Chengdu - Part II

Our hostel was in the small Tibetan part of the city. Walking around that area there were many men dressed in monks clothes that would come up to us with a picture of a burned down monastery accompanied by an explanation in Chinese and Tibetan. They would get fairly pushy, stroking your arm, and one even rubbed my belly. All this seemed kind of fishy, but we gave some money to one of them, and then subsequently tried to explain to all the rest that we'd already given their friend money and to leave us alone. The first day we had lunch at a Tibetan restaurant and they would walk inside and harass us. The Tibetan people working in the restaurant didn't take too kindly to them, which made us even more suspicious of what was going on. (There was also a shop we walked by where anyone could by monk's robes)

So basically we were good little tourists in Chengdu. We went to a mausoleum/museum/gardens commemorating Guan Yu, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, who were these important guys during the 3 kingdoms period in China (~200 AD) who took an oath of brotherhood. Rememberance day in China (at least at int'l schools) is about these kindof guys. We also went to a Buddhist monastery where monks still live though its a tourist attraction, to a Tex-mex restaurant, and to see the pandas.

Chengdu - Part I - Getting There

This weekend I traveled to Chengdu with Jesse & Chris. Chengdu is the closest major city to Chongqing and is the capital of Sichuan province. We were supposed to leave at 5:50pm Thurs evening, but somebody (who shall remain nameless) was mistaken about which train station we were supposed to leave from. First, we went to the North Train Station, arriving at about 5:30, only to be told that there are no trains that go to Chengdu from there. We then taxied it to Chongqing North train station, getting there 2o minutes too late. In Chinese the 2 stations don't sound as similar as in English.

So we exchanged are tickets for the 12:30am train, which was a bad idea. Hindsight being as it is, the best thing would have been to take the 6:00 am train. Our tickets got us onto the train, but did not provide us with seats. This wouldn't have been all that bad, but keep in mind that we were on the train for 5 hours, and this train was filled with people who had already been on it for as long as 30 hours. It was loud, (what were these people talking about at 2:30 in the morning?) filled with smoke, (even the train employees were smoking at that time of night), and crammed tightly so that the aisles and spaces between cars were filled with seatless people.

Jesse was standing next to a baby, which was in its assless pants. This meant that he had a birds eye view of how babies in China relieve themselves on Chinese trains. At around 3:00, after a few stops, I managed to get a seat. Seated next to me was a wisp of a man, not much more than a skeleton, who looked slated to have died a few days beforehand. All in all, not a pleasant experience. Jesse said it was only his second worst train ride in China, so that gives me something to look forward to :P

TV Interview

Yesterday I had my five minutes of fame and was interviewed about Halloween. As we were waiting for the crew to set up the stage I was asked by some other people to enter a soundproof room and read a few lines of English. A couple of the lines had the acronym MUN, so I assume that refers to Model United Nations. I'd be interested to know where my voice will be heard.

For the Halloween interview there was also an Irish teacher with me. He carried most of the load answering questions, since he knew about the origins of Halloween, traditional legends and games etc... I didn't have anything nearly as interesting to talk about, just the basics of trick or treating costumes. Our interviewer was very nervous and she kept forgetting her questions and fumbling over her words. I think it was her first time interviewing people on camera. When the team is finished editing I will receive a copy of the interview.