Last night Jess and I met up for drinks with our new British friends Matthew and Nathan. We met them at the panda reserve while we were waiting for Jessica's turn to cuddle the baby panda. They are working on a 5 part documentary on Chengdu and the pandas, for this presenter named Nigel Marvin. They are in Chengdu for 2 weeks and then are off to the wilderness at Bifengxia to try to find wild pandas.
We took a cab to their hotel and walked down the street a little ways to find a restaurant that was open. In China, especially in smaller cities, there are very few bars and pubs, if you are going to drink and socialize, you do it at a restaurant. We found a place and popped in. The proprietors were very excited to have some foreigners and recommended many Sichuan style dishes. I got some spicy beef and potatoes foe Jessica. Everythig came on a stick, it was spicy and very good! They also gave us lots of yummy tea and we got some Snow Beer for the guys, who had already eaten dinner.
It seemed that the guys didn't know anything about China; they didn't know you had to bargain (!!!!!!!!!) or about the concept of face so we immediately set them straight on that. We just had a nice time chatting about what we had done in China and I gave them tips on cultural scenery they could use to pad their documentary. Nathan told us about the cottage he owns in England, it's in a tiny village with no streetlight and only one lane and one road. Jess and I wanted to go there immediately!
The proprietors of the restaurant chatted with us a bit and asked to take photos with us; like I said, I don't think they got any foreigners popping in often... Or ever! We didn't mind the photos though, as they asked very nicely and posed in the pictures with us.
We knocked off around midnight; the guys had 6:30am photo call and we were tired from our day at the panda reserve.
The next morning we slept in and then took the bus to a big China Mobile store that we had seen the day before. Jessica had bought a top-up card in Beijing, but it ripped when she tried to scrape the foil off the pin number. She had been told by a China Mobile branch in Beijing that exchanging the card would be easy, she just had to go to a main headquarters. Serves us right for thinking anything in China would be easy!
Things were going fine until they realized the card was purchased in Beijing. Aparently the Chengdu and Beijing branches are separate subsidiaries and cannot exhange cards between systems. One hour later of escalating claims to supervisors and making people call the Beijing branch we left sans new card or refund. We will have to go in Beijing and demand a refund. So annoying! My Chinese is better from the arguing, however.
Jess and I are currently in a Starbucks checking email, then we will check out the Tibetan quarter nearby and then we catch the train to Xi'an! I'm excited for Terracotta Warriors!
Showing posts with label CHENGDU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CHENGDU. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
So Over Guilin, Chengdu is Tamada
Jess and I caught the minibus back to Guilin after my last post and then spent a fruitless half an hour trying to find the airport bus departure station. We got incorrect directions from several people, and then someone offered to take us there on foot but then after a block said he didn't actually know where it was. Finally we hailed a cab, who took us directly to the airport, but he claimed we needed to pay him an extra 20 yuan for the 10 yuan toll both ways!! We were pissed. Clearly he was trying to rip us off. I just told him we would give him 10 extra to cover the one way toll and he could find some one else to take back to Guilin. There was some heated discussion, but we had exact change so we won out in the end. Overall we felt as of Guilin was a touristy rip off town, which reinforced my conviction that next time I will go straight to Yangshou.
The flight was on Air China, it was uneventful although a little turbulent. I sat next to a young man whose upper arms were, no joke, smaller than my wrists! I used it as a chance to tell Jessica about the "you call that a man??" phenomenon.
We landed in Chengdu at 11pm and took a cab to the hotel, which was recommended by the book as a basic, clean budget option. We picked it because it was right in front of the departure point for the bus to the panda research center. As advertised, it was clean and cheap, although the room is a bit worn around the edges. I did my laundry, and fell into bed, exhausted.
We got up and had a breakfast, then hopped the bus to the panda reserve. In typical fashion, the bus lurches around corners and everyone crammed in like sausages. Luckily we had seats, so we were spared the worst of it. The ride took about an hour or so, the reserve is about 8km outside of town. This is different from the Wulong Research center, which is about 200Km away and was damaged in the 2008 earthquake. This place is more of a tourist zoo type place.
