Two Panders in China

Well, we're leaving China bright and early tomorrow at, oh, 9 am or so. Not expecting to get too much sleep tonight. We've just been putzing around Beijing the past few days, shopping and eating (Connie bought a humongous new sheep-friend named Franklin ... oh my, she's somethin' else!)

Oh, yesterday for dinner, we went to a little place to eat Peking Duck, and we got same quality as Quanjude (or even better) for a quarter of the cost! It was quite good. But yeah, not much to say. China's been rockin', y'all, and we'll see you all on Monday evening!

haha aren't I funny?!? Anyway, we made it to Beijing without any problems and checked into our hotel about an hour ago. It's a nice one -- pricier than most we've stayed at, but hey, it's in Beijing, and it's a LOT better than the hostel we stayed at when we first got here. And we deserve to stay in a decent place after enduring all those concrete pits, right? It's only $30 USD.

Not much to say, but our last few days will consist of souvenir shopping and finding other entertaining things to do in the capital, so let us know if there is anything else you guys want.

Right now I only have my mind on eating some Peking duck. We're going to eat at the most famous roast duck restaurant (one of the 4 branches in Beijing), and we're starving because all we've had was some airplane food.

Well, that's about it guys. Just a few more days of being stared at and failing to convince people that I'm NOT a Chinese person and NOT Adam's tour guide. Oh how I will miss it.

Connie's right, 100%; hiking Tiger-Leaping Gorge is, by far, the coolest thing we've done yet in China. I have to exlpain a bit about the guesthouses. One of the cool things about hiking Tiger-Leaping Gorge is that the entire path is essentially run by the villagers who live in the four hard-to-reach farming villages tucked away up in the cliffs. The guesthouse we stayed in the first night, the Halfway House, was the house of a traditional medicine man who always had his evenings interrupted by desperate Western backpackers as it started to get dark. He eventually opened up one room, and then built an entire guest house. Lots of the lower paths are built and maintained by various families in the villages. And they're all really, really friendly and happy to see backpackers (since we're a good source of income, I imagine).

So Connie and I slept in at the Halfway House, until about 10:30; we were really tired after the first day of hiking. The rain had stopped, which was good, since I had no intention of getting soaking wet and freezing cold as it started to get dark. Now, we had thought the first day of hiking was amazing; how could it get any better? But the second blew the first out of the water; there's no comparison. We reached the first, uh, adventure probably about half-an-hour after we left the Halfway House. It had rained a lot apparently, and the waterfalls that run down the cliffs were fuller than usual, I suppose. And since the path runs along the cliffs, well, they ran over the paths. Four of them, I believe. Normally, crosing waterfalls is kind of fun. But not when your two-foot path on the edge of a cliff plumetting hundreds of meters into the river becomes a two-foot WATERFALL, full of slippery rocks and boulders and, well, falling water stretching for 30-or-more feet on the edge of a cliff plumetting hundreds of meters into the river. More, please-don't-sleep exhilirating, I'd say. On the first waterfall, which was the biggest, we tried to cross without getting our feet wet, by stepping on slippery, but somewhat-dry rocks. Well, that worked, but not so well -- I was a little worried I'd fall to my death, no kidding. So the subsequent ones, we just walked right through the water on the sturdiest (and closest to the rock face) part of the path. This is where waterproof shoes turn out to be not that useful -- when the water comes through the top. Then it just stays there, because, you know, it's waterproof. So I had mini-swimming pools in my shoes for the next two hours.

The next "exciting" part was more a thrill for Connie. We were descending down the mountain section, to the hill section (after which comes the verticle cliff section) when we ran into a herd of goats, standing on and around the path, just munching on all the grass. You can imagine how excited Connie was ... (very). It was the exact opposite of yesterday. The goats were afraid of us, so when we'd get near, they'd all pack up and move 50 feet or so down the path. And then we'd walk up. And then they'd move again. We repeated this several times (included once when Connie and I backed up against the wall as two or three galloping goats who had missed the others' migration ran by). This probably happened for 15 minutes, and then to Connie's chagrin, we had to say bye bye to the goats.

We reached Tina's Guesthouse about two and a half hours out from the Halfway House. Tina's is located on the road that runs through the gorge, right at the beginning of the cliff section. Coming down the hills, we were slipping around for about 45 minutes, since the path was pretty much just mud. At least there was no danger of falling to our deaths. We had NO idea what was to come. So we ate some yummy food at Tina's, I wrang out my socks and shoe inserts (insane how much water came out), and we relaxed a bit. Then we began our trek down the the river itself.

The paths from the road down the gorge are all created and maintained by village families, so they charge extra admission (just 10 kuai a person) to use their paths. We started at Teacher Zhang's guesthouse, where the lady at the front tried to scare us away ("it's really wet and dangerous! pay us 60 kuai to take you back!). Matt the Englishman, who will be mentioned later, said they told him that two foreigners had gone back yesterday, AND THEY HADN'T SEEN THEM SINCE. Spooky ... So we were about to pay when a woman ran up to us and asked Connie if she could write English, then told her if she translated something for them we wouldn't have to pay. So we went back into their little hut, and their her son (and mother) were both very, uh, hospitable. Like, the mother told the son to get me a chair, so he picked up a little stool and shoved it at my chest. Cute kid. But Connie ended up translating something to the extent of "The Middle Tiger-Leaping Rapids maintainance fee is 5 yuan". AND we got two free bottles of coke; we tried to turn them down, but nope.

So the path itself. You gotta understand that we were essentitally scaling a 300 meter-high cliff. Not actually, mind you; there were very steep paths that managed to weave their way down, sometimes going down huge rocks (wet, of course) about five feet steep. We had chains sometimes to help us. But we were more or less going straight down, the Yangzi river middle rapids beneath us. The view was amazing, not that we could look that often -- the path was wet, and I didn't much feel like taking a deadly dip. I wish we had more photos from these few hours, but stopping to take a photo could, quite literally, be deadly. We descended a bit over an hour until we came to the river and the actual rapids. An amazing place. Right in front of was the raging Yangzi river, the huge rapids, and a giant waterfall dropping hundreds of meters into the water. We could climb into a huge rock in the middle of the river, which put us just a meter or two from the rapids. We have some pictures from here -- it's really amazing (definitely look at our photos -- they're all up, but like Connie said, they can't even begin to show what it's really like here).

And then we had to go up, by way of the aptly named Sky Ladder. First we had to cross the waterfall, over a rickety wooden bridge, though I'm not sure we can call it a bridge since it didn't have sides. You can look at the picture of Connie very slowly crossing it. Then we had to pay 20 kuai to ascend the ladder (the only fee we had to pay -- I'll explain later how we accidentally missed the 100 kuai entry fee). Now, I talked about going down a straight cliff. That was an exaggeration. This is not. As we were walking towards it, Connie was like, "Er, how are we getting up that?" The Sky Ladder was tiny steps carved right into the cliff face. Fortunately, they had chains to hold on to, and the lady at the bottom had given us bamboo poles. But the rocks were wet, and we were always feet from the edge of a very verticle cliff. But we made it up, after an hour of climbing straight up.

