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.