We were invited to a party today. My friend who invited us had asked us to something before, and we weren't able to go, so I really made an effort to get there this time. I thought it was her party. But, it turned out to be a grand opening of a "Horse Ranch" out in the rural area of Nanjing. I put "horse Ranch" in quotation marks, because it's certainly not what you would picture. We drove through little villages, and finally ended up there. It started at 12:00pm, and we were about 15 minutes late. There were a few foreigners we didn't know there, and we seemed to stand around in this big cement looking courtyard for what seemed like ages. There were some horses in cement stalls in back, and they put some toys in a fenced in part for some of the little kids. Across from the kids there was a fenced in part for 2 chickens, and another for a dog. Finally, after about an hour, Heike, who had invited us came. There seemed to be a lot of Chinese dishes being added to the pot-luck. At about 1:30, they brought out a few horses for the children to try riding. It was fun for the kids because they haven't ever really tried riding horses themselves. Mike is horribly allergic to horses, so he stayed away from them. The meal wasn't ever getting started, and we were ready to go quite soon after that, so we took the kids to McDonald's. Well...it was a China experience! I asked each of the kids to tell me in one sentence how their horse-riding experience was...
Rachel said," It was good."
Nicole said," It was embarrassing."
Caitlin said, "It was slow."
Jay said," It was very, very, fun!"
Eli, who didn't ride one, said," The little Chinese boy ate the chips off of my plate without asking!"
So, there you go.
Here is Mike in front of the new horse ranch. And, Grandma, right behind him. She was awesome!
Caitlin.
Jay.
Nicole.
Rachel.
Here is the little village the horse ranch was in.
This darling little girl was playing in the street. I showed her her photo on the camera, and she was really excited.