It was late in the day at this point, and we realized there was no way we would make it back to Lijiang (we didn't realize it at the time, but even if we had wanted to, we couldn't -- landslides had covered the roads during the rain). So we walked to the last village in the gorge, Walnut Garden. It was just on the road, so it was pretty easy, but with truly amazing scenery. We checked into the first guest house, Sean's, which was highly reccomended by Lonely Planet. We soon realized they had no electricity -- all of it was out because of landslides. The night before, we had heard quite a few rumbles with no lightning flashes; landslides, turns out. And we heard more huge bangs intermittently throughout the day -- explosion from dyanmite, to clear the slides. About a dozen other foreigners showed up at Sean's. We chatted with Matt (the Englishman, who I could barely understand, especially when he was drinking), and Niemh, the Irishwoman (pronounced Nieve). We played some cards as it got dark and drank some beer after our adventure. Sean eventually started up a very noisy generator, which certainly killed some of the charm, but at about 10, they restored power, so that was good. Oh, and all the dorm rooms had teddy bears. That was probably Connie's highlight ...

The next morning, we left pretty early to Qiaotou, by catching a ride from a random guy at Sean's. Now we truly saw how strong those landslides were. There were over a dozen, some of them pretty huge. On scary mometn was when there was a giant landslide covering the road (right beside a cliff, of course), and our driver went right around it -- on the cliff side ... But we made it back to Qiaotou safely, after about an hour. Oh, and to my parents, we passed the touristy part where we had gone on Tiger-Leaping Gorge on the road. Remember the tunnel we walked through? Keep going that direction and you get to Walnut Garden. We also realized we accidentally avoided the 100 kuai fee into the Gorge. There's a ticket booth at the very beginning. When we walked in two days ago, there must have been a bus in front of it or something, and since we didn't look confused (since we thought the booth was far ahead), they didn't suspect us. So with that and our translation, we saved a bit of money. Trip to Lijiang was uneventful, but really, really bumpy. And that leaves us where we are now; new clothes, and going to do some souvenier shopping.

We've both had a great time in China, and we're sad to leave, but hey, we had a hell of a last few days. Tiger-Leaping Gorge is the coolest thing we've done so far, and yeah. I'm done.

Basically, Tiger Leaping Gorge was AWESOME. It was definitely the best part of our trip. Okay, so first we got up freakishly early on Tuesday morning to catch a 7:30am bus to Qiao2 tou2, which is a tiny town where the hiking path begins. The bus was actually continuing on to Zhong1 Dian4, which claims to be Shangri-la, and we were the only ones to get off at the tiny town. We had low hopes, because it had been raining for the entire ride over, pretty much, and it didn't seem to be letting up. We were afraid that we were just going to have to do Tiger Leaping Gorge the typical Chinese tourist way and hop on a minibus just to see a big rock in the rapids, but luckily, that wasn't the case. We went to the Gorged Tiger Cafe, which is run by an Australian woman named Margo. She assuaged our fears and told us that the weather is often rainy/drizzly in the mornings, but lets up and is sunny in the afternoons, so it was definitely safe for hiking. We happily had a cup of tea/coffee there and started walking in the rain to get to the beginning of our hiking path.

What we had read is that the hard hiking path, the high road, while more physically strenuous, is actually a lot safer than the low road where all the buses and tourists go. This is because when it rains a lot, there are lots of landslides which can cover the roads. Anyway, so we started walking to the path, which was a few minutes away. This guy followed us for a while, which was actually useful, because one landslide covered part of the road and there was a huge flow of gushing waters which we had to cross precariously by hopping from rock to rock. Well, little did we know that was NOTHING compared to the waterfalls we were going to hike THROUGH...

So at the beginning of the hiking path, the guy asked if we wanted horses in case we got tired, or if we just wanted a guide, but we declined and he left us alone and wasn't pushy at all, so that was nice. In our backpacks, we each had a liter of water, but it ended up being our reserve of water, since Tiger Leaping Gorge really wasn't as remote or dangerous as they made it sound (or at least, the first day of hiking). There were little stands every now and then when we could buy water.

The scenery was really awesome the entire way through. We were hiking on one side of the gorge, and we kept climbing higher for the first few hours. It was really beautiful to see the Yang2 zi3 River and the surrounding mountains. We took a ton of pictures, but even that doesn't capture how amazing it was, because the scenery was all around us. The path was never very wide, so that meant that we couldn't really stare at the scenery the whole time, otherwise we would fall to our deaths. For a lot of the journey, we were hiking on the edges of pretty steep cliffs that dropped almost straight into the river. Oh, and at the peak of the path, we were around 2660m, so that would not have been a fun fall. And by edges, it was about 2 feet wide. Aside from that though, the path was actually pretty easy going. It was a lot easier than Emei.

The path also consisted of following occasional painted arrows in red, yellow, and blue. There were also advertisements for different guesthouses painted on the rocks. We were making pretty good time as estimated by some of the maps we had picked up at backpacking places. We got to the first main guesthouse in about 2 hours, where we saw a bunch of other foreigners, who we ended up seeing again and again at the various resting points. Oh, and it had stopped raining by now, and was even sunny.

After we had a light lunch there, we started going up 28 Bends, which is basically a steep ascent to the top. Now this is the entertaining part -- we were climbing up it when we saw two cows in the grasses still a bit above us. When we continued higher, one of them had decided to stand in the middle of the path. Now, being me, I was very excited, and got Adam to take a picture of me next to the cow. Well, after he was done, the other cow came and stood on the path behind him. So we were sort of blocked in by the two cows. Well, this was fine with me. I continued walking, and the cow sort of moved to let me and Adam pass. Well, after we passed, they started following us!! I was really excited by this, but Adam was a little nervous. Not really at first, but when we scrambled up some rocky areas, he would go, "well, the cow can't make it up THAT." But the cows proved him wrong, and ended up following us for about 15-20 minutes.

We asked at the next little shop if the cows were hers, but she said they were just cows from the village. Anyway, I was really amused. We continued on, and by the time we reached the next guesthouse, it had started raining again, only it was raining harder this time. We stopped there to rest a bit, eat some Connie trail mix, and then decided to head on to the next guesthouse anyway with hopes that the rain would let up. Well, it didn't. In fact, it even rained harder, and there was quite a bit of thunder and lightning. But that didn't stop us. We trudged along for 2 hours in the pouring rain, but it was great! Even the goatherders were taking a break from the rain, and all of the goats were hiding under an overhang to stay dry, so we got to walk right by a bunch of them.

Once we got to the Halfway Guesthouse, we were totally soaked, of course. But wow, what a nice room we ended up getting! It was the coolest room we've had so far, and with the best bathroom too. It was surprising to get such a cool room in the middle of Tiger Leaping Gorge. We took plenty of pictures. I was also really amused by the room's keychain. It was a huge wooden carving of like, a peanut/gourd. About the size of my hand. I took a picture of that too.

