Last day in Nanning, Guangxi Province, 5/29

Today was our last day in Georgea's home province of Guangxi. We got off to a bit of a slow start because I got food poisoning on Thursday night. Yikes! I got a little daring and tried some fish at a local restaurant. We'd been doing so well & enjoying the local fare, but fish just wasn't a great idea. It sure tasted delicious! :-) In any case, I spent all night Thursday up and quite ill. James was an amazing care-giver & our little angel slept through all of the activity, even though her crib was just outside the bathroom door. She truly is a sound sleeper........what a blessing!! That said, our sightseeing plan for Friday was again altered. We did get out, but not as early as we intended. We tried to pack as much as we could into the few hours before departure to the airport.

We went to a beautiful garden park in Nanning. It was so lush, green, and just wonderfully peaceful. We got to see some dancers, local girls in one of the traditional ethnic minority's attire. So colorful and lovely. We also met a girl from YULIN (!) which is Georgea's home city in Guangxi province. She was working in a shop in the garden park, and she was happy to allow us a photograph with her. She was so sweet and interested in Georgea. She asked if we could come back next year to see her. We loved interacting with this young lady. It made us feel a connection with Georgea's home city, the city where she was so wonderfully cared for for her first year of life. This young lady gave us her email address and asked us to send the photo we took of her with Georgea and me. We will do this and will hope to keep in touch with her. What an unexpected blessing.

While in the park we visited the "Ganlan House." This was an old house from the Zhuang Ethnic minority. There are photos of me with our guide Huang, as well as with James & Georgea in front of this house. Our guide took amazing care of us during our visit in Guangxi province.

On our way to the airport we made a stop in downtown Nanning. Downtown has a completely different vibe than the area where we stayed which felt much more suburban and rural. Even though we were staying in the city, we were surrounded by homes, apartments, small local restaurants & businesses, and the locals bustling around on their bicycles and motor bikes. This was how we imagined China to be. We loved soaking in every minute of the experience. Back to downtown....we stopped at a big convention center building and took some photos. This area was beautiful and had awesome views of downtown surrounding the property. Then we headed to dinner, last stop before the Guangxi airport in Nanning. We went to a traditional Chinese restaurant with our guide Huang. I've included some photos. The food here is so good. They do leave the heads on their chicken and fish, which takes a good bit of getting used to! Huang took good care of me and made sure I had some tofu, since meat is not my thing. We also had the most delicious ginger soup, which I'm sure aided in my stomach's recovery from the night before.

Then, it was off to the airport to travel to Guangzhou. Georgea's first plane ride and guess what..........she handled it like an old pro. No problems. Just clung to Daddy, "goo-ed, ga-ed and coo-ed" for the short 1 hour flight. She fits right into our jet-setting family!