Return from the south

I am back. If you didnt know I was gone, i was for about 10 days. Which did follow about two weeks of a ferocious chinese cold. So am I am back in more than one way.

I spend the last 10 days in Changsha, Hunan and Chengdu, Sichuan. Both are possible cities for my next semester here in china. I went to scope them out, as well as get a taste of southern/central china. Both cites were great, especially compared to Ha'erbin. I also got a good taste of strange mandarin accents. I met several people who spoke utterly impossible for me to understand chinese dialects. Luckily everyone understood whatever I said using my 'standard' chinese. Luckily most of the people spoke some standard chinese, or something close to it.

Changsha was a nice enough city, although fairly characterless, unless you call shopping a character trait. It is a provincial capital which makes it big, similar to harbin with an ambiguous population estimate of 4 million. I rode a bus for an hour and didnt get but halfway across the city. That being said, it was far more enjoyable than Ha'erbin, more of a relaxed feeling, less traffic, smaller roads, and fewer soulless concrete massifs. There were tree lined streets, cozy little restaurants and friendly people abound. There were also several rather large and very nice public parks. Most importantly there was a 2000+year old mummy chinese lady preserved in vinegar. Preserved with her, although not in vinegar, were lots of neat artifacts, including some of the most intricate silk clothing i have seen.

From Changsha, I took an overday-overnight train to chengdu. 11am-8am. Got to see lots and lots of farmland. The only things that interrupted the farmland in the over 600 miles between the two cities were tunnels and other cities. Arriving in chengdu I was met by a representative of the hostel that resembled a member of the gorillaz, the small one with the shifty eyes. Got settled in the hostel then walked down the street to find a small place cranking out the breakfast fair, enormous steamed dumplings dripping with sweet msg laden oil and tasty goodness.

The highlights of Chengdu were the tea gardens, especially at the Taoist temple. I think I spent about 3 hours either at the temple or chatting up 80+ year old retired professors and various other retirees all the whilst sipping delicious jasmine tea. I also managed to venture out of the city to see the world's largest/tallest buddha. I didnt even know the thing existed until the day before I got on the bus to go see it. It was enormous, but even more impressive was its location on a cliff overlooking the convergence of three rivers. There were plenty of other smaller buddhas in the vicinity and swarms of chinese tourists. I had lunch at fishing village nearby. Just after starting to eat I was approached by smiling chinese guy. He asked if I wanted to joing him and his wife and told me he want to treat me to lunch with him and the three large fish he had ordered. I gladly accepted. I ordered some pretty good food, especially this dish of stir-fried green onions and bacon. The fish was really good too. Although only a short while before I had witnessed the fish removed from its bucket and then swung by a rope against the stone floor a few times to kill it. I talked about chinese life, improving quality of life, travel, chinese liquor, and toasted warm beer to warm welcomes to china. By the end of the meal the couple invited me to go with them to a near by scenic buddhist mountain (12000ft) for the weekend and to come visit them in their town. I had a catch a plane back to ha'erbin the next day, regretfully, I had to refuse both generous offers. Although we did exchange contact info for when I do return to sichuan.

http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/chengdu