We were starving by then and also really cold. The food was good, and later, the hot shower was AMAZING. Possibly the best shower I've had in China. They even had heat lamps above the shower. Well. I guess it was on the level of the shower after Emei. Of course the problem now was that we had no dry clothes to wear... oh well. All of the people we had met at the earlier guesthouse ended up here eventually too. All in all, we hiked about 7 hours that day and went 17 kilometers, but we didn't really feel exhausted. The path was easy and we had a lot more energy than after the first day at Emei.

So we slept wonderfully and woke up to great scenery and got going around 10:30am. I'll let Adam continue from here. All I want to say is that the Sky Ladder was amazing, and it was really exhilarating to be hiking up rock faces where you had to grab onto a wire to prevent plummeting to your death.

And on an unrelated note, I can't believe that we're flying back to Beijing tomorrow and leaving China on Monday morning. It's happening so soon! I'm going to miss traveling, but it's going to be exciting to get back too.

We're doing Tiger Leaping Gorge tomorrow. Probably figured that one out already. But first! Our day!

My parents already know this, but the entire old city of Lijiang is kind of like one of those mazes you put rats in, except the rat is Adam when he really has to go to the bathroom, and the cheese is our hotel room. We must have wandered through the quaint little streets for at least 30 minutes, in the dark, as it was starting to rain (this was yesterday; Connie thinks this mini-story is confusing. Well, maybe to HER).



Looks cute, right? Well ...



.. more like a deathtrap, please get me to a bathroom maze! It was traumatic, I'm sure you can see.

So today, we finally ate some Naxi food for lunch/dinner (we don't really do the three meal thing anymore). Pretty good stuff; spare-ribs, and an eggplant/potato dish, as well as a Naxi bing (I keep typing Nazi, by the way -- they're very similar. The words...). Connie wants me to point out that the eggplant/potato dish was ACTUALLY an eggplant/potato/green pepper dish. Happy now, Connie? And the Naxi bing was sweet. Oh, she's happy. The downside was the plum wine. I've had plum wine before, and it's always pretty good. But not the Naxi way, which apparently involves soaking plums in a vinegar/turpentine mixture. Ohkh.. (if you know Connie, you know that noise ...)

Then we had some plane ticket drama. Basically, first place we went to didn't do anything. I imagine after we left, they kind of sat there and, I don't know, sat some more. So after we found this out, quite late in the day, we rushed our way to a reputable ticketing agency, CITS (we've used them twice before). It's far away, so we had to taxi. Now, when we got there, the LP said it was on the third floor, so we rushed up -- gettin' close to closing time. And of course, the door was locked, with no sign. So we walk back down, and Connie says something like, "I think there was a doorbell!" So we rush back up again, and it's just a lightswitch. So we walk down again. Then, we think, maybe we can get someone's attention inside! So we run up again and bang on the door, and yell. Nope. We walk down again. We're about to leave when Adam looks at the sign, the sign we'd already stared at and dissected. Oh, it's on the FOURTH floor too! So we run up, our fourth time (there are some construction people on the 2nd floor -- I imagine they were confused), and fourth time's the charm; the saying lied.

No problems there. They ordered the ticket and had it delivered within 45 minutes (while we played card games). Then there was MORE drama. Connie Wang, ever good at directions, was SO happy about getting the tickets, we just kept walking straight. For, I don't know, 20 minutes. In the exact opposite direction. So we backtracked. Well, that wasn't as exciting a story as I imagined.

Also, not related to those two stories, we bought some tea for Connie's grandfather today. We had NO idea how to choose a good tea (he's a connoisseur), and the myriad touristy tea shops around town were probably not going to help any, so we went to the tourist information center and asked them. We ended up going to a pu er tea shop right outside the old town, which was run by a guy who not only really, really, really loved tea (Connie says his stories about different kinds of tea would go on so long that by the end, she had forgotten the beginning), he really, really, really loved only one KIND of tea, pu er. His shop was stuffed with maybe 30 different varieties of this one type; he'd even hung doors from the ceiling to store all of it. He took us to the back to his little tea tasting table (alliteration!) and went through the entire process, which involves, apparently, brewing lots of tea and pouring lots of it onto a clay toad. I didn't really get it. Connie says I make it sound so bizarre. "I thought it was normal!" Well, my description is pretty accurate. I personally thought the cheapest tea tasted best, but he also said that only people with no tea taste thought that -- even more alliteration! I'm on a roll.

And finally, we bought another suitcase to round out our collection. We're getting good at bargaining. We don't even bargain. We say a price we think is fair, let them try to bargain with us, repeat, then walk away. They haven't let us walk away yet (this woman complained she wasn't making any money on it -- don't really think that's true, or else she wouldn't have sold it).

But yeah, that was pretty much our day! Tomorrow, bright and early, we're on our way to Tiger Leaping Gorge, spend the night there in a guesthouse, and hopefully be back to update on Wednesday evening, or Thursday, if we're too tired. It's a pretty intense hike, apparently, and I'm not relishing carrying liters of water. At least Connie has to carry a pack too. AND NO MONKEYS!

Yesterday we just wandered around Dali, picked up a few more souvenirs, and hopped on a bus to Lijiang. We got there in time for a late dinner, which was excellent Japanese food for about 2 dollars each. It was great. We've also recently discovered Yunnan's blended fresh fruit drinks, so we've been getting some much needed fruit by drinking mango, strawberry, peach, etc. The mango is the best though.

We also tried to scout out some stores for souvenirs for various people, but it's kinda hard because we don't know what they'd like, so I'm pretty sure we'll be souvenir shopping-ed out very soon.

Well, we did a bit of research today, and it looks like we will be able to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge (at least a good chunk of it) by just spending one night there. We are definitely going to fly back to Beijing from Lijiang because we don't feel like torturing ourselves on buses anymore. We'll probably fly there on Thursday or Friday.

Today we are going to Black Dragon Pool Park (Hei1 Long2 Tan2 Gong1 Yuan2), which is just a few kilometers' walk away. Also probably more repacking, more souvenir-shopping, and maybe buying yet another suitcase. It will be nice if we can buy a slightly better one this time. The lining of our new one ripped already, though that made it more convenient for shoving in something large, and it is also threatening to tear at the seams. Great.

For some reason, the term "xiao3 mei4" or "little sister" is common here. That's what all the hawkers call me when they try to sell touristy things. And as usual, I have to convince people that I'm American and not Chinese.

On a side note, one thing I am looking forward to when we get back to the US is wearing different clothes!!! I can't help being such a girl.

Not TOO much to write about, but something pretty funny happened yesterday. We were biking through the little village instead of going to the 100 kuai boardwalk with annoying old ladies trying to sell us stuff. Oh! An aside. At night, when Connie and I go out, old ladies, I think, are trying to sell me drugs. They come up to me really furtively and say something like, "Smoke-AH dope-AH?" It's really weird. But anyway, we were biking through the little village and we reached the end, where dirt paths lead through farm fields to a little harbor where the villagers kept their fishing boats (they harvest commorants) and then the lake. There was a grandmother there leading her two little granddaughters to see the lake, about 30 feet in front of us. They kept running close to us and saying, "Hallo! Ni3 hao3! Da3si4 ni3!" Which translates to, "Hello! Hi! Beat you to death!" They didn't just do this once, they came back again and again, yelling they wanted to kill us, running away, and then chuckling like little pyschotics. Then when they were leaving it turned into, "Bye bye! Zai jian! DASI NI!" Their grandmother just kept smiling and chuckling the entire time. What interesting people the Chinese are ...

