Ticket to Ride

There's not much new to report today! Today was the long 9 hour round trip van ride to Nanyang to pick up Gabe's passport. I was dreading the van ride but it was actually very relaxing (thank you prayer warriors!!)   We enjoyed the lovely countryside and learned about Gabe's home province and home town from our excellent guide, Rosalie. Shout out also to our driver who was so skillful and brave. The lines on the road here are just a suggestion, and people randomly walk or drive a scooter straight out in front of cars. There were a couple times I said my prayers on the trip in the cities because of the other cars. While Gabe napped I tried to figure out what the rules were for when you honk. I think it's every time you, as a van, pass on the left (think: "more cowbell!!"). 

Henan is a province known as the foundation of (Chinese) civilization because of the Yellow River that flows through; all civilization started from the Yellow River. This means that the earliest rulers built their palaces here (palace may not be the right word- big royal homestead things). These palaces are largely in pieces underground, though, because as one dynasty surrendered to another, the previous dynasty's buildings were all torn down. They are mainly agrarian province and grow wheat and rice. We saw the fields on either side as we drove. There are so many trees, too! Henan also has the best highway road system in China I was told. The capital, Zhengzhou (Gin-Jo) is where we are staying. Nanyang is a city in the southern part of the province with 7 million people, and Gabe's hometown. We were impressed by the number of flowers we saw all through the city. The license plate tags for Nanyang (possibly all Henan, but I think just Nanyang) incorporate Chinese characters related to big elephants. Apparently this city was known for the number of elephants that were here. 

We toured around and took pictures then got down to the business of completing Gabe's passport. All done! He rode really well in the van and had a good time playing while I held on to him in the seat or cuddled for short naps. We had dinner at the pizza place in the hotel. Gabe wasn't much interested so he had watermelon slices back in the room. Yum yum! Tomorrow and Friday are free days and then we fly to Guangzhou. If possible, we would like to see the Shaolin Temple here before we leave.