The weather was damp and dreary, so it made us sad to not be in Yangshou. The pandas were mostly sleeping, although they were cute and I've never seen so many pandas is one place! They also had about 5 adorable and playful panda cubs. Jessica paid 1000 yuan to cuddle one for about two minutes. I got to play photographer for this, so I didn't have to pay anything to be within 5 ft of a panda cub! He was big, about 7 months old and weighing maybe 80lbs. Jess said he was heavy and not soft, his fur was coarse. You have to put on a disposable surgical gown, booties and gloves to hold the panda and the staff just come and rather uncerimoniusly dump the cub in your lap, and then feed it a apple so it stays busy. Still really cute, though!
We wandered around, seeing both red and white pandas. The red pandas look like little raccoon foxes, not so much like the giant pandas. We planned to go back to the hotel early, but we met a Brit who was filming a panda documentary for this presenter named Nigel something. He's on Discovery and BBC so you've probably seen him before. We chatted for a while, they are going to film here I'm Chengdu for 2 weeks and then to Bifengxia reserve in the country to try to find wild pandas. Sounds like fun!
We went back to town and bought our soft sleeper tickets for the overnight train to Xi'an tomorrow night. The railway station has convenient booths scattered around town so you don't have to brave the crowds at the main station. The soft sleeper berths were 300 yuan each, a good deal. My Chinese dialogues really came in handy!
We're in a cafe across the river from our hotel, and will meet the documentary guys for a drink a litle later. We're at the point where we're a little oversaturated with China so a little western dialogue is welcome.
The flight was on Air China, it was uneventful although a little turbulent. I sat next to a young man whose upper arms were, no joke, smaller than my wrists! I used it as a chance to tell Jessica about the "you call that a man??" phenomenon.
We landed in Chengdu at 11pm and took a cab to the hotel, which was recommended by the book as a basic, clean budget option. We picked it because it was right in front of the departure point for the bus to the panda research center. As advertised, it was clean and cheap, although the room is a bit worn around the edges. I did my laundry, and fell into bed, exhausted.
We got up and had a breakfast, then hopped the bus to the panda reserve. In typical fashion, the bus lurches around corners and everyone crammed in like sausages. Luckily we had seats, so we were spared the worst of it. The ride took about an hour or so, the reserve is about 8km outside of town. This is different from the Wulong Research center, which is about 200Km away and was damaged in the 2008 earthquake. This place is more of a tourist zoo type place.
The weather was damp and dreary, so it made us sad to not be in Yangshou. The pandas were mostly sleeping, although they were cute and I've never seen so many pandas is one place! They also had about 5 adorable and playful panda cubs. Jessica paid 1000 yuan to cuddle one for about two minutes. I got to play photographer for this, so I didn't have to pay anything to be within 5 ft of a panda cub! He was big, about 7 months old and weighing maybe 80lbs. Jess said he was heavy and not soft, his fur was coarse. You have to put on a disposable surgical gown, booties and gloves to hold the panda and the staff just come and rather uncerimoniusly dump the cub in your lap, and then feed it a apple so it stays busy. Still really cute, though!
We wandered around, seeing both red and white pandas. The red pandas look like little raccoon foxes, not so much like the giant pandas. We planned to go back to the hotel early, but we met a Brit who was filming a panda documentary for this presenter named Nigel something. He's on Discovery and BBC so you've probably seen him before. We chatted for a while, they are going to film here I'm Chengdu for 2 weeks and then to Bifengxia reserve in the country to try to find wild pandas. Sounds like fun!
We went back to town and bought our soft sleeper tickets for the overnight train to Xi'an tomorrow night. The railway station has convenient booths scattered around town so you don't have to brave the crowds at the main station. The soft sleeper berths were 300 yuan each, a good deal. My Chinese dialogues really came in handy!
We're in a cafe across the river from our hotel, and will meet the documentary guys for a drink a litle later. We're at the point where we're a little oversaturated with China so a little western dialogue is welcome.
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