It's Picture Time!

I got loads of pictures from the trip to Chengdu. Here are a few choice ones.

Chengdu is a very different city than Xi'an. Much less structured in the layout. This is partially because of the rivers, and Xi'an having been the home of an emperor at one time.

A big statue of Mao overlooking a large city square. It's probably about three stories tall.

The inside of the Mao Museum. It really was just a small shack with a lot of stuff crammed inside. I had a lot of fun in there, though. Worth seeing if you can find it.

The old man who owns the museum and his weird friend. They were quite nice.

The People's Park was very quiet. You couldn't tell you were in the middle of a city with a population of 11+ million people.

Saffron and our new friend Robert. Like her, he is also English. He's doing a journey around the world and is meeting up with his girlfriend once he gets about half way through. 

We rented a boat and rowed around for a while. The people on the bridge were watching us because they didn't think we could make it under such a low bridge.

We proved them wrong.

There were lots of nice flower and bush arrangements throughout the park.

The next day we went and saw some actual pandas.

They're incredibly lazy. Most of them couldn't even be bothered to sit up to grab the food, and would just reach around until they found something edible.

The baby pandas were cute and incredibly funny. They were always climbing around their cage, and falling onto each other.

For 1000 kuai (about $150 US) you could hold one and get your picture taken with it. I was satisfied with what I got, though most of my pictures are fairly blurry. I took some short videos and they turned out alright.

There were also some red pandas. They look cool, but they're vicious little bastards. They couldn't go for more than five minutes without biting each other.

We made lots of new friends at the hostel. We made them come to KTV with us.

Saffron and Millie.

Mark and Thi

Thi wasn't a very good singer. Luckily that's not an important factor in KTV

By the last night we were practically walking up to people at random and telling them that they had to join us for KTV. I didn't even get these two's names the entire night. I don't think anyone regretted their decision to come.

One of the performers for the Sichuan Opera. The face changing was amazing.

The secret of the masks is very closely guarded, but at the same time they let people take pictures and recordings of the act.

Part of the monastery we went to. I thought it was overly touristy.

On one side, peace and tranquility. On the other, a busy tea house. All in a monastery.

They even had a vegetarian restaurant. Saffron got some sort of  pineapple drink that was pretty much a glass of extra thick bubbles. It was pretty good though.

Most hostels have a pet that wanders around. Mix's Hostel had two cats that like to lurk near the fireplaces in case a backpacker dropped some toast for them.

The "Lantern Festival" wasn't at all what anyone expected. Everyone at the hostel thought it would be a quite event in a park where people light candles and lanterns. We were wrong. This thing was full on carnival.

They were very creative with the "lanterns."

Other times... Not so much. Chengdu is really trying to cash in on the Kung Fu Panda movie. It seems to be a big hit here. I liked it too.

There was a big tower in the middle of the park. Some people took an elevator up. (Lazy) We took the stairs. We took the elevator down because the stairs were very narrow.

Saffron and our other new Brit friend, Helen.

The view from the top of the tower was amazing.

I'm going to miss all the friends we made at the hostel. Robert and Helen from England. Mark, our crazy Dutch comrade. Millie and Thi from Australia are coming to Xi'an in a coupel days, so we'll get to see them again.

Saffron and I are going to spend most of the weekend relaxing and recovering from our trip. Happy New Year everyone.

I think I've Overdosed on Music

I've gone to KTV four nights in a row now. I can't remember the last time I got a full night of sleep.

For those of you who have never been to KTV, it's karaoke. You go with some friends, and rent a private room to sing in. They have nice big screens, tambourines, and plenty of snacks. It's a blast.

But going four nights in a row is too much. Especially when you don't get back till 6 AM.

It's really taken time out of our plans for visiting things around the city.

Since I'm flying back to Xi'an tomorrow, here's another quick update before I can put some pictures on here.

Day Three and a Half: CNY Eve

The Chinese New Year is simply spectacular. In America we set off lots of little fireworks, and go see some bigger ones at shows done by professionals. It doesn't work that way here. As soon midnight hit, the streets lit up with people setting off firecrackers, sparklers, and anything else that went boom. At times I saw people place big red boxes the size of a computer case in the road and proceed to blast large rockets into the sky. For almost an hour there was a constant din of explosions and bangs. There's no way half the things we lit on fire would have been legal to blow up in the US. 

After that we went to the first KTV with a couple Chinese backpackers. That was a lot of fun. Little did I know it was the first night of many.

Day Four: Mexican Food

We spent most of the New Years day recovering from the night before, This would become a common practice for the next couple days. The only interesting event today was that we went to a nice Mexican Restaurant. More KTV followed that night. We went with a Dutch guy we met at the Hostel along with two girls from Australia. Saffron got very drunk.

Day Five: The Sichuan Opera

Once again, we spent most of the morning recovering from the previous night. That evening Saffron and I went to see the Sichuan Opera with Robert. It was more like a variety show than an opera. It started off with some instrumental music, then went to singing, comedic acting, acrobatics, and finally the famous face changing. The face changing was probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen on stage. The performers come out wearing bright outfits and a mask. What's amazing though is that with a simple wave of the hand, their masks change faster than the eye can see. Sometimes they don't even move. You can see any motion at all. The mask is just different. Or gone all together. They let people take photos and videos, so I'll be sure to put small video of it up. It really has to be seen.

More KTV that night. This time Robert came as well as our friends form the previous night. Saffron got very drunk again and tried to drag us to ANOTHER KTV after the one we were at closed for the night. (Or morning since it was 5 AM.)