We're leaving for Lijiang in a few hours; I'm just waiting for the hot water to go on. But yeah; we'll update there!

We were very successful with all of our purchases today. But let's start with the beginning of our day. After some good fresh mango juice at breakfast (I think we're getting addicted, or at least I am -- and only for 60 cents!), we decided to go and try to see the three famous pagodas that are a 2km walk from Dali Old City. Well, somehow it's not mentioned in the LP, but they were charging 121 kuai just to see the pagodas! And you can't even go up them. So we were like, "screw that," and went back to the old city. We had a few issues first exchanging money -- Adam's card was giving him trouble -- but then we found a China Construction Bank that took his card, so we were happy.

Then we decided to bike down to Erhai Hu, which was probably a thirty-minute trip, only to discover that there was another ridiculous admission of 100 kuai to SEE the lake. I mean, how stupid is that? It's a LAKE. So we were like, uh, NO, and turned off the main road and biked through a small village, where we got to go right up next to the lake for FREE. Ha, take THAT stupid ticket booth people.

Well after we got back, we headed straight for dinner. The food was good, minus the local Bai dish that we decided to try. Bai food is known for being kinda sour and spicy, so Dad would probably like it, but we weren't too enthusiastic about it. At the same cafe, we managed to trade our books for two good ones and just pay a little bit.

Afterwards, our bargaining challenges began. We ended up getting a suitcase and various souvenirs for people, all pretty much at 60% of what they were asking, which is what the Lonely Planet said was fair for stores. So we were pleased with that.

Oh! And earrings. The pair I got yesterday is purple and uh, you'll see it in pictures. 15 kuai was a good deal, but today I got another pair (green) for 10 kuai. It was great. I just asked the guy, "can I have this for 10 kuai?" And he thought for a moment and said, "Okay." Adam also got a marble dish for himself, a cool black one with light-colored streaks, which will be much classier for coins than his current blue plastic cup.

Well, that's pretty much it! Tomorrow we're going to take a 3-hour bus ride to Lijiang whenever we decide we're ready to go. We are pretty much definitely planning to fly from Lijiang back to Beijing after we visit Tiger Leaping Gorge. A bus ride all the way back to Kunming would be really painful. Well, that's it!

Oh, and check pictures. Some have been updated.

Well, I'm having trouble sleeping (Connie's still at it, I believe), and the computer lab is open all the time, so I'm taking the opportunity to update (I couldn't last night because I got stuck on the really slow computer because a Chinese couple was playing online cards with a voice that kept saying, laiba, shuai ge, or "Come here, hot stuff". Weird).

Anyway, yeah, horseback riding was quite awesome, though this morning I ache (we were on horses about 3 hours). Afterwards, we wandered around Dali, taking in all the sites and window shopping. Dali is famous for its tie-die cloths and its marble ware, so we looked at a bunch of stores and compared prices. Guys, the marble is really cheap (mind you, I have no idea what GOOD marble is, but it's definitely real stone of some sort) -- you can get a foot-high vase for 10 dollars without bargaining, and I imagine around 6 in the end, since all the places sell the same stuff. So if you want anything, let me know. They're quite pretty. They're also famous for pieces of marble that look like landscape paintings, animal paintings, you name it. Cool stuff.



But while we were shopping, Connie bought a pretty cool pair of earings for 15 kuai (less than two dollars). Purple dangley things. They're really pretty, AND she put them on! Since it's been 6 months, she can finally wear non-stud earings. She can tell y'all more about it, and we'll get a picture.

While we were wandering around, we heard some commotion in a park and went in to look. A kindergarten class was having an annual song-and-dance show, and it was really cute. They had all the little kids dressed up in Chinese traditional (and, uh, some just weird) costumes doing cute little fan dances and drum bangings and whatnot. It was really hard to see, since I guess parents and friends (and just curious onlookers) were crowding the tiny little park. But it was nice.

To answer Mr. Wang's question, there are a lot of non-Chinese people here. In Yunnan, only half the population in Han. But in the old city itself, it's really touristy, so lots of Han have come in to make some money. But everywhere else, it's mainly the Bai and Tibetans. When we go to Lijiang, it'll be mainly the Naxi (the people who are famous for being a matriarchal society, or at least were at one time) and the people related to them, as well as Tibetans. The old city of Dali itself isn't as impressive as some of the other old cities we've seen, but it's really relaxing, even if it is ridiculously touristy. But the landscape around -- the huge mountains on either side, and Erhai (ear-shaped) lake in the valley make the surroundings really, really pretty. We'll get some photos up later today.

But okay, that's about it for now! Today we're going down to the lake, and maybe fishing, as well as seeing the three pagodas. Oh, and as for the title, I liberally applied sunscreen yesterday, but as I was on the horse, and since I was wearing the camera strap, it pulled my shirt at the collar aside a little bit, so I have this really red, badly burned arc on my shoulder. A little bit annoying.

Oh, and old man, don't worry too much about mosquitoes. Dali's elevation is over 1,000 meters, and it's only going to get higher -- should we still use permethrin? Mmkay, that's it for now. Bye!

Well, really, just ONE really hungry horsey. That would be mine. Today we went horseback riding up Zhong1 He2 Mountain, which is right behind the old city of Dali. It was a great deal that our guesthouse had, probably because of all the competition between guesthouses. For 4 hours (well, about 1.5 up the mountain, then we had 1.5 to walk to the 7 waterfalls, then 1 hour downhill and back to the city), it was 50 kuai per person. A MUCH better deal than when we were in Inner Mongolia.

At first we felt really stupid because the guy was leading us on the paved roads where cars were zooming by and such. But then it got better as he led us onto a dirt path, and then it got REALLY cool when we were scaling the mountain on horses. There were some pretty steep and narrow paths, some of which turned corners right near some cliffs (not too steep though). It was a little less cool getting to that part, when we basically charged through a lot of shrubbery. Not so good because my pants aren't full-length, so my legs got scratched up.

Oh well. Anyway, the waterfalls at the top were really cool. We had to walk about 2 km to get to the waterfalls, and they were really pretty. We took pictures, though I don't know if Adam will be able to get them up (and the Grand Buddha pictures await too). I don't actually know what they're called, something related to that though. We got to climb on the rocks right in the middle of the waterfalls, so it was pretty cool. And the view of the mountains and Er3 Hai3 Hu2 was really cool. It's called the ear-shaped lake, and it borders Dali, but we couldn't tell that it was ear-shaped.

