destroyed the natural beauty of the caves, and they were timed with the guide. So this is one of the reasons we attempted to forge ahead, but we would get stuck in very dangerous areas with lots of stairs going down and absolutely no light. We did bring some flashlights, but they were really no match for the dark caves.

But it was entirely too much fun.

That night we closed our show in Nanning and went back to the hotel.

The girls decided to have a girls night, which of course made the men jealous, so they had a Man Night.

This was some MUCH needed fun and bonding. Due to the strict female code, I can’t divulge what we talked about, but my goodness, we needed a night like this. It was soooo much fun to really sit and bond with everyone. And the men made it fun too by playing some pranks on us.

It was just really cool. Thanks, Tiffan, for organizing it.