Old Friend Noodles in Nanning

                          At last...

we can move into the 2011 Adventures in China!!!!!!!

This year's trip was once again special for many reasons.......

it was one of these events seemingly organised "from above" 

and was once again so important at many different levels. 

And so after a lot of amazing co-incidences, on October 5th,  

I set off for China with my Old Friend (known hereafter as Lady A) 

to work with the children of Guangxi!

Anyone who knows Lady A and wonders about the title, just needs to ask me privately about Pilots, I-pods, Tea Shops..and so much more :-)

After telling Lady A that all she needed were cropped trousers & T-shirts, we arrived to torrential rain and cold weather!!!!!!!!

Never have I experienced that in October???

My credibiity was gone!

                                   After settling into our "home" at the Majestic, we were ready to seek out food.

For those who know the area, we were disappointed to find that Food Street ( the wonderful restaurant where you could order ANYTHING Chinese was gone. )

Lady A was unimpressed , having been assured that there was wonderful food available on our doorstep...

my credibility took a further dive........

                                     We set off in the rain to see what we could find at this time.....

                                                   Nanning was very different in torrential rain!

                             Matthew by now in the bright pink to prevent being soaked to the skin!

However, the day was about to be saved as we came to a little Noodle shop tucked away in a quiet street.

We dripped to our table and sat down to share the specially ordered

Old Friend Noodles

                                         

The noodles have a history of a century. 

It is storied that there was a father who drunk tea in Zhou’s Teahouse everyday. 

Once, he missed due to a cold, the boss of Zhou’s Teahouse cooked a bowl of noodles with spicy ground garlic, lobster sauce, chili, sour bamboo shoot, ground beef and pepper for him. 

The father had a sweat and got his illness released after eating the noodles. 

Thus, the noodles gain the name (Old Friend Noodles).

It was very fitting after a friendship of many many years, and a journey of many, many miles to sit down in Nanning and share Old Friend Noodles together

                     Good humour restored, we set off into the rain again to seek out shops!!!!!!!!
                                                              It had got even wetter!!!!!

                                                   Our star buy was this wonderful Umbrella!

                                  PS It was not raining in Walmart!!! We just wanted to try it out :-)

                So we had arrived, survived the long flights, the crazy rain, 

and were ready to start our work the next day!