The guy who led our horses was really good to them. He never hit them, and he didn't mind when they stopped to eat. Well, on the way up, anyway. Mine got REALLY hungry on the way down and basically ate the whole way down. This was kind of a problem, since he had to stop to do it. Well, at first he tried to be discreet, bending his head to tear mouthfuls as he went along slowly. But later, he just totally stopped and would get a big mouthful before moving along, no matter how hard I pulled at the reins (what the guy told me to do). Oh well, I thought it was cute, so it was still amusing.

Oh! And what made the horseback riding really cool, aside from the fact that we were going up and down the mountain, was that he let our horses go, so he wasn't holding onto them and we were riding them ourselves. He let go of them pretty much after we got off the road and started on the actual paths, so that was cool.

Hm... well by the time we got back, it was dinnertime. And we had Indian food, and it was actually pretty good. We were confused by all of the Indian food, but then we realized how close we are to India. Yesterday we even attempted some Mexican food at dinner, and it was actually not too bizarre.

We might actually do some souvenir shopping here and buy a suitcase, since we're just going on to Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge after this. We are hoping that it won't be too costly to fly from Lijiang to Kunming and then to Beijing, so we can avoid a hellish bus ride back to Kunming. We're going to spend another day in Dali tomorrow and see Erhai Hu, maybe go for a boat ride, and take it easy and do some shopping before heading to Lijiang the following day.

Okay, that's all!

Not too much to write about. We gave Kunming a skip and we're in Dali now, after 27 hours or so of travelling. Quite tiring. We haven't done too much (save eat), but we'll update tomorrow. Now it's time for some much-needed sleep. Night!

Well, not too much happened today, and Connie summed up about all the interesting giant Buddha-y stuff. I realized that I sweat REALLY easily compared to Chinese people, especially when old Chinese women near me say stuff like, "That guy's really wet, maybe he should change his shirt?" Hey, it's hot here. And on the bus to Chengdu, I got stuck next to a guy who decided to stand up in the aisle and put his quite smelly armpits right where my head was. Awesome! They don't really use deodorant.

Well, that was my day!

We killed some time this morning before getting to Leshan since the next bus left at 1pm and was about an hour's ride away. Once there, we finally got to eat some good Sichuan food. We've been disappointed in recent meals, not really getting anything good. We had some yummy green beans and, of course, kung pao chicken. Next, we wandered off to see the buddha, which actually had a fairly steep entrance fee (70 kuai per person). If only we had brought our student IDs, we could have gotten a 50% discount, but oh well.. they double the admission for the touristy months.

So uh, he was quite huge. 71 meters tall. You could view him at the top and then scramble down a bunch of steps to see him at the very bottom. You can't ACTUALLY picnic on his big toenail because he's a national treasure and whatnot, but theoretically it's big enough. There weren't actually a bunch of steps, but seeing as how we just climbed a bunch for Emei, we kind of had a hatred for them.

There wasn't much else to see in Leshan, so we just got on a bus around 5pm to head back to Chengdu, where we'll be spending at least another day, since we still have to buy sleeper tickets to Kunming, which will be a not unpleasant 18 hours.

Oh, things I meant to mention yesterday. First, I realized that there are advanced concrete pit toilets. These are toilets that actually have sloping walls underneath, so stuff doesn't just pile up, but rather uh, slides down. And secondly, the picture of the elephant needs some explaining. That was in the Long Life Monastery (Wan4 Nian2 Si4 -- which one is the famous one on Emei?), and people rub his hind legs for good luck. So we made sure to do that. Except after we finished, we realized you were supposed to do it with your LEFT hand, so then we remedied that. Hopefully if rubbing with your right hand curses you with bad luck or some horrible fate, we at least undid that with our left hands. There were little old ladies who would rub his hind legs and then rub the corresponding areas on their own bodies. It was cute, and kind of odd.

I didn't know that Emei was known for kungfu stuff. Unfortunately, I didn't learn any. What is kind of humorous, and sort of related, is that Adam has been seething and making bitter comments every time he sees anything related to a monkey. He started grumbling darkly when he spotted one on TV. He's become quite sensitive about the topic, I think.

Oh, we're staying in another branch of Dragon Town Youth Hostel, and this one is really cool and modern. It was actually originally a factory, and they turned it into a hostel. Their decor and furnishing is cool.

We also finally realized that we've been wanting non-Chinese food more frequently because we got food poisoning from Chinese food in Turpan, so since then our enthusiasm has been dampened somewhat. We shared this vegetarian pizza as part of dinner tonight, and it was actually pretty authentic compared to some of the quasi-Western food we've experienced here.

Okay, I think that's pretty much it. Hopefully we'll be on a train to Kunming within two days.

Well, I'm going to try not to repeat anything Adam said (please read his post first, long as it is). Just a few comments first: 1) In a tough contest between Connie and Adam, Connie wins. I didn't have altitude issues or anything, and I was pretty much ahead of Adam the whole way and stopping to wait for him to catch up. Ahahahah. 2) The monkey-scaring-Adam incident was hilarious. 3) Those steps were INSANE. I can't believe we actually climbed all of those. I also can't believe that those old pilgrim women with enormous packs climbed it. They were making Adam look bad. 4) I am SO happy to have showered. It's the best feeling ever. 5) I don't think I ever exercised that much in a day. Basically, climbing steps for what, 8 hours? And the fact that we actually climbed steps to go from 550m to 2540m in altitude is uh, just really crazy. But also thrilling.

Oh, and the monkey in the picture in Webshots is the one that attacked him. Hahahahaha.

So by the time we reached the Golden Summit, we were starving. I mean, we had pretty much been surviving on lots of candy and anything to give us quick bursts of energy. So for example, cookies. That and a snickers bar was our breakfast and snack before lunch. But don't worry about us getting fat -- I'm sure we burned a gazillion calories scaling Emei. Anyway, the lunch we had, which was in an actual restaurant with tablecloths and whatnot.. was REALLY disappointing. As in, it didn't even taste good. But it filled us up, at least. The view from the Golden Summit was crazy. Dad, you would have freaked out. Along all of the railings, if you looked down, they were just huge cliffs that descended into nothingness except clouds. Some crazy monk actually climbed OVER the railing to stand on a small piece of rock that jutted out (maybe like, 1 meter by 2 meters) just for a photo. And all three sides of the rock were, uh, well, cliffsides. Yeah.

So on the way down, we decided that the cablecar would be a good idea. No more climbing for us. Even if it was going to be downhill. All of the climbing had actually made our calves pretty sore in going down steps. Well, so we were waiting for the next cablecar to swing by and the door wasn't totally open, so I opened it more and climbed it, but the guy was like, "don't get in, it's not totally open yet!" when I did it. Well, STUPID cablecar guy decided to grab it and pull the door open more, which was totally unnecessary, and that stopping movement caused me to lunge forward and hit my head on the cablecar. Thanks a lot, Mr. Cablecar guy. So now I have a small lump on my head as a friendly reminder. Oh well, at least it's hidden by hair.

Okay, well, I think Adam mentioned the rest. So tomorrow, we are planning to go to Leshan (very close by bus). There's a giant buddha there, the biggest one carved into a cliff face, I think. You can picnic on his big toenail, which is 8 meters long or something. Or maybe it's his whole toe. But yeah. Not really sure what's going on from there except that we definitely have to go back to Chengdu to retrieve Adam's carpet (we left it at the hostel in a luggage room) as well as to hop onto a train to Kunming, Yunnan, at the very least.

