Night around Nanning

So Jake and I decided we would head out for a night on the town. We decided we would meet in the lobby and i headed down a few min's early to discuss with the front desk on finding a restaurant. We find a guy at the front desk that speaks partial English, and I tell him we are looking for a place to have dinner. He says, "oh the hotel has great food 2nd floor" Well no, we didn't want to eat hotel food, so i ask what all is around a short cab ride away. "Oh McDonald's." And i am like.... How about something Chinese, maybe Szechuan. And at this point he hands us a travelers guide in Chinese. Well that is great, i don't expect everything to be in English, but he then walks away. So here i am staring at this travelers guide.



I call him back over and say. Hey, can you point out which ones are your favorite. And he points out about 3 places. Great. so i take the guide and head down to the cab stand. We get into a cab and the driver immediately nods his head like he has been to this place 20 times today. Sure enough, 20 mins later, 2 phone calls to the restaurant, and asking another cab driver we arrive at our destination.


And this is a funny moment in a foreign country. The cab driver could go anywhere and say. "OK" and who are you to argue. You look around and except your destination, but you have no idea where you are. You kinda say to yourself "well i guess this is ok. people are eating. how bad can it be?"



So we get out and head into the restaurant. And sure enough we get a menu with no English.




So what's next? Have Jake call his girlfriend. Such a novel idea.

She ends up ordering for us. 2 beef dishes and a veggie dish. Some beers and we are good. Honestly, when you go into a restaurant in China. 1 Don't get your hopes up. 2 Just expect that your dish will contain meat normally with some sort of bone or cartilage or organ. 3 Don't plan on getting what you "think" you ordered on the menu. 4 Don't bother arguing about your meal, you are always wrong. 5 Order lots of rice. It may not have a flavor, but it will fill you up.

And should you find that any of these rules DON't apply, enjoy!!! And so our dishes arrived

And i have to be honest, i was pleasantly surprised (Thanks April!). Though we did find out one minor difference. We were in a Hunan restaurant, not a Szechuan restaurant. Now i know all of you are saying... Oh well that can't be bad "Szechuan" means spicy food right? Yea well "Hunan" means YOUR MOUTH IS GOING TO CATCH ON FIRE INSTANTLY!!!! Half the dish was beef and half of it was peppers. I was able to enjoy the beef cause i love spicy things, but i ate 3 peppers and had to finish my beer.

Really we had a wonderful time and then went to a bakery across the street. I am really loving Chinese bakery's each one is a different style. And you can find some fun treats in them.

I then went for a walk around town and took a few photo's. As i was passing one of the buildings they were having night yoga outside. As i have said this is very common and it is neat to see people exercising on the street.

As i have said, everything in this town is lit up. Here is a picture out our hotel window of the interstate.
All of the interstates are this way and alot of them change colors like it is a disco or something. Here is a picture of the roof of the arena in Nanning. This is the flower of the local providence.

Here is a shot of 1 of about 4 downtown areas i have seen. I love all the neon lights. (Sorry for the glare) FYI, my camera's display screen broke so hopefully i can get it repaired.
Last up for the evening we made a stop at Walmart. Nothing all that exciting here, except we found the imported food aisle. AWESOME. They had things like Snapple (cause when i am in China i wanna snapple), Cocao Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Dried Prunes, Mac N Cheese, Pasta, Tomatoe Sauce, and Tabasco sauce. Oh course i got a picture. DUH!