Have Holga will travel A toy camera buff loses his heart in Nanning...hopefully...

August 12th.  Great, woke up at 3 AM.  Watched television and was quite entertained despite the language barrier.  Commercials are as omnipresent and in the USA.  An incredible thunderstorm moved in at about 4:30 AM.  The lightning and downpour were truly impressive.  The city is very quiet during the storm.  Bad bit of luck in that the satelite TV was knocked offline.  Spent the rest of the morning watching the storm and the city awaken from the balcony of my room.  I can't fall back asleep and Weiqian is coming over for breakfast at 9 AM.  She takes me to a little kiosk for breakfast and we dine outside.  Jacky isn't with us today and she seems a bit nervous speaking.  We will try to solve that issue by buying an electronic translator today.  First things first, we must go to the bank .  It was recommended to me in the States that I use the Bank of China.  I will follow that recommendation.  A branch is located only about two blocks from teh hotel.  I'll give it a go with some of my Traveller's checks.  Traveller's checks prove to be a bit of a pain to use here in my opinion.  First you must submit a copy of your passport along with your pssport.  This copy will be kept so have plenty on hand.  Second you wil need to fill out a somewhat lenghty form.  We went a few stores back to a store that Jacky had recommended last night for the translator.  The model that we settled on gave pronuciation and allowed the entry of short paragraphs.  Unfortunately the model ran 1998 yuan so we had to go back to the bank.  This time I used my debit card at the 24-hour ATM.  Voila!  Instructions available in English, no paperwork, and yaun in hand within seconds.  You do get a better rate and fewer fees with the Traveller's checks but the convenience of the ATM's can't be beat.  Life is good with teh electronic translator in hand.  I had the item recommended to me while in teh USA.  I was told to wait until I arrived here to purchase as the cost would be lower.  True, however the machine is made with the Chinese market in mind.  All the instructions are in Chinese and the bent is to learn English.  Not a problem for most functions, but there are some things that I still haven't figured out.  Translator in hand, Weiqian and I returned to the hotel room and chatted the afternoon away.  She is definitely the one who charmed my heart!  Arrangements were made to meet her mother tomorrow and then proceed to Guilin and other areas for the nest week.  Weiqian took the time off so we could spend the time traveling.  Weiqian headed home.  I watched Spiderman II in Chinese before dozing off.  Weiqian woke me up to go have dinner together.  The food is great here!  After Weiqian headed home for the evening I tried to stay up a bit to fight this jet lag.  let's hope it works!