In Chengdu

We arrived in Chengdu on time and the driver from The Loft Hostel had no trouble finding us. While we, technically, only registered for two nights, we got closer to three nights of use. This is because once we got in to the room, we both, promptly, went to bed. While lights out, on the train, was at 9:30pm; things only started to quiet down about 10:30pm. Even then, there was the constant boarding and disembarking of passengers through the night. Then, about 4am, the crew started bumping around. So, when the lights went back on at 4:30am, most people were already up and awake. This made for a pretty fitful night of sleep.

After getting properly rested Zeneta and I got up and went for a walk to the Peoples Park. This park featured a memorial to the 1911 revolution and is a major attraction of Chengdu.

We spent a couple of hours walking through the park and seeing most of what it featured. I say most, not all, because as we were leaving we were approached by Tray Lee, an independent guide (or, from his card, Cultural Interpreter & Ticket Agent) , who pointed out to us that we had missed the Bonsai Garden. We then spoke to him for a while longer and he made an effort to spark our interest in the Sichuan Opera.

Of course, he was selling his services as a guide to the opera. The opera was something that Michelle and I had wanted to do on our previous trip to Chengdu; but, we ran out of time. This was still something I wanted to do and Tray Lee's offered price was less than the price of the trip offered by the hostels (90RMB verses 120RMB). He added to the pitch by claiming that the performance we would go to was the afternoon performance, not the evening performance He claimed that the evening performance was intended for tourists, while the afternoon show was for the Chinese. He stated that he would sit behind us and insure that we fully understood the performance.

I was noncommittal in the park; but, when I returned to the hostel I did a search on him on the Internet and found a lot of good testimonials. I then sent him a text message, which he promptly replied to, and we were set with an activity for the next afternoon.

Normally the hostels have their own restaurants; however, this ones was under construction. So, Zeneta and I set out to find the restaurant that the hostel was trying to steer us toward , The Woodfish. Because of the large amount of construction going on, most of the street signs were down and while the directions included the instruction to go down four streets before turning, at one point, the question has to be asked; precisely, what constitutes a street? Is it a street if it wide enough for a person the squeeze through, what about wide enough for two people to pass? Possibly, it is a street if it is wide enough for a car; but, does it need to be wide enough for a car to pass another. Of course, street can mean any of these things, depending on the mood of the person who is deciding what a street is.

As I am sure you can see, we did not find The Woodfish on that night. That was not a problem. we went into a cafe that, surprisingly enough, had an English menu. Other than having the names, or brief descriptions, of the food in English the cafe was entirely Chinese and served a variety of local dishes. I ordered several items and we did not finish all of them. I have to say that some of them we only tasted. All done though, it was still less than the bill would have been at a western restaurant (20 RMB). We than headed back and turned in early, seeing as we had a full schedule for the next day.