After a good lie-in, we had another tasty breakfast at the hostel (the bacon was the crispiest we've had on teh trip - amazing!) before our receptionist showed us the dozens of films they had saved on a hard drive connected to their huge TV. We didn't have much to do today so sat and watched The Inbetweeners film, which was very funny and took us back to our own trip to Malia!

In the afternoon, we decided to head into the city centre for a look around, which turned out to be quite a surreal experience. We caught the bus from outside the hostel and paid the grand sum of 20p each for the ride - good old government-subsidised transport! Then the staring began, as we were the only Westerners on board, and it continued for the rest of our time in town - Nanning isn't a tourist town so everyone seemed amazed to see us wandering around. Some people would do a double take and then just stop walking to stare at us - a very weird feeling and Laura didn't particularly like it! When we got off the bus, we had a look around one of the huge shopping malls there. Lots of people spending lots of money - not what we expected to see in China although their economy is growing so fast and from seeing people shopping, we can understand why. Today is Sunday and it felt like all of Nanning's six million people had come into town to do some weekend shopping. The streets were crowded and crossing the wide roads took ages and involved dodging the motorbikes that decided to use the pedestrian footpaths to dodge the traffic jams. We wandered past a public square with gardens and watched two different groups of people who were joining in some dancing. One group were doing ballroom dancing and the other group what looked like line dancing but with a twist - a bit more lively! We were spotted watching by a Chinese guy who invited Laura to join in the ballroom dancing but she was too shy!

Halfway up the main street, we spotted a coffee shop with an English sign outside and we decide to escape the madness for a while and stop for a drink. We headed upstairs and into a very dark lounge area, where we managed to order two coffees by pointing at the menu - the English version didn't appear. When it came to paying the bill, we decided to practice one of the Chinese phrases from our 1983 phrasebook that we'd picked up in the hostel. Unfortunately, the waitress didn't understand a word and we had to show her the phrase in the book. Even then, it took her a while to figure it out - maybe the words have changed since '83! Back outside, we found one of the offices where you can catch the shuttle to the airport and we went in to ask about the second shuttle we'd heard about that leaves from near our hostel. We think the lady told us that the shuttle DOES exist, but we're not completely sure - we'll just have to go and hope for the best! By this point, we'd had enough of the craziness and caught the bus back to the sanctuary of the hostel.

In the evening, we got chatting to another couple from England, Luke and Zoe, and we settled down with them and a German guy to watch the last round of the Premiership football for this season, with one of the title-deciding games between Man City and QPR. It turned out to be one of the most memorable games of football we've ever seen, with Man City about to lose the game and the title until the 93rd minute, when they got two last-minute goals and nicked the title from Man Utd, their first for 40-odd years. We were still talking about it as we headed to bed - what a game!

Tomorrow, we're escaping Nanning and flying to Xi'an, home of the Terracotta Warrior army...