Over 60 Beds in a Car

Day Twenty Three (Oct. 2nd Fri.): Today we went to the train station to go on a overnight train ride to Xi’an. The train left at 9:20 p.m. and got there the next day at 12:00 p.m. The train had triple bunk beds (three on top on each other), which looked like they could collapse at any moment. We both got middle bunks, which I think are the best, because people aren’t sitting on your bed. On the top bunks, I think you could smell the people smoking in-between the cars more than if you were in the middle or bottom bunks.

Biggest Buddha in the World, National Day, and Fireworks!

Day Twenty Two (Thurs Oct.1st ): Today is National Day, the 60th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, and I forgot to type that all of China has been getting ready for this before we even got here and that it’s going to be celebrated for a whole week! Today we woke up early to go to the Grand Buddha in Leshan. There were six people including mom and me. There was a Japanese man who was tall and spoke good English, a middle-aged couple (a lightly chubby, bald man with a middle-aged woman with brown hair), and a middle-aged man from Turkey, bald at the top with a rim of brown hair. A small van picked us up at 9:00 a.m. and took us on a 2 hour ride to the “Grand Buddha.” The driver told all of us to meet back there at 3:00 p.m. After the ride, we walked to the entrance and bought two tickets and walked to the top of a cliff. Along the way, there were smaller buddhas and other things carved out of the stone. After we climbed to the top, we had to wait in line because it is apparently a popular tourist site. The “Grand Buddha” is about 71 meters high, and his big toe is about 8.5 meters long! It was started by a monk in 713 AD and took 90 years to build! When we got past the line, we started to descend down to his feet. After a bit, I started to feel sick in my stomach, so we did a quick walkthrough, which was pretty hard considering on the stairs down we were smashed because of all the people trying to get to the bottom. On the way up, we stopped for something to drink and to go to the bathroom. After that I felt a lot better. Then after we exited the “Grand Buddha,” mom wanted to go to the boat tour that went by the “Buddha,” so we walked along a street where people were trying to get us to let them taxi you on one of those three-wheeled bicycles with the seats on the back. Mom asked where the boat tour was, but, of course, the guy spoke Chinese, but appeared to know what we were trying to say. So mom let him take us for a ways but after he could not figure out where is was and started to ask people where it was, mom got tired of it and seeing as we had a time limit, we got off, paid him, and left. We tried to talk to some college-looking kids. A fruit seller said that it was 500 meters down in the opposite direction. After we got on the boat ride for the “Grand Buddha,” the boat sat in front of it for 40 minutes. Then we walked back to the van… Fireworks! After it got dark, the National Day Fireworks started. Uh, darn, tall buildings are blocking most of the view… oh well, from what I can see, the 4th of July fireworks in NYC are better…

Sick

Day Sixteen through Day Twenty One: During these days, mom and I were sick. Thankfully, we were at a hostel with a tv and dvd player, and you could rent dvd’s to play (mostly in English).

Panda Tour *-.-* <- sleeping panda

Day Fifteen: Today is the PANDAS!!! Today we got up at 7:30ish to go on a panda tour at the breeding center.Many people crammed into three small vans, and our driver took us on a wild ride (of course, it’s always a wild ride in China’s cities). When we got there, the tour guide obviously didn’t speak English, and all he did was take us to each of the sites. First we saw the adult pandas, then we saw the red pandas, then we saw the baby pandas, and then guess what!?!?!?!?!? I held a year-old panda for a few minutes (and boy, was it heavy)!!!!!!!!!And they took some pictures and a video! After all that, the tour guide took us to a 15-minute movie about what the people at the breeding center do, a mini museum of the pandas, and a gift store at the end (where mom bought me a panda t-shirt). After that we piled back into the van and the driver drove us back to the hostel. Our hostel this time had its own restaurant built into it and two garden yards which look a lot like a forest with little trails going through it (and at one point in time, we saw the owner’s cat on the roof).

To Chengdu

Day Fourteen: Flew to Chengdu.

The Brown River

Day Thirteen: Today we slept in and went to the bookstore, and mom bought some books for herself. After that we walked to a river browner than the Hudson and searched high and low for a tour boat. We had to follow signs, and crossed a stream of water by walking carefully along a very narrow gangway, having to use our hands to keep our balance, and figure out which building it was… After the long time spent looking for the boat tour, we finally bought two tickets for a 40 minute ride up and down the brown river. To me, it was just one-half really fancy skyscrapers and one-half normal buildings. After the boat tour, we started to walk back to the hostel. Along the way we window shopped and ate dinner + ice cream.

The Chinese Tour + The Water Town

Day Twelve: We had to get up early to go to a tour, but only when we got in the van did mom say that she now thought it was a Chinese tour, so here we were being moved into the bus to take a Chinese tour to the water town (the Chinese Venice). So were stuck on the bus. I read “Eldest” with a Chinese tour guide talking in my ears till HONK went the bus and it drove off the road into a gas station. Then the bus driver and the tour guide got out of the bus to see the truck we hit, although I couldn’t see anything wrong. We all had to switch buses and get on with another tour group (Chinese too), and it’s back to reading. After we got there and were given something to clip on your shirt, they took our picture for some odd reason. Time to start. After walking through some streets to a palace (back in-the-day) and taking pictures, we were getting pretty bored. Apparently the Chinese people thought the tour guide was boring too, for several of them were chatting on cell phones and with each other. After a while, they took us and showed us some famous pork (so said a young college man) who we discovered in our tour. After awhile they took us to a restaurant (where we ordered some of that pork) and were free to shop. At 3:15 p.m., we met back at the bus, and I read all the way back. When we got back it was 6:30ish, so we ate dinner and retired for the day. I also discovered I couldn’t get on webkinz on this little netbook because the screen is so small it will not load the whole page, so I loaded a little more than ½ of the page and that’s it.