Just quickly
I only have half an hour and them I am going shopping with my new best friend. :)
Sophia is the second person I met here in Chengdu and she is just beautiful. Sophia is one of the girls who work here in the reception of Sam's Guesthouse. She was here the night I checked in and showed me to my room. I was in a daze that night but I remember her being a real sweetie. Last night she helped me with so many things, I was worried about ordering dinner so she wrote down the things I wanted and then sent me to her favourite restaurant, "It's the first one under the yellow building." Well I couldn't find it, so I came back and was going to get more detailed instructions, when she said she would come with me.
When we got to the place, the restaurant was closed. Phew, I'm not going crazy (oh, alright, just a little bit though). So she walked with me across the road to another one and we tried to order there, but they didn't have one of the things on the menu so I had to chose something else. I didn't know what I wanted so Sophia read out a few things off the menu and I liked the sound of the double cooked port with potatoes so I went with that. Oh boy what a great choice. It was delicious. Sophia said I would need to order two things because the meals are small, so I ordered some gong bao (not sure of the spelling, I could write it in Chinese for you, I copied it from the menu because I liked it so much) chicken. I couldn’t eat them both, so I took the chicken back to Sophia and she had it for her dinner and she was eating the rest of it this morning when I came in. Sophia has been working the night shift, Sam's Guesthouse has 24-hour reception, and Sophia told me she usually gets to sleep after 11pm, except when she has to check guests in who have arrived on the midnight flight. That would be me. :)
So I came in here this morning to type up what I wrote on the plane the other day to share with you all, but when I came in, Sophia asked me if I wanted to go shopping with her. Sure thing! I'm not in the mood for shopping, but it will be nice to spend the day with someone.
So my blog suffers. I will probably come back here tonight, I don't like sitting in my room by myself and I can come here and connect to the internet with my own computer (I learnt yesterday). The front door is open and I almost feel as if I am outside, I can hear the sounds of the traffic, birds chirping in the trees, people walking down the sidewalk and yesterday, music of children singing Christmas carols, still not sure about that one.
Sophia is waiting for her replacement but she is late, so as soon as she arrives we will head off.
I am still very tired, I got a full night sleep last night. I was awake early this morning, the sun hasn’t even made an appearance, but I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I sat up and thought. Just thought. I can’t remember now what I was thinking about, but I felt good. Then I thought I might as well head down here because I knew Sophia would leave at 0800, so I could say hello to her and write some of my blog. I was going to go and explore Chengdu today, there is an old part of town with a nice temple and some teahouses, so I was going to go there, but that will have to wait now. I’m going shopping.
Sophia is booking me in to see an Opera tonight. It is meant to be one of those things you should not miss in Chengdu, one of my girlfriends from Hobart came to see one not long ago and said it was fantastic. I’ll let you know what I think.
Zai jian (goodbye �" I’m finally learning some Chinese)
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Later that day...
I'm back at the guest house after a morning shopping with
Sophia, a couple of her friends and the father of one of her friends. I had a
wonderful morning then walked back to my room where I was going to drop off a
few things then head to the temple I was planning on going to, but I fell
asleep on the bed and didn't wake in time. So I had a shower, that's an
interesting thing to do in my room. The hot water doesn't last very long and I
have to move everything out of the bathroom to prevent it from getting wet. Because
I wanted to wash my hair today, I had a half cold shower, next time I will have
the cold part first, then turn the hot on so I can rinse off in warm water. The
cold was freezing.
I have about an hour before I will go to dinner around the corner in a Thai
restaurant Sophia showed me and told me to say I was from Sam's so that I might
get a free beer or something else, I'll have to go with the something else, I
don't drink beer.
My shopping excursion was so much fun. I am so glad I had the girls with me as interpreters;
all three of the girls I was with spoke wonderful English, but were very happy
for the chance to practice. One of the girls, Damin is her name, had some
vouchers to spend in one of the department stores, so that is where we went
first. Damin couldn’t find anything she wanted to buy so ended up in the food
hall to buy some groceries. They would not normally shop for groceries here as
the prices are much higher than elsewhere, but the voucher needed to be use.
Damin bought a whole heap of goodies for us to share in a picnic for lunch,
mainly ice-cream.
We walked to Damin's work building where we gained admittance into the "cafeteria",
well, this is my idea of a cafeteria, big beautiful comfortable seats, a gold
fish pond and many trees. I didn't take any photos of the whole area, but I did
take a few of Sunflower getting friendly after stuffing her face. :)
I love Chengdu, I feel so relaxed here, it could have something to do with the amount of sleep I am getting, I feel as if I am making up for all the sleepless nights I had in Australia. I was walking down the street with Sophia before we met her friends, and I felt so happy. I told her I am very happy to be here. When I was walking down the street this afternoon from my room, a lady approached me to ask if I wanted a massage, I tell you, a week ago I would have needed it, but today I feel so relaxed I honestly don’t need it. I will arrange to have one soon though; I have heard Chengdu have the best massages (one other thing to make sure you do here).
The traffic here is chaotic, as I imagine it is throughout China. It is as if nobody really follows the rules. However, I have not seen any narrow escapes or anybody get angry, there is a lot of tooting of horns, not that anybody really pays much attention to them, it seems like it is more of a warning, “Hey, I’m here, so look out.” I don’t know what the footpaths are for because everybody seem to walk on the roads. Not the main roads, but all the side streets, I am looking out the door now and I see half a dozen people walking on the road, the footpaths seem to be for people standing.
I took a few photos of my day; Sophia took me to Tianfu Square with a giant statue of Chairman Mao. There are huge squares like this all over the place and lots of parks with trees too. I passed one today which I might go and have a look at tomorrow, I still want to go to the temple, so if I wake up early again, I’ll head off there to be back at noon for Fiona to take me to my new home. It will be nice to finally to settle in. I want to unpack my suitcases.
Well, I might finish this here, add a few photos and then head off to dinner.
I hope you are having a fantastic day wherever in the world you are.
So from China, (I love saying that :)) farewell for another day.
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