Nanning

After Thanh left me, I emailed Brent(Yin), a university student who lives in Nanning. Brent came by bus to met me and take me around the city. I thought this was extremely generous and hospitable as I am sure he had other things to do. Brent and I took the local bus to his university. This is the largest univ. in the Province of Guangxi Zhuanozu Zizhiou. He thought the school had about 40,000 students. But there are many universities in the city besides his. I met some of his friends who belong to a bike club which he formed. They were all very nice and open. Also an English teacher from the university who invited Brent and I to lunch at her apartment.




What surprises me about China is how open a conversation you can have about anything, especially politics. They seem to not worry saying something that would be interpreted as antigovernment. They did say that in a more public place, like a classroom, these opinions are not expressed and if you did, you would be reported to the Party. Still, fascinating.




We took the public bus everywhere. One yuan(about 15 cents), of course you often don't get a seat and it takes a while, but they run very often. I enjoyed this and saves on taxi fares, plus the taxi driver doesn't always have a meter, so a gamble. The traffic seems like rush hour continually, but it is somewhat worse from 4 to 7 pm.




China is full of modern building and western looking places albeit everything is written in Chinese. Tall skyscrapers throughout the city, large billboards advertising anything and everything. Lots of places for shopping and malls. Now, you can also shop on the street for everything too. Street vendors sell everything too, like tattoos or batteries for phones or jewelry. And street food everywhere. It never ends. In my case, it all looks good. haha!




The people seem to be conditioned to make more of an effort to not litter. I have noticed that most Chinese do not just throw paper wrappings on the ground, and there are more waste cans around. Today, I saw a city street worker picking the cigarette butts out of the flower beds with chopsticks-Now that is tedious work!! But the main streets are very clean and wide sidewalks, so it is easy to walk around, even if there are a lot of people. The problem with the sidewalk is that they ride the motorbikes on the sidewalk too. In fact, everything but the car and bus. ha!

Brent took me to the train station to buy my train ticket to Guilin. It is a 5 hour trip and cost about $15 USD. I couldn't have done it without him as it was all in Chinese again and the staff speak no English. He also showed me where to go to board tomorrow.

I can't access my Facebook Acct in China. Trying to solve that problem but maybe will not be able too.


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Location:Xinyi Rd,Guilin,China