We enjoyed a good night's sleep and a lie-in after our exhausting day yesterday. We ordered breakfast in the hostel for £2.50 each - it's strange to be working in pounds again - which was delicious and just what we needed. I was pleased with the huge mug of English style coffee (I wasn't too keen on Vietnamese coffee!) and the generous glass of orange juice.

We then spent the best part of the day trying to sort our flights out - after eventually managing to send them the documents they needed for the extra security check, our credit card was then declined as Barclaycard thought someone was using it fraudulently! We didn't have enough left on any of our other cards to pay for them so ended up using the last of our precious cash and having to borrow some more from my mam and dad. It went through in the end with our debit card, which means that whatever happens now, we will get to Beijing in time for our flight home and won't get stuck in the middle of China! Hoorah!

We made the most of our time waiting around the hostel for emails by getting some washing done and updating the diary and blog. Before we knew it, it was the evening and we'd been inside all day, so we got ready and headed out towards a nearby shopping centre and restaurants, armed with raing jackets and umbrella - it turns out May is quite rainy in China! After about a 20 mintue walk we arrived at the massive shopping mall/entertainment/hotel/apartments complex, and the stares began...I don't think Nanning gets many western tourists so we got a lot of attention as we walked along. We found the are with a lot of restaurants and opted for an Italian we'd read about online (so our first 2 nights in China we've had Cambodian/Vietnamese and Italian food!). As we sat down at our table we spotted something we hadn't seen since Hanoi...western people! Not many of them, but we'd found some at last! It seems all we had to do was find an Italian restaurant!

Our meal was quite a funny experience as every time one of the waitresses brought something over, she getstured to it and said something in Chinese. I assume she was saying something like 'Here is some complimentary bread and water for you' but it could have been anything at all! And then when we tried to ask for the bill we found that the universal sign for 'can I have the bill?', i.e. miming signing a cheque in the air, doesn't work in China! The first waitress we asked called another one over and I pointed to some money she had in her hand which made them understand what we wanted. When Dave tried to give the waitress money she said something else in Chinese, which we assume was 'I'll just go and get your change', as she appeared again a few minutes later with our change! It was a surreal and amusing experience. I think we need to pick up a phrase book pretty quickly!

It's so strange being a minority here. Even in South East Asia there were always lots of tourists around, and if not, then the locals were used to seeing tourists, but here it feels like we're alients - definitely a new experience for us!

We walked back to the hostel and relaxed on the sofas for a while before hitting the sack. Tomorrow we're going to venture into the city centre...