nanning

we got to nanning and found a hotel really quickly! it was pretty nice and was 80 yuan per night. it was kind of funny though because the bathroom, which was ensuite, had a frosted glass wall. so the person outside the bathroom could see all the goings-on with the person inside the bathroom. who needs privacy?
we found a street with lots of noise and people and food. we found a noodle joint and had pulled noodles, which are made with a chunk of dough that the man stretches, folds, stretches, folds again...til he's holding a bunch of noodles between his hands. then it is boiled and cooked with some veggies and sauce. it's really good. the noodles are all chewy and wonderful. we also got hand-cut noodles from the same guy. these noodles are even better! the guy uses a refrigerated chunk of dough and smashes it around a rolling pin. then he uses sort of a knife and just cuts off small slices of it into the boiling water. these are chewy but also a little thicker than the pulled ones. oh man i could eat these again. sooooo good.
we didn't do much in nanning. we mostly just rested, ate good food, watched old men play chinese checkers in the park.
i got my hair cut there. haircuts are super cheap in china. i got my hair washed, cut and dried for about $3 US. the wash was magical. it was the greatest hairwashing of my life. it was a wash slash massage and lasted for like 15 minutes. the cut was ok. my hair looks cleaner, but it wasn't exciting or anything. then on the walk back towards the hotel, we came across a jian bing place. we had jian bing in beijing and it was good, so we thought we'd try it here. it's basically like a huge crepe with egg, green onions, miso, and chili sauce, then they add this layer of delicious fried crispy and some lettuce and wrap it together. it's basically my favorite food ever. we got a huge jian bing from the nicest people ever for 4 yuan. sooo good. and they wanted to be BFFs with foo, so she talked to them for a while. that made my day. so good. we got more from them the next day because it was so good. and they helped us find the bus to the medicinal botanical gardens, which were really far away and also no longer exist. that was a failed attempt at tourism.
overall nanning was a nice place to hang out and rest for a while. i enjoyed it.
we left on a 7:30am train to hanoi, viet nam the next day...