Shanghai to Nanning - Days 1

Shanghai

   Night before - The day before I left I drank into the wee hours of the morning, saying my goodbyes and thinking about how much I have to do the next day -- but actually doing none of it!

   Morning Of  - I had to go to work from 8 AM - 1 PM for teacher evaluations and peer reviews. Needless to say I was the center of the peer review session's collective attention (both good and bad). Then we decided to hit up Pho Sizzling downtown at Nanjing Xi to get a taste a Vietnam for lunch (Why did I decide to eat commercial Pho about 72 hours before I could be eating the REAL THING in Hanoi, I do not know). Then as I sit there talking out my trip with Amanda I realized, because of the 24 hour system I didn't really know when my flight was... was it at 19 or 9 PM (7PM or 9PM)? I remembered a 9 in there somewhere but couldn't remember between the two. At this point it is about 2:30 and Amanda says, "Well it doesn't matter - as long as your packed you have plenty of time, right?" ---- "I'm not packed at all... but I did buy a bag yesterday to pack in." So we write up a packing list on a napkin at the fandian and realize I don't have about 1/2 of what I need... including: Camera, bug spray, sun tan lotion, and a sleeping bag among other things. I rush home and pack my ass off.

    Night - I left my apartment at around 6 PM for a 7:50 PM flight... but I still needed a camera. I explained to the cabbie (in pretty sick mandarin) "I fly from Hongqiao at 730PM But I want camera first. Go to electricity market first, after go to airport. Hurry Up". In, Out, Bang-a-langa-dingdong - I have a Camera and I am at the airport at 7:00. Perfectly executed if I do say so myself.

    The Flight - You know how everytime before you board a flight... and everytime you are sitting in that awkward ass terminal area... you are checking out who is going to be flying with you?
Man that girl is hot..... That guy is def. a terrorist... That couple grosses me out and I want them to choke on eachothers' PBA mutha-Fing tongues! (you get the point). Well on this flight there were two total babes hanging out in the terminal area and naturally, as every man does, I hoped they were on my flight AND sitting on either side of me. For the first time in my life, the Fly Gods smiled down upon me! (Well they both sat to my left but close enough right?)

    JoJo and Penny - Trade glances, smile, and TALK. Status quo. What wasn't status quo was the amazing English that was fired back at me. Turns out they are sisters... both live and work in Shanghai... and are returning to Nanning for Chinese New Year. These two girls are LITERALLY the female dopple gangers of me and my brother Robbbab.

JoJo: 25 (born 1 month after robb), serious, shy/quiet, semi-boring, and relatively logical borderline cold
Penny: 24 (born 1 month before me), loud, outgoing, semi-funny, and relatively weird borderline crazy

Obviously anyone reading this that knows me KNOWS EXACTLY which girl I'd go for, regardless of looks, but turns out she is taken and the other girl is single. And, moreover, anyone that knows me KNOWS EXACTLY what I'd do, regardless of looks, if one is taken and the other is not (naturally). So we talk, bullshit, laugh, and trade awkward silences for about 3 hours. Play rocks paper sissors and its chinese counterpart with the punishment essentially being a version of truth or dare with the dare. All in all a successful ground laying operation.

  Nanning - Get into Nanning around 11 PM. Jojo ask me where I'm going and where I am staying. I tell her Guanxi Daxue (Guangxi University) and she tells me her friend will take me there with her... Amazing. I get into the university, JoJo gives me her number and tells me to call her tomorrow to get a taste of the local side of Nanning. Then I call SHILOH - the guy I am couch surfing with and in retrospect arguably the most baller man in South China. He text me, says can't hear right now but go outside the unversity to the bar called Babel across the street. I walk over there and into a throng of chinese girls bouncing up and down to this white band jamming out on stage -- I walk in the door, backpack on hand and tired as shit to the sound of, "And here is MICHAEEEELL from SHANGHAIIIII! GIVE IT UP!" Needless to say I woke up pretty quickly, was put on the band's free bar tab, and was singing anything from nirvana to neil young at the top of my lungs to a bar packed with Chinese college students for... about the next 3 hours.  Good first night... Gets even better the next two --

Here is  preview: JoJo taking me around EVERYWHERE, Meeting a columbian and his vietnamese gf who show me a secret easier way across the border, and the Chinese Triad mob table at a club demanding Shiloh and I "Join them" for the night.

Nanning was sick -- I'll expound on that preview when I get some time. Pictures coming later.