Katie and I woke up early, and sat up on our bunks in the
dark. We whispered a few times but mostly just sat there, waiting for everyone
to wake up, basically. It was sort of amusing. I was a bit groggy from waking
up so early but Katie had bundles of energy and just wanted to be obnoxious.
Yes, she said exactly that.
Which then sucked for her because Abby and Greg like to take
it slow. We ended up sitting around till almost noon! Definitely drove Katie a
little crazy, but it was nice to chill out.
However, we finally left the hostel, took a bus near a park, but
stopped for food first. We found a possible hot pot station, but they only
served spicy food with it [as usual], we headed down the street for more food.
We found a normal Chinese place, with a little bakery to the side! We got
rolls- hers had whipped cream in the middle and mine had honeyed sugar. They
were so fluffy! I was in heaven with every morsel.
Finally ate at little Chinese
place and we ended up getting nonspicy chow mein. Mostly just extra greasy
noodles with some fried egg in it. Not too bad. It was WAY too much for me, I
think I only managed to eat about half but the other three had very little
left. I don’t know how they did it!
Luckily a few buildings down there was another tourist shop
that Abby wanted to wander through so Katie and I sat outside, waiting for our
stomachs to digest. Took a little while! I was so full. My stomach was swimming
with the grease. Anyways, Abby bought a fan or two and we finally headed out.
We eventually found the park, but stopped to check out a tourist shopping area
first.
Tourist in a Chinese way. All with the stone stamps, jade
jewelry, and such. Nothing like Panda hats or anything. We figured most stuff
would be fake as well- but everything was priced like it was real! We tried to
go down to more reasonable prices, but most were very unwilling so it was a bit
annoying. Katie found some figurines
that she liked, almost the size of a thumb and made of metal, figures like
Buddha and such. The lady wanted at least 50 RMB for each, but eventually Katie
got it talked down 5 for 100, which she still thought was way too much, but it
helped because I added in this dragon metal bracelet, and two Chinese charms.
It was a bit ridiculous, and it took us forever to come to an agreement, but we
all walked away happy enough! There was another station, a little guy with his
closet full of so much that it was over filling. And these little alleys were
all little storage units, that’s what they were! The guy really wanted us to
buy something and Katie found a few other Buddha figures she liked- but they
could never come to a proper price, so eventually we walked away.
We found some metal bracelets that we liked. There are these
popular brown nut bead necklaces that many people wrap around their wrists- but
they were super expensive! One guy said 400 which we might have been able to
work down to 100 but that was still way too much. They aren’t that fancy, and
they are everywhere! I’ve seen them around in shops for as low as 39 which is
still more than what I want to spend overall.
Katie found two rings she liked, and I think she got them
talked down to 70 for them together, instead of 100 for each. But still she
overpaid because neither of them are real silver or gold. All the same, we
really did like the things that we bought! Worn out with all the bartering, we
sat out for a bit and waited for Abby and Greg. Eventually we met up, and
they’d done some shopping as well and that’s when we left and returned to the
park.
Before going in, we went through this Jade museum-shop
building. Definitely one of the cleanest places we’ve been to. It was about 3
stories with tiny little shops with extra nice artifacts that none of us could
really spend our money on so we just wandered around the building mostly,
looking at all the pretty things before heading back to the park.
Super pretty, and free! There were even a few rides in the
area for kids, plus toys like bubbles and pinwheels.
They take little golf carts around for 5 RMB, and Greg
wanted to do that. I wasn’t feeling too well again so Katie agreed. And it was
nice, zooming past most of the people. However, it was such a nice big park and
we didn’t get time for most of the pictures, which was a huge bummer! Overall,
if I had been feeling a tiny bit better, we definitely would have walked
around. There were little courtyards and ponds
everywhere! It was so beautiful, and we just zoomed past all of it.
Then the bus cart stopped and we all had to get out, with it
having left us somewhere completely new and random. We went ahead to this kinda
cool big fountain where lots of people were taking pictures. We watched their
stuff as the married couple went to use the restrooms, and then we slowly found
our way out of the park.
On our way, there were a few small booths of cool stuff.
Abby and Greg bought this sugar candy on a stick that we watched them make on a
stick. Abby spun a wheel of choices and got a dragon fly. On the board, we
watched them pour out the sugar into a dragonfly and add the stick. It took
less than five minutes before it was ready for Abby. She took a few pictures,
tried it, hated it, and tossed it away. But it was adorable! Just not actually tasty... hate when that happens, eh?
Well, when it’s pure sugar like that, it’s probably wise to
do that! Finished with the park, we took the bus back to the hostel and rested
for a bit. I wasn’t feeling too great, but Abby had some pepto bismal I could
take, so I did that. Abby and Katie chatted for a bit and I accidentally dozed
off. Our twenty minutes turned into about an hour before we finally cleaned up
a little and headed back out for the night!
The sun was beginning to set which was perfect. We headed to
Q--- something street. The oldest street, the old main street, of Chengdu. It’s
very cool! They have lights all over it as well, which is extra awesome. Most
of the buildings are really nice shops now, so we couldn’t go in any except for
the main one, which is the tourist-ist shop we’ve been able to find yet in
China, I swear. They had all sorts of fun things. Cool Chinese robes, lots of
panda stuff, and Katie’s favorite: they have little bamboo books in a roll to
hang on a wall and lay out. They had Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ on one in English!
But it cost more than she wanted, and she had already used up most of her
budget for the day, so she had to put it back.
We finished with the street then started looking to eat
something. We ended up turning left down a new street instead of turning back
to the road with our bus, so what we did was go around the street, Abby bought
another pair of shoes, and then we found our bus again that way. We got on but
off at the next stop- I had no idea what was going on, I was just hungry.
Anyways, we walked closer and found the city square and ate
again at the nearby McDonald’s. Katie didn’t like it as much as the other, and
Abby and Greg didn’t even finish their food. But I got the same burger again
and loved every single bite. Little bits of heaven!
Finished, we wandered over to the square and sort of decided
to split up for the rest of the night. We missed the water show, but the square
is still impressive with its two twirly thingies there, and there were lots of
people selling light-up spin tops that fly into the air. It was pretty fun to
watch.
Katie wanted ‘a drink’ so then we had to start wandering
around the streets for what she wanted. Which was boba, she wanted boba- the
drinks with the funky little pearls/beads/balls that you can eat. We eventually
found a spot but they were out of boba for the day, it seemed. So we ended up
getting something on the menu- the guy there sort of understood English and I
just wanted something with chocolate and Katie got that as well. It ended up
being chocolate- milk tea.
Very, very odd. Katie finished hers on the bus ride home
after that. I had mine still mostly full on the bus, and eventually finished it
while she was showering that night. I did a bare minimum rinse off without
doing my hair or anything because I was so tired.
We’d also gone by another shopping center before, but not
too much interested us then and I wasn’t feeling too great for a while so we’d
had to hurry off to find a bathroom anyways. But the prices were a ton better
there in Chengdu than anywhere else that we’ve seen before.
It was quite a busy and distracting day, and we were so glad
to be in bed again!
No comments:
Post a Comment