All right, well, that's about it for now! Yeah, we COULD have walked all the way down the mountain, but I think my major fear was if we didn't make it and had to spend a SECOND night so dirty. Ew. It was totally worth it though. Just to see how much physical activity I could take, and to see all the awesome views. It was really cool to be above clouds. It would have been cool to see the sunrise at the peak, but oh well. It was still fun and insane. Oh and definitely, as we saw all the steps, Adam was the only one cursing, not me :) Anyway, that's all. Look at the photos!

This rather embarassing fact is, unfortunately, true. I'll get to that later. But we did it! Connie and I climbed well over 30,000 steps over a period of two days to the top of Emei mountain, sleeping in a monastery and probably burning over 100 kuai on water bottles along the way. I mean, I spent most of the time soaking wet since my shirt was inundated to where it could probably be wrung out (check out those photos -- that's ALL sweat), but we did it! And now we're clean, and staying in an actual hotel and eating real food! Okay, I'll start from the very beginning, er, yesterday morning.

So we woke up 7:30ish, ready to get on goin'! Of course, it never really works like that. Connie wanted to take her last shower, and we had an interesting psuedo-Western breakfast (where I had coffee -- not a good idea, as I later found out). We started then bright and early on our trek. For some reason, we decided not to take the bus to the mountain. "It'll be a nice walk!" we thought. Yeah, well, if only we could have seen into the future. Before we'd begun, we repacked the backpacks, putting only the essentials in mine (essentials that I thought were WAY too heavy -- well, not at first. I think I put it on and said something like, "This is nothing!" That lasted, oh, 30 minutes) and EVERYTHING else in Connie's. Connie did it, of course, and I gotta say, Mrs. Wang, you'd be proud of her. She's a packing master. So we walked to the mountain, which isn't too far, maybe a mile or two.

So China has, I believe, four sacred Buddhist mountains, and Emei Shan (meaning Eyebrow Mountain, or something like that, since apparently it looks like the eyebrow of a pretty girl) is the tallest. It's famous for some Buddha riding his elephant over it -- he's now the protector of the mountain, and there are statues of elephants all over. So there's some 30 monasteries and nunneries dotting the peak, all connected by trails (which at the higher altitudes are more like vertical staircases of tiny, tiny little steps). At the top is the Golden Buddha summit, at over 3000 meters (everything is painted in gold there, and it's well above the cloudline). The goal of every pilgrim is to see the sun rise on the summit (and since it gets so crowded, and it's really really cloudy anyway, no one really gets to see it). And of course, the Buddha's halo -- on sunny days, rainbows appear to follow people's shadows, making pilgrims go crazy. And the pilgrims really are the craziest part of the whole journey -- it's a sacred mountain, so legions of old Chinese women climb from bottom to top, stopping in every temple to pray. Some of them are so old they're hunchbacked and go up at painfully slow paces, but they do it! It's really amazing, and always made us feel bad when we were getting tired.

So that's the setup. We started actually climbing the mountain around 10:30, and it was quite pleasant at first. The trail winded up and down through the bottoms of the mountains, passing villages and farm fields and going to the occasional monastery or temple. There weren't too many people here (since it was near the bottom, and most of the Chinese tourists take tour buses up and then the cable car -- yes, there's a tour bus, but for the most part, it's far away from the temples). A little further up, probably around 1 PMish, it was getting packed with tourists, since we were near a cable car stop from the road, and the temples here were really famous. We just passed through, buying water every hour or so. Soon after, we started a more elevator-like ascent, basically going straight up. We didn't really know how FAR between the temples we had to walk, though we knew their elevations. So we would curse every single downward step as taking us farther from our goal (at the beginning at least -- near the end we just wanted to get there, no matter what).

Now, Mr. and Mrs. Wang, I gotta say, your daughter is tough. She just kept going. I'm not sure why, maybe the pack, or the altitude, or she's just a lot tougher than me, but Connie kept getting ahead of me and had to wait for me to catch up (and catch my breath). The air kept getting cooler as we were climbing, but we couldn't really tell -- it was just REALLY, really hot. Oh, and also, starting at 12:30 yesterday, we took photos of us every hour, so you can see the progression from tired, to really tired, to pretty much wanting to die. We kept climbing vertically -- our goal was to get to the Elephant Bathing Pool (where the guy on the elephant's elephant decided to take a bath), which was 15 km from the last temple -- and over 30 from where we started, but we didn't quite make it. We stopped for dinner in a old husband and wife's snack stand; they cooked us up some bacon and onions (the specialty around here) and some eggplant, and that turned out to be the best Sichuan food we've had in Sichuan so far. We (or mainly I) grudgingly started climbing again.

It was probably around five or so at this point, and we just desperately wanted a place to stay. There was no one up on these paths -- no pilgrims, except for three or four going down, and definitely none going up. No monasteries. A snack stand every 45 minutes or so. I was getting a little bit worried about finding a place to stay for the night (or not really -- I just didn't want to walk up steps anymore). But we kept walking up, not hitting any monasteries, until about 7:30 at night. I don't even remember what is was called (Connie probably would though). It was a dinky little place. No wall around it. The roof was kind of falling off. There was a grand total of three monks who lived there. But they charged us 40 kuai each for a double room that was pretty nice, considering we were about 2000 meters up (we put towels over our pillows, since I'm pretty sure they hadn't been washed in -- well, I don't really want to think about it). We were the only guests there, save for a couple of old ladies, and a monk/chef cooked us up our dinner (just green beens -- we weren't very hungry). They grew all their food their in the monastery -- you had to walk through all the cabbage to get to the bathrooms (concrete pits, of course).

We slept well enough, I suppose, in our little room, though we were woken up at 5:30 in the morning by the monks' little drum and bell show (for reason i really don't understand, at various times throughout the day they have to beat drums and ring big bells, and repeat chants over and over again -- I can't complain too much, since we DID decide to sleep in a monastery, and it was a pretty cool experience, but still a bit annoying). So the next morning, we were off and climbing stairs again by 8:30 in the morning (we had a breakfast on the go of a Snickers bar). Our goal was the Elephant Bathing pool, which we made after about two hours of verticle climbs.

First, an aside about monkeys. For the entire first day of the climb, we thought that the monkeys were a myth, made up by hawkers of monkey food to extract money from Chinese tourists. Oh, we were so wrong. At the Elephant Bathing Pool, we saw the the first three of the little devils, scrounging about for food. They're really crafty -- we saw one later steal a water bottle, bite a hole in it, and drink all of its contents. They can open bags, and then WILL steal them. So I had put the bag and walking stick down on a railing to walk around and look about a bit, when this big fat monkey started scurrying towards it (who am I kidding -- they're ALL fat). So I screamed, NO! at it -- and what does the little bugger do? He turns around and charges me as fast as he can! And, to my everlasting shame, I jump back away from it. I mean, the guy is only about a foot to a foot and a half high, and if he DID charge me, I'd kick the little bastard as hard as I could. But once again, my hero, Connie, takes her walking stick and starts banging it on the ground. The monkey backs away -- they've been hit by enough tourists with sticks to know what's safe and not. Connie has been making fun of me ever since. I don't think my manhood will every recover...

