I checked into the hostel next to Wen Shu Yuan a courtyard named after Manjushr Bodhisattva. I dumped my stuff in my room on the top floor in a flash and quickly made it the food court. They had food of all sorts specializing in Chengdu flavors, I had fun eating here and there, getting my vegetarian nutrients in. I had hand rolls, one was tofu roll, another was rice noodle roll, another was seaweed roll, another was spring roll with wasabe, I also had BBQ vegetables, and pounded rice dessert. I thought the pounded rice dessert was mochi but it's pounded cooked sticky rice. Each bit tasted like a pound of rice.
I sat outside in a courtyard at a tea place. I had tea for 10 yuan. It was not top grade tea but for 10 yuan it was doable. I saw the server perform long kettle tea pouring that was made famous from Beijing. The ceremony was beautiful. While sitting there I met two Chengdu girls, both were young 9 years old. They hung out with me. One of the girls told me she was a deva for Halloween. They were very cute. I also met Hannah from Canada who is teaching English in Guilin and is on one week vacation. She and I are pairing up to go visit baby Pandas at the breeding park. We hope to catch the one month old pandas in full force during feeding time, which is 8:30am and 9:30am. She is also a vegetarian and I introduced dinner options for her. Aside from making friends with the Police Officers of China, I made friends with more vegetarians than back at home. Afterwards, I hung out with the tea owner and all the workers. We talked tea. I spent the next two hours teaching them English and naming tea in English for them. No, they didn't pay me, it was all voluntary. I had a lot of fun, hung out till closing.
Walking on the streets here was interesting for me to see how many public local hang out places for the poor common folk were about gambling cards and playing majiang during the day. I didn't take notice if there are actually money transactions or not but it's really common and a favorite pass time in Sichuan. On the way back I noticed all these place at night during the dark becomes a public mini TV/Movie theater with just a TV and everybody watching together sitting on stools.
I have learned through my travels here so far that the inlanders have strong opinions about islanders like the Taiwanese, the Hong Kong Cantonese and Japanese. For whatever their reasons for coming up with the opinions, I don't like hearing stuff that is unhealthy and justifying differential treatments.
There is a fad here which is to say "Oh My God" and to also cuss in English even if you don't speak any English. It's all very hip right now.
When I came back to the hostel I waited for the internet and met Peter from Ireland. This hostel I am in is run by Japanese who has a pet mini pig who likes to hang out at the bar along with the pet cat here. It is cute here too. I have decided I needed an extra day of down time to check out pandas, eat, do laundry and just drink tea and chill, catch up on sleep.
