More of Nanning

Today Mary took us to Green Hill Park, another beautiful park in Nanning where we toured a Buddhist temple and an eight-sided pagoda built by the Taoists.

A small portion of the Chinese population practices Buddhism and although there were a lot of sightseers, many people were there worshipping as well. They brought donations of fruit to the Buddha (which would be used by the monks there and given out to children) and they were bowing to the statues. Very interesting. I think the smoke from all the incense being burned may have taken a few years off my life.

Next, we went to a nine story pagoda built by Taoists (several hundred years ago, I think she said). The original structure was torn down by the Chinese in 1937 because of the war. They did not want to give the Japanese a visible structure by which they could mark out the city to bomb it. After the war it was rebuilt to look like the original. Climbing to the top (and yes, we did make it) allowed us a great view of Nanning. The view was hazy though. Not sure if this was due to clouds or the incense from down below. :)

Lia is definitely getting more comfortable with us. She has a preference for me but will go to Scott as well (for which my back is extremely grateful). We caught her in a second smile today while watching two girls from our group play at the restaurant. I know there's a wild woman in there. We're just waiting for her to come out.

We are picking up pictures this afternoon from a local photo shop that were taken on the disposable cameras we sent to the orphanage after getting Lia's referral. We need to develop them here so the airport check-in machine doesn't ruin the film. I'm hoping that in them I'll find more pictures of that sweet smile.