chengdu: wo men zhou luh, bye bye.

Ah. Finally, a breather for me to sit down and blog. Woody is pretty much the wonder blogger. His nickname is now "turnaround" since he turns these blogs out so quick. He also beats us to blog or else we have to sleep on the floor. My back still hurts from sleeping on the hard concrete floor 2 nights in a row.

Also, we are on a STRICT post schedule to bring you the hotness and most current China videos...please bear witness:

Note that we have a column for editor, if it's been shot, if it's been edited, if it's been posted on youtube, and if it's been posted. whew. wo hao lai. I'm going to take a break...wait, i,i, i c-c-can't, woody is watching over my shoulder. Here I go...

Here is an overall pictorial on city life in Chengdu (population about 10,000,000).



Now, Chengdu, according to Frommers, is known to the locals for their tea drinking and hot pot. Two things:

1. Butter Tea is nasty.
2. Chengdu hot pot is nasty.

Like Woods mentioned earlier, Chengdu Hot-Pot is nothing like what we eat in America (mama, dao li ze mu hui shi ah?) We did, indeed, capture this on film, but i shall recap:

"excuse me miss, do you have chicken?"
"no"
"Pork?"
"No"
"Mi Fun?"
"No"
"Fish balls?"
"No"
"Can I have your phone number?"
"No."

So Friday night we decide we need more chinese culture/nature. We plan, and I use the word "plan" loosely, to go to Le Shan and Emei Shan to look at Giant Buddhas and scenery. The Giant Buddha was pretty giant. But by the time we got to the top of the mountain, Woody was literally a skeleton. Good thing i brought beef jerky and water in my 50lb bag to sustain his life. I felt like we were playing Streets of Rage and i gave Woody some ham.

Guilin Giveaway is coming along nicely. My mom is the current winner with 7 posts. Sharon, Cynthia's mom, is coming in second with 5, and Jennifer Yin, my "other" cousin is disqualified because she keeps dissing me. Oh snap, whats up now, cuz?!

Playing it loosey goosey on the plans has been pretty exciting. We've been meeting a lot of locals and they seem to be pretty fascinated with us, especially in the small towns. But, my mommy always taught be not to be so simple.

For example, yesterday in Emei Shan we met a college student by the name of LiuJie (which we promptly renamed "Lloyd.") He swarmed on us when we got off the bus to come eat at his restaurant. He was nice and so we followed. We struck up conversation and he loved that we spoke English so that he could practice. He showed us all the hot spots and told us about Emei Shan and, actually, he was the one that told us about the hot springs in which we soaked in....

Anyway, he proceeded to tell us that he was studying tourism in college, and that he was working to pay his tuition. He went on to say that he only makes $10 a day at the restaurant and that his parents only make $2000 a year(about $286 US dollars...Woody pulled that out the ATM yesterday in about a minute). Let me preface my next question with the statement that he was, indeed, VERY nice and warm and personable, but I must ask....

Are these locals selling us a sob story in hopes to gain monetarily?"

I hate to even ask this question, but I have been seeing the same pattern emerge. Are we being too trusting or am I just being a cynic?

Discuss.

See you in Beijing!