So we climbed vertically for another three hours or so -- then took a cable car, for the last 500 meters. LP says it's either two hours straight up, or a five minute cable car. It was more like 20 minutes through the clouds, so I can't imagine what the scramble would be like. Also, at this point we'd been climbing a good, I don't know, 13 hours. But the top, the Golden Summit, was truly amazing. You'll have to look at the photos. We're above the cloudline, so where ever you look our, there's a sea of clouds beneath you. Everything is painted gold (including a gargantuan statue of the dude on his elephant). There's even hotels up there, so you can try to see the sunrise (the stars would be even cooler at night -- no clouds -- they're all below you). We poked around a bit, took some photos, and started our trek down.

Our original plan had been took walk all the way down -- yeah right. By this time, we'd been on the mountain almost 18 hours, we hadn't showered at all, I was soaked in sweat, and it would take another night. So we cheated -- we climbed down to the bus station at the top and caught a bus all the way down. It wasn't until then that I realized how far we'd walked -- it took almost an hour and a half down to the bottom on the bus. All in all, we walked voer 40 km, all up stairs, ascending from about 500 m to over 3,000. Crazy...

Anyway, we got back to town 6ish, and stayed in another hotel (that offered us a much lower price for the same quality room). And that lends the final interesting story, since we went back to the Teddy Bear Hotel to eat dinner. While we were there, we struck up a conversation with the older woman who works there (about TV series at first), and she mentioned that the woman who had brought us in had ripped us off by about 40 kuai. She seemed apologetic about it too. Later in the evening, the owner of the hostel, Andy, came up to us also and apologized for her ripping us off, which I guess is nice, since we were never going to stay there again. So on the way out, we passed our ripper offer, and Connie walked right up to her and told her off in English. Which didn't work, since she didn't understand. So Connie told her in Chinese, and the woman tried to argue, but Connie just said, "It doesn't matter!" and walked off. I'm so proud of her! She finally gets revenge for all the rip-offage.

And I'm sorry I've written so much. Check out the photos!

So we made it safely to the tiny touristy village near Emei Mountain, and they actually have internet access at the hotel, so we were wrong. It was a bit annoying getting here though. We got off the bus to get into this tiny minibus thing, all the while having this lady with a REALLY whiny voice try to convince us and three others to do her stupid little tour thing, which she kept insisting was not something she was trying to sell us. Once we got off the bus, they tried to herd us into a hostel they picked, but we just handed them money and ran off. A lady started to attack us while we were trying to find the Teddy Bear Hotel, and I ignored her, pretending not to speak Chinese. It turns out she actually worked at the Teddy Bear Hotel and we had to deal with her to get our room. But so far, there have been quite a few pushy people today, and we want to beat them with sticks. Well, starting tomorrow we can beat monkeys instead. Big ones too, apparently. We can borrow walking sticks for free from Teddy Bear Hotel.

Our room is really nice, and for the first time, our shower is enclosed, and even in one of those fancy glass-walled things. Of course, our toilet doesn't flush normally, but oh well. We also have a huge teddy bear sitting in the room, but he only has one eye.

All right, well, that's pretty much it. We don't know how long we'll spend on Emei Mountain, but we'll update in several days. Wish us luck!

I don't got one. I just ate my money's worth at the Japanese all you can eat, and I'm feeling a bit panda-like, ie really, really lazy. After this, Connie and I are going to return to the hotel and watch the world cup at the little tea house/bar that sets up in the street outside of our hostel. Not that we know anything about soccer, but hey, we should show some support for America at least. Not much to talk about today, especially since Connie gushed over the only real thing we did today. I swear, she was going to explode she was so excited over those pandas. What a cutie!

Connie wants me to report that tomorrow, before we scale Emei (it's about two hours from here by bus) we're going to stay at a hostel called the Teddy Bear Hotel. She's excited about that already.

Hmm... what else ... not too much. I guess that's it for now. Hopefully there will be a nice, juicy post after we make it up Emei, and plenty of cool photos. There may be no Internet cafes there (actually, I somehow doubt a Buddhist sacred mountain would have any), so no posts for a few days. So no worries!

Well okay. Today was just REALLY REALLY REALLY awesome, because despite having to be ready at 7:30am, what did we do? Go see PANDERS!!!! Supposedly there are 40 or something at the research base, and we probably saw 10-15. And we got to see them chomp away at bamboo. We stayed at the younger ones for a while, but then we also went to look at the bigger ones. They're so cute. You can hear them smacking their lips as they chew away at the bamboo, which they shove at the very back of their jaws. Two younger pandas were eating together, and the more aggressive one would reach and take the bamboo out of the paws of the other one whenever he was done with his. He did it a few times, and we got a picture of it. No pictures today though -- we're using slower computers, so it would take way too long. But they were SO cute! I want one as a pet. Actually, there was this rotating bridge that was usually locked, but the people there could swing it over to let people walk across to take a picture WITH a panda, but for a steep price: 400 kuai. There were 4 or 5 people (all women) who did it, and they had to wear plastic gloves and put bags over their shoes too. They led the panda over to this rock first, and he sat down on his throne. Then they handed him some of the really thick bamboo stalks, and he would shuck them and then chew away at the green insides while the women stepped up one by one and patted his head while posing for photos. I guess if I had been REALLY crazy I would have paid, but it was all right. I just lived through them vicariously. Adam says I was grinning the entire time. That was one of the highlights of the trip. I didn't actually give in and buy a panda stuffed animal though. We'll see if I end up doing that.

So we had to go that early because of feeding time, and after that, they just sleep. They pretty much just sleep and eat, and have to eat a whole lot, because I don't think they digest a big portion of what they eat. Oh, we also saw some red pandas, but those are tiny little things that look more like raccoons. Not nearly as cute or impressive. But okay, so we pretty much decided to live the lifestyle of the panda today. We were really tired when we got back to the hostel. We had breakfast at the hostel and then went upstairs and passed out for naps. Well, I really did. Adam read quite a bit, but I think I slept for 3 hours, trying to make up for the sleep deficit of the past week.

We then wandered about and tried to find that weird underground ride with the dinosaur age and whatnot in the People's Park, but it turns out that they're temporarily closed for renovations. Oh well... at our hostel yesterday, we looked in a magazine for restaurant recommendations and such, and we found a Japanese buffet in downtown Chengdu. We walked there today, and for 68 kuai each, we were able to order whatever sushi, teppan-style meat/vegetables, rice/noodle dishes, sashimi, tempura, drinks, and anything that we wanted. I think they were probably very relieved when we left seeing as how we ate so much. Haha. But no, they probably still made a profit since they served things in such tiny little portions. But it was SO yummy and so worth it. I mean, Todai in the US is $25/person or something, and here it was like $8.50.

