Nanning

We arrived safely in Nanning today.  It's just a three hour  flight which was fairly unremarkable; one can pick our travel group out quite easily as there are few Caucasians here than in Beijing.  Everyone is friendly though. 

This is the area of China where people come to admire the scenery; it is stunning here!  We arrived just in time to see it start raining--our guide, Cindy, tells us that this is the beginning of the remnants of the tropical storm that hit Hong Kong the day before.  It's pouring down rain!!!!!!  And it's not supposed to stop all week!  Monsoon season is definitely upon us!

After arriving at our hotel, the group decided to have one last meal together without the babies.  Our guide suggested a Chinese restaurant not far from our hotel that was next to a shopping mall.   I guess we were all feeling a little adventurous as none of us speak or read Chinese.  We were promptly seated at a large table and a menu was brought to us.  Unfortunately, the menu had no photos or anything that we could make out.  We did have a "cheat sheet" that our coordinator had given us the day before so we could point to things on it and actually we had a decent family style meal.  The 8 of us ate for less than $45--total!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After dinner, we wondered to the Chinese Walmart--it sure looks a lot like our Wal-marts at home.  The only thing we purchased was a large jug of water for $0.70 to make bottles with.  They seemed to have everything we could ever need there though, even Huggies and Pampers brand diapers.

Well, finally the day is here.  We have an appointment to meet Katie at 3:30pm this afternoon.  That's only 13 hours and 45 minutes from now!!! 

Our guides have told us to be prepared for anything.  Many of the babies will cry as they are scared, not to mention that we will be required to wear masks in the building when we meet our girls due to the swine flu...that will certainly add to the drama. 

We can hardly wait!!!!!!!!