Living the High Life in Chengdu

My trip to Chengdu for the weekend was great – I got to eat Tex Mex, sleep on a mattress, take a hot shower and hang out with Ellie. I took a train on Sunday morning from Mianyang to Chengdu. The ride was about an hour and a half, and for the first half I pretty much just watched the scenery go by and listened to music. However, about half way there, I was approached by a Chinese girl, who sat down next to me. She greeted me in English and started talking, urging me to join her in the seats behind us, where her friends were sitting. They had been to shy to talk to me, until she had gathered the nerve to start talking to me.

I still find it a little funny that Chinese people sometimes find foreigners difficult to approach (yet, other times not at all…) because I’m not exactly sure what they’re afraid of. Maybe that their English is not good enough. Anyways, I talked and played cards with them for the rest of the ride. They were students from Xi’an that were volunteering in the countryside close to Chengdu. I told them about my semester abroad in Xi’an and I had fun talking about the city with them.

I took a bus from the train station to my hostel (Holly’s Hostel in the Tibetan quarter, which I highly suggest), although there was a bit of confusion and wandering as I got off at the wrong stop. I found it eventually, with a little help on the phone from one of Ellie’s coworkers. As it turned out, my hostel was only like a block or so from their offices.

I had lunch with Ellie’s group at a Tibetan restaurant and ate a bunch of momos (Tibetan dumplings with potatoes or meat – mine had meat). Ellie, one of her coworkers (Summi), and I walked around in the People’s Park some too and ended up just sitting at a tea house, talking for hours. It was really relaxing. Then beef noodles at another restaurant (so good!) and a bar, where some people just started jamming out a bit.

I lazed about the next morning, which was really nice. Had a yogurt for breakfast but should have eaten at Holly’s Hostel…I looked at their menu later on and realized they had pancakes. Pancakes! I haven’t had pancakes in…a really long time. I feel like I say that about a lot of things.

Ellie, Summi (btw, I’m guessing at her name’s spelling) and I went to Peter’s Tex Mex for lunch and I had tacos. Amazing tacos. And guacamole. And an oreo flurry (like a mcflurry but better). Afterwards, I took Chengdu’s subway for the first time (there’s only one line and it was just built in 2010). I visited a temple that was on the way to the train station, ran into Ellie and Summi at the station (they were there to pick up the students for their program), and got on my train. Made it back to Mianyang by 8pm…not bad.