So, yeah. That's actually all we did today. Pander-style, I said. Oh! And Dad, you don't have to worry about Emei Mountain. It's actually not quite like uh, randomly scaling a mountain. I don't think Adam mentioned it, but it has steps all the way up and down through several different paths, so it's not necessarily really difficult. It's just going to take a while. And there definitely are temples and monasteries that we can stay in. The Lonely Planet mentions them and even gives some prices. As far as oxygen, the mountain's altitude at its peak is like 3099m or something, which is about 500m lower than Karakul Lake. And we're not doing it really crazily and trying to scale the whole thing in one day -- the LP actually mentions that there's a bus that leaves at 3:30am for people who want to try to see the sunrise the following day -- so it shouldn't be that bad at all! Lots of physical exertion, yes, but no danger. And there are people selling bottled water and food all the way up, so no danger there. So no worries. The main thing *I'm* worried about is maybe having to go without showers :(

Okay, that's all for now. We're going to attempt to send out more postcards tomorrow.

I imagine that when we post tomorrow, after we've gone to the panda breeding center, we'll be making plenty of jokes about the title of our blog. HA HA HA!!! So I decided to give you guys a taste of what's to come! But first, the good news. THE PHOTOS ARE UP! All of 'em! Even the giant jingubang! Hopefully we won't create a backlog this big anymore, but who can say. And the next photos will bring, of course, pandas!

Like Connie said, the flight wasn't bad at all, though I think we're building up a sleep deficit from waking up really early (for five days or so now). The steward who was near me on the airplane was very interested apparently in making a good impression on the foreigner, and kept bringing me stuff (well, an English paper and lots of coffee). He even showed me how the bathroom works: he opened up the door and flushed it, in case Chinese airline bathrooms are a lot different than what I'm used to. And after it all, of course, a comment card. Well, not really a card, like a small essay. But hey, whatev.

And yeah, I shouldn't wait until I have no clothes left at all to do laundry. It really kills my hands, and it's just not that fun. Thank God for washers and dryers. Chengdu has been a pretty nice city so far. Quite modern, kind of like Beijing, but a little less crazy than that (and a lot smaller too, I think -- no subway). Our hotel is in a small section of the old town that's still standing -- quasi-cobblestone streets (the quasi means it's really rocks and mud) surrounded by old courtyard houses from the Qing dynasty that probably belonged to rich people at the time. Our room even has a balcony that looks over it all -- it's a really nice little hostel, and the staff is quite friendly. They even have a golden retriever, which is really unusual -- not many big dogs in China (though there was a tiny, probably two-week old, puppy at dinner, which some people had brought in to eat with them. Well, it kinda laid down and shook in terror, but they ate).

So our plans for the next few days, Connie wanted me to tell you about. After the pandas and Chengdu, we're headed to Emei Shan (Mountain). Which is this:



And we're going to climb it. For, like, three days. See, it's a sacred mountain, and has dozens of monasteries, nunneries, and temples scattered around it, and pilgrims climb over 30 kilometers of pathways to visit them all and make it to the summit to see the sun rise. Along the way, you can sleep in monasteries and whatnot. So yeah, that's our plan! Should be an interesting trip at the very least, though we'll see about the showering situation for Connie.

I'm also writing and sending off more postcards. To the every-whiny Stan Yau, if he is reading, you'll get your postcard, oh, don't you worry. I've already written it, and with any luck, it'll make you teary-eyed when you read it. Not the good kind either. So HA!! Okay, that's it for now. Off to see the pandas! And regret eating that hotpot, which is probably dissolving the inside of my poor poor stomach right now. Oh, it's tkane a lot of abuse this trip ... Ah, well, it's worth it. Bye! And look at the photos!

But first, we have to begin with our amazing bargain yesterday. Adam and I got a carpet for his mom. It was only after we found one that we thought she'd like that we actually tried bargaining. The starting price was 1300 kuai. And it was about 2.5 x 5 feet. And what did we get it down to, you ask? :)

Well. They first automatically suggested 1200. We offered 700. They laughed and were like no, that's for a dinky little carpet! So then we said 800. And they said 950. Or maybe the other way around. But we didn't want to pay that much, so we left, and they were trying to drag us back, saying "ok, 800!!" It was funny, because we walked out of it and went left, and then reached a dead end and turned back. When we walked around it again, 4 of them came rushing out and all started manhandling Adam and pulled him back into the store. But we left anyway.

After going to the bank to get some more cash, we went and tried to find another store with the exact same carpet so we could try to bargain it down more. Well, we found another store, just several stores down, that had it. And they first offered 2300, a blatant ripoff, and we told them of the 800 offer. We asked for 600, they offered 650, and immediately rushed to wrap it up, but we told them we didn't want it and walked back to the other store. We told THEM that the other store offered us 650 for the exact same. At first they didn't believe us and tried to lie and say no other stores had their stuff, but then they could tell we were telling the truth. They offered to match it, but we were like "no, then we'll go back to them." And so we got it for 600. Yeah, over 50% off. And one of the women there sighed and shook her head several times, showing how disappointed she was that they only got 600 from us. The main guy we dealt with pointed at his head while looking at Adam and made a thumbs up, as if to say Adam was really intelligent. They were a bunch of Uighurs, so we did our dealings with a calculator, mostly. But we were both thrilled from that deal.

Oh, and here's a sidenote for Mom -- Adam and I have been watching Shui3 Yun2 Jian1 (with Ma2 Jing3 Tao1 and Chen2 De2 Rong2) the past few nights. It's pretty entertaining with all the overacting. Anyway.

The flight to Chengdu this morning was fine, and we arrived before 1pm, I think. We headed to the Dragon Town Youth Hostel, or Long2 Tang2 Ke4 Zhan4. I'm very entertained because the title is similar to Long2 Men2 Ke4 Zhan4 (wasn't that the movie about eating baozi made of people?). We were thrilled with our room, because there's actually a bathtub in there! No curtain of course, so it will still spatter all over the toilet seat cover and floor and sink, but it's at least sort of an attempt. I think it's our second bathtub so far this trip.

We spent a good chunk of the afternoon doing laundry to prepare for our crazy trek up and down Emei Mountain, which Adam can tell you guys about. Then we went to People's Park, which was supposed to have an amusing underground ride with random things of the Wild West and dinosaurs and other things.. but no. We accidentally went to the wrong one (who knew there'd be two underground amusement things in the park?) and it was another one of those haunted house things. The dinosaur one was closed. Maybe tomorrow.

So TOMORROW, you know what we're doing? Going to see the pandas at 7:30 in the morning!!!!! And we get to see them feed! I might have to break down and buy a panda stuffed animal or something. I mean, not that I don't already have pandas. But you know.

Oh, yeah, and my title. So we had hotpot for dinner. And it really, really burned. It felt like the space above my upper lip was on fire for most of the meal, even though for about 3/4 of it I was just eating the non-spicy part. And for some reason, only the spicy part was really boiling. Oh well..

So yeah, I don't know what else is planned besides pandas for tomorrow. But that should be pretty awesome. That's all!