ListeningforLyric: July 16

When your eyes open and the first thing that you think is, "Today, my life changes forever." How do you spend the hours until that moment? I mean, really? What can you do to whittle the time down? How can you center yourself so that the hours themselves don't drive you nuts? I mean, a person can only stare out of their hotel window for so long.

Yep, the view from our hotel window. It does give a nice "feel" of Nanning.

I loved this rooftop garden.

I assume that you get out to the garden from a window but then, um, where do you walk?
I mean, without falling off the building?

Next, we went to breakfast...

( K-Man tried out all kinds of Chinese breakfast foods, including rice congee which is primarily what Q-Boo’s been eating for most of her life. It's rice, cooked waaaay down with additives (vegetables, meats, etc.) Next, he had trouble with a “Triangle Glutinous Rice Dumpling,” he brought it to the table, we both looked at it and then at one another. "How do I eat this thing?" K-Man wondered. So, we asked the waitress to help us and finally, after lots of pointing and hand gestures, we sorta figured it out. I’m sure she had much fun telling her friends how we didn’t know if we should eat the “wrapping” of cabbage leaves. It was sorta like a corn husk and no, you don't eat it.)

...and then decided that a person can't do that for so long, either.

So, we took a walk.

"Good morning, Nanning."
Sorry, I just could not go outside without taking traffic pictures.

Most people in the area make their living through agriculture in some way.

By far, the safest thing I saw.
That grandfather has his grandchild
(and the kid has on a helmet) tied to him with a red scarf.
To me, China was characterized by "Life, in all its forms, finds a way."

Street too crowded? Not fast enough?
Take the sidewalk.
No, really I'll get out of your way.
hahahahahahaha

For obvious reasons, finding an arbitrary Longfellow reference
on the side of a building just made me smile.
I've since found the whole poem on Princess T's mom's blog:

Via

    I shot an arrow into the air,
    It fell to earth, I knew not where;
    For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
    Could not follow it in its flight.

    I breathed a song into the air,
    It fell to earth, I knew not where;
    For who has sight so keen and strong
    That it can follow the flight of song?

    Long, long afterward, in an oak
    I found the arrow, still unbroke;
    And the song, from beginning to end,
    I found again in the heart of a friend.

      HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

Yep, I'm in the middle of it.
Later, I would do this with a two-year old in tow.
I want to amend my t-shirt to say,
"I crossed the street in China by myself...with a baby strapped to me."
You know, Lyric would probably roll her eyes and say, "Pah-lease! I rode on a motorbike everyday!" Truthfully, the only way that I did this and took pictures was to never take my eyes off of the traffic and just hold the camera out and snap the shutter.

All right, enough playing in traffic, back to the hotel.

Two hours to go and: