Great Last Day in Nanning

Today we spent our last day in Nanning. Although this is not Flora's birth city, it is where we first met her. It will forever be special for us. Flora was off of her schedule this morning. She was up earlier than usual. She took two morning naps and one very short, poor quality afternoon nap. We started the morning with US paperwork. Tomorrow we leave for Guangzhou to complete the US end of the adoption process. So this morning our great guide, Michelle, filled out what she could and then held our hands through the remaining paperwork. We have Flora's passport, which is a Chinese passport. We had the remainder of the day to kill. I did a wee bit of research online and found a botanical garden and trail to visit, Qingxiu Mountain. I told everyone in our travel group about it and suggested that if they were interested we could meet at 2:30 for the outing. Nineteen people, including our babies, showed up. We had a great time. First of all, the park was far bigger than we expected and far more beautiful than I expected. We encountered a covered bamboo walkway. Once we reached the end of the walkway, which was 525m long, there was a nice water stand. We stopped and bought some water. Joanne located a map, which much to our surprise, said that we had not even walked one quarter of the way to the top of the mountain and pagoda. With that arrived a nice yellow tram with 9 seats. We had 17 people. Our thinking...sure we can fit 17 people in here! So we did. We rode the tram until he stopped it. Remember, there is a language barrier...... When we got off the tram we were at this beautiful huge green space with great flowers. In the distance we spotted a lake and a tall tower. As we started walking in that direction, we saw zip lines. As we neared the lake we saw the gigantic clear spheres that you stand in and then float on the water! For 15 yuan, Emily and Claire rode the zip line over the man-mad lake. I was interested in trying it, but wasn't propelled enough until another mom, Kathy, double dog dared me to try it with her. That was it! I was in! It was documented via photographs. We had a fantastic time at the Mountain. The evening was filled with room service and packing. At 6 am tomorrow we head to the airport. We are all excited to visit Guangzhou. I hear there is much more to do there.......we can't wait!