We've Finally Arrived

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Hi Folks,
We're finally here! What a long trip it was, 17.5 hours flying time, 2 hours waiting in Vancouver, and an overnight in Hong Kong; then another hour flight and we landed in Nanning. The two hours in Vancouver wasn't so bad, the airport is quite lovely. Trees, bushes, and even 'a river runs through it' in the International side. Hong Kong airport was very big but didn't feel rushed or crowded. We were so glad we had booked the airport hotel though. We were quite tired and it was only a 3 minute walk through the terminal to the hotel, and what a hotel it was. Very fancy, in fact it was voted the best airport hotel in Asia. We basically checked in and went to bed.

Arriving in Nanning was interesting, many forms to complete before we could get through security and then we had to produce our baggage claim ticket to prove we had picked up the right bags. We were met by a student volunteer named Jason. He was surprised by the number of bags we had and said they wouldn't fit in the car. We had to go to the university in a taxi and the university driver took our bags! Stepping out of the airport was like walking into a sauna. Nanning is hot, hot hot! And humid!

We would have liked to have slept when we arrived but the senior student took us to our apartment where we met the departmental secretary. She went over many,many forms with us and then they took us out to the cafeteria/restaurant for supper. That was an experience. The building is huge, there are 2 tables reserved for foreign teachers complete with English translated menus. But, no knives and forks, only chopsticks, and I'm still not too good with those, but boy I'll have to learn fast.

Our apartment is very nice. We have a bedroom, study, small kitchen, bathroom and living room. We should be comfortable there if we could only get some time to unpack and organize stuff - although Alan says there is no room to escape from me. We've been kept busy by our student volunteer. He's taken us on a tour of the campus -very large, and to the markets and all over. Yesterday he even had to take us into town because we didn't have any Chinese money and the campus ATM's wouldn't take our Canadian bank card. Its a 30 minute taxi ride (40 min by bus) to the centre of the city. We need to go back to buy a few things but aren't ready to venture out on our own yet.

Classes don't start for 10 days so we will have time to settle in before coming 'under fire'.

We have had a few 'What are we doing here?" times but mostly we are excited and enjoying the experience.

Talk to you soon.

Bonnie and Alan

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