Day Six: Rest and Net Bars

Slept in. Got to tell Saffron about the previous night. (It's always fun being the most sober.) She promised we wouldn't go to KTV again that night and that we would just rest at the hostel. I went to the Net Bar down the street to have a bit better Internet access. When I came back to the hostel, Saffron introduced me to two Dutch girls and informed me that her earlier statement had been a complete and utter lie.

We went to KTV again that night. We decided to go to a new KTV this time, to give the people at the first one a break from us, and because this one was open 24/7. I left at about 6AM with the Dutch girls because I needed to sleep, and they had to go to see the pandas later.

Day Seven: Today

Saffron woke me up at about noon. Apparently she hadn't slept and had made a new friend when she got back to the hostel. Saffron and Helen (Our new friend for the day) were getting ready to go to a local temple, and decided that I had had enough sleep.

The temple was pretty, but was very touristy. Nothing like what I expected from a Buddhist temple. They had a vegetarian restaurant and tea house, along with a little souvenir stand by the entrance. Oh well. I guess they have to get their funding somehow. For as many people were in their walking around, it was fairly quite and peaceful. I'd like to see one of the temples in Xi'an to see how they differ.

Once I'm done writing this post, I'll be going with Saffron and Helen to see a lantern festival at a nearby park. I hear some of the lanterns are as big as a car.

We'll see how this goes.

Chengdu: Three Days In

Saffron are in Chengdu. Right now we're just chilling out at a net bar. Heaven forbid we spend more than a day without Internet access. I don't have a card reader to post pictures, so that will have to wait till Friday.

Friday, Day One:

We left the apartment at about 1:30 and took a taxi to the airport bus stop, hoping to make it there before the bus left at 2:00. We didn't. It worked out though. We found a very enthusiastic taxi driver who took us and a Chinese man to the airport for 30 kuai each. It was only 4 kuai more than the bus, and we probably got there faster. We ate some snacks at the airport and went to the flight gate. This is the first time I've gotten on a plane that wasn't loading from the actual terminal. We had to get on a little shuttle buss and drive all of 100 feet to the plane. Safety issues, I know, but it was still funny that we needed to drive that far to the plane.

The plane ride was was. I love short rides, because I can sleep most of the way. I think I only woke up long enough to groggily eat the in-flight peanuts and take a sip of water.

Although the directions to the hostel from the airport were very good, we managed to get lost about three times. The people at the hostel were very patient with us whenever we called and asked for help getting there. When we got there at about 9:00 we checked in, put our stuff in our room, and had our dinner around some cozy fires and chatted with some of the other travelers.

Saturday, Day Two:

We met a cool guy from England around the "campfires" the night before. Robert, said guy, came with us to wander around Chengdu. We started off with a nice walk to see the statue of Chairman Mao. It was quite impressive. I wish This computer had a card reader, because I would love to post pictures now. They'll have to wait till Friday night when I get home.

After we saw the Mao Statue, it was off to the Mao Museum. It was hardly a museum, but in it's own way that made it even more impressive. It was located down a back alley street, and we actually walked past it once thinking it was just some guys house. Which it was. The Mao Museum is what you get if you take all the old nicknacks and junk out of your grandmothers house and put them into a small shack the size of my living room. (Not you Grandmom. Your house is very clean.) The Mao Museum is run by an old man who simply likes to show off his collection of old Mao badges and communist paraphernalia. He was quite friendly, and was more than happy to let us wander around while he sat in his little wooden chair by the door. It cost us 5 kuai to get in, and another 5 to take pictures, though I think he made up the price on the spot. Just when we left his weird friend showed up, sporting no less than 5 Mao badges himself. They were quite nice, and were very happy to get their pictures taken as well. The whole place had a very cozy feel to it, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has the chance to go to Chengdu.

We didn't have any specific destination in mind when we wandered around and ended up at The People's Park. I'm always amazed when people can put a park in the middle of the city, and design it so well, you forget you're actually IN a city. The Peoples park does a great job of this. It's mostly a lot of stone paths and tea houses, but there's a nice lake in the middle and we were able to rent a boat for only 20 kuai. We spent about an hour rowing around the central area and the smaller canals on the edge.

After the People's Park, we were dead tired, and went back to the hostel for a nap and some more food. We tried to find a club later that night, but because of the Spring Festival coming up, it closed early, and we weren't able to find it.

Sunday, Day Three:

PANDAS ARE SO CUTE! We had to wake up early to take the tour, and it was colder than a freezer outside, but it was worth it. We went with Robert, and a couple other people from the hostel to the Chengdu Panda Base. I had heard complaints from some people that the pandas were quite lazy, and were often sleeping when they went to see them, but we must have been lucky today, because almost all of them were up and about. Well, up and eating at least. They're still quite lazy. We saw some of the young pandas. Four of them were sitting on a large wooden platform munching away at bamboo. They moved as little as possible, but unlike a sloth, they were simply lazy and didn't feel like putting the effort into getting more food.

We only got a glimpse of the giant pandas, but what really made the day worth it was the baby pandas. The tour guide said they were about five months old, and they were adorable. There were two wooden cages for the baby pandas to climb around and play in, and the made the most of it. There were four in each cage and one off in a pen by himself. Words can hardly describe how great they were so I'll leave that for the pictures later.

Now that we've returned from the pandas, we've showered, napped, and gone to this net bar. In a minute, we will return to the hostel for a dumpling party. Good Times. Good Times.