Happy Birthday Papa!

Today we celebrated my Dad's birthday. Who ever thought his 62nd birthday would have been spent enjoying the sights of Nanning with his two grandchildren. Anyway, according to him, he couldn't imagine a better way to spend the day.

We began by visiting the local walmart...pretty much what you'd expect from any walmart, with a Chinese twist of course (barrels of rice sold in bulk and conveyer belts going from floor to floor that also carried your shopping carts). We then did the American thing and ate at the McDonald's next door.

In the afternoon, my dad and Dom took the kids to a local museum while my mom and I got pampered. Just across the street, there is an amazing hair salon. May mom was there the other day to get her hair cut and just raved about it. So today, I thought I'd give it a try. Since I had just gotten my hair cut before our trip, I decided to just get a wash and style. After about 30 minutes of washing (including head, neck, and scalp massage), I then sat in another chair for more head and back massage, and then in a chair to have my hair styled. It was so relaxing and my head feels great. All this for 15 Yuan (about $2.00). We then went to get a full body massage which was pretty much torture. It was a proper therapeutic massage that nearly sent me throught the roof with pain a couple of times. I'm still taking tylenol to ease the pain. I guess I was carring more stress in my back muscles than I thought. A one hour massage cost 60 yuan (just under $10.00). I just love the customer service around here...it is supberb.

Unfortunately, we were unable to visit Shao's foster family. It is against orphange policy to release the family's address so we were unable to locate the family and coordinate a visit. A representative from Hope and Grace (Shao's foster program) met with us today and picked up our gift to take to Shao's foster family. He also gave us a cd with additional photos of Shao and Yulin City. Any info we can get is better than nothing.

Just after our meeting with him, we met Ayla's foster mom. Ayla is a little girl who was adopted almost a year ago by another Harrah's family. Her foster mom had heard that a Harrah's family would be in Nanning so she traveled by bus over an hour to deliver a small gift for us to take back to Ayla's family. She was so nice and very appreciative of us for taking the gifts.

We ended the evening at the buffet restaurant in our hotel. It was absolutely fantastic! At the end of our meal, the staff brought a beautiful cake to our table for my dad. They all sang Happy Birthday to celebrate his special day. The hotel also delivered flowers to his room in honor of his birthday.

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

Tomorrow, we leave first thing in the morning to catch a train to Guilin. Wish us luck as we travel 4 1/2 hours by train with 2 kids and lots of luggage. We're actually looking forward to seeing some of China's countryside on the journey.

I'm not sure when I"ll be able to post again. After tonight, we won't have a computer in our room. I"ll try to find computer access when we arrive in Guangzhou (Sunday evening).