Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Guangzhou- Chengdu
























































It may sound utter madness but the train we were so excited about getting the tickets for was actually a 30 hour journey. We had decided to plump for soft sleeper though which meant we each had a bunk bed in a 4-person carriage. We got to the station bright and early as we rightly figured it would take some time to find the right train etc., it was completely frenetic and a delicious way of inserting ourselves into China... Finding the right train we settled into our cabin which we shared with a young man, nameless sadly! Not much more to report other than the train journey was actually quite fun! There was a dining carriage next door to us where we went and sat down for lunch and dinner, both of which were really tasty, British rail could learn a thing or two from the Chinese I reckon. We managed to pass the time with games of shit head (in a mammoth battle Adam came from behind to win 12 games to 11*), sleeping, reading, eating.... and before we knew it we were in Chengdu.

We managed to get a taxi straight to a very cool hostel called the Loft. Even though I had been there only a day or so it was already interesting to note the changes which had occurred in China since the five years I had been there last. Chengdu for starters seemed much more modern. Lots of incredibly smartly dressed attractive women wandering about and designer shops, and swanky tourist joints... We began our evening walking to the Peoples Park where we rented a little boat on a lake in a highly kamp fashion, and wandered about taking it all in. Old ladies were doing tai chi, groups of people were sitting together playing musical instruments and singing, and many people milled about all over the place. The Chinese clearly enjoy spending time outside just hanging out, no doubt aided by lovely warm weather which we had. We then spent a couple of hours wandering through the city centre and the main square before getting a bit lost and heading back to the Loft. After sorting out our travel arrangements for the following day we decided to go for dinner.... Initially we were looking for a restaurant we had seen earlier, but we couldn't find it and were pretty disorientated, which was a good thing as we ended up finding an outdoor Sichuan hot pot restaurant. Yum yum yum! You basically have a giant wok filled with spicy oil and you order various things to put into it. Much humour evolved with me attempting to order and fortunately I managed to stop the Mama in charge giving us offal and instead we had squid, pork and a selection of veggies.... it was delicious.

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