Panda Power

So i went to the panda research station. it was amazing. well worth the trip. i dare say the 18 hour train rdie was worth it for just this morning. the pandas were so cute. like big fluffy dolls. i get a few houndred photos. but as i forgot to repack my usb cable i cant post. mabye tonight someone will have one. but the big highlight was the red pandas. i have my picture holding a little red panda. yea thats right. i got to hold a panda!!! it was soooo cute and soft. i got to feed it apples.
and i resisted the temptation to buy a panda hat. as cute and ridiculous as it is it would go the way of my london hat. a decoration on a shelf. i'd rather print out some of these panda photos for the same price.

so this afternoon i booked my train ticket back south (25 freakin hour train ride) but i got a real novel now. no more old english classics. some thriller book about an assasign. im just lucky they have a book exchange. they had a few tom clancy's but i read em. although i was tempted to pick up rainbow 6 again.

the afternoon i spent wandering the city. just killing time going no where. i discovered a new food but i already forget what it is called. it basically was a pancake that could be folded over in a taco and filled with anythrim from peppers to sugar. it was really good. i also tried bamboo. and well its panda food, its sweet and juicy but its just fibers. i mean yea it fills you up quick but doesnt digestwell. ehh.

so im going to go again see if i can find a notebook. i guess ill read and write on the train. writing is a fun way to kill a few hours.

oh i also learned bank of china has a nice policy. they charge 10 koai every time you withdraw money in a province outside of where you opened the account. using the atm to withdraw 100 koai its a 10 koai fee. withdraw 1000 its a 10 koai fee... i wish i knew that. i've been getting charged and not know it. i would not have been taking money out in 100 or 200 increments. i mean its ridiculous. least i think so. its one country, one bank... why start this ridiculous charges?

anyway. ok so that is that and uh hope i come home!

Chengdu

So i was a little disapointed when i first arrived. a little bummed i was alone. i dont like being alone. i get lonely. the trainride was long. only 18 hours. (the next one i plan to takeis 25 hours by train) but with no music player and robinson crusoe (i waas about to pick up little women but sadly the book to me seemd like a time warm of sex in the city)\

so i arrived in chengdu to find a FREAKIN　Awsome hostel. this place is gorgous. so i spent theday waanterin the city and foudn a monestary. i figured no big deal another temple amoung many. this is not like the temples in beijing. this was a working monestary and it was HUGE. the buildings ar all well kept up, and just plain pretty. but what was truely awsome was the garden. half this place was gardens. and if its one thing the chinese can do its a garden. i spend almost houror 2 just walkin through it. it was amazing. they even had a tea house. i didnt stop i wasnt in the mood for tea.

spent the afternoon wandering the nearby market streets lookin at the trinkets. its fun to window shop at the useless stuff.

came back to the hostel to look for company. i was hungry. last i ate was yesterday around 230, it was then about 6pm i was hungry. sadly no one wanted to eat. they all claimed to have eaten. so i wandered off to this little noodle shop it was sugested in the map. it was nothing special. but it was near a park and that was fun to wander around the park at night. it also had a night market with all sorts of odd wares. my favorite was a stall with small chu ku nus to test fire. you who don't know yourmilitary history willl know that the weapon is a repeating crossbow. the first weapon to have rapid fire capability.

came back to the hostel and booked the panda tour. it was only 20-30 koai more to do it thorugh the hostel and i did not want to spend an hour or two figurin out what bus to get and toget up early enough to find it anddeal with all of it.

but what i discovered was a neat treak they offer. a 3 day horse trek for 900 koai. 3 days on horse back through some amazingly beautiful sichuan countryside. its a real time warp. in villaes where all the tents are made of homespun cloth and small villages. its really cool. im havig them look into if any tours are available. i mean come on. horses, countryside, awsomenesss. yeahaw!

so yea tommorow i plan to see the pandas and spend hte rest of the day in the aprks. im thinking im not goin to go to leshan to see the gian buddah. im sorry but its just too expensive. like 30o or somethin like that with the transportations,2 entrance fee's... i''d rather just do the out of the ordinary horse trek. i guess i can't see evrything. i think i also have to skip the bamboo forest. its way out of the way and the only way tosee it is to do a mini tour throuh the area. if i did that i wouldnt have time to see guilin

i have to make a choice, spend more time here or cut the loss and try to see a bit of everything.
i also have to worryabout this RA interview comming up. i can't miss that.

oh almost forgot. i posted pictures of the new year on the picture website. i didnt have time to embed them to the blog. but click on the picture album link on the left. you shoudl see it. should be the newest albumbs, i htink tis called louis home village, or chinese new year...somethin like that.

how much can go wrong in a day?

so this morning i get up early, ready to start the adventure. See China! yea! bag is packed, dress, ready to go. i grab my mp3 player and everything stops. my mp3 player is broken. spend 3 hours to learn that my white screen of death is apparently a common problem with my model of mp3 player due to a manufacturing defect on the part of creative. however creative has and will do nothing about it. It took that long because my mp3 player software is only available on windows im on ubuntu because xp wouldn't install on my computer. YEa go figure. 2 xp disc and still windows wont install. hp wont send disc because they don't ship to china... but back to the creative problem. they say restart it, dispite it being a hardware conflict with the firmware... they suggested buy a new one. its not a year old. Bullcrap. So its only a 12 hour train ride right? I guess all those books on tape arn't needed. ill go pick up a magazine...

i go to the ticket office. they dont have tickets to chengdu. and to go to kunmin would cost 30% of my budget. so screwed... i catch a break and serge finds me. Lucky because the other day my phone was lost so i have no way to call any friends or them to talk to me. He shows me another (and cheaper) place. so i go to chengdu. its not part of the plan. but hey not like i have much a choice. its the only place the trains run to.

but the trains dont run fri or sat. so im here for another 48 hours or so. so i go to the store to look for a book or some magazines. national geographic or whatever. apaprently the english section is limited to only the classics. HuckleberryFinn, little women, 20,000 leagues under the sea etc etc. so i read like 80% of em. so i try looking at the boos i haven't read, little women. i get one or two chapters and all i read was an old school Sex in the City... Hey its what i saw and im not about to read the outdated gilmore girls book. I know its sad but hunchback of notre dame, three musketeers, while were good movies i dont know if i could read it. i mean i saw the movie. and translated books i don't tend to like. well call me cheap but ehh, i'd rather have a short book and change in the hostels.

so i grab that crusoe book. i don't remember if i read it or not. but its short its sweet and im rather sure i have never read it before. so here i am back in my dorm. i have traveled no where but my mp3 player broke and yea.. woo hoo. nothin more can go wrong right? well there is lots of time...

Love it. I just love it.

Thinkin Away

So i was thinkin, i wanna try to brew my own beer. I thick it would be fun to try to make my own beer. Do you think it would be allowed in the dorms? Yea that might not fly well. Well i have more of a chance in setting up a brewery in my dorm than in mothers. This is the part i dont like. have to wait till i find a new place.

wohoo!

so im just abut to head out when i look at the weather report. it has been beautiful this week. i plan to leave tommorow. Guess what I see. A giant cloud over china. ONLY over the part i want to visit. The forcast predicts Rain and clouds for apparently the next week.

So this does not seem the time to visit the most beautiful parts of china, when its raining and cloudy. ok so where to go? Xiamen? hit the beach? Is it better to wait here 3 days and hope it clears up or get some greyish countryside?

so i am wrapping up my plans. turns out i think i lost my phone. FREAKIN A. last night i had it when i was at erwins saying goodbye. this morning I can't find the phone. I have my roomate call my phone and wow, my phone is OFF. so now i cant find it. I just redid my room its not here. i have no idea how to do it.

now lets see how freakin cheap of a phone i can get. I need to go shopping with scarlet and now i have to figure out how to organize that... so scarelet if you see this email me. ahh i love it. its always something that is going wrong isnt it?

i cant believe how do i loose a phone in 4 hours? i walked home, went to bed woke up and its gone... omg.

well yea so lets get crackin!

The plan

So I guess this is the plan.
Travel china. Hope i don't run out of money. Hope i dont fall of the cliff, get mauled by elephants or mugged. so you can see the route. obviously it might change. i hope to leave by this thursday or so. So awsomeness. My only real worry is i run out of money.



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