Chengdu
Trip Start
May 17, 2007
1
3
37
Trip End
Jun 30, 2007
Chengdu,
China
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Got picked up by an Indian IT guy (what other occupations does India have?????) in transit and he kept insisting on wanting to take me out for dinner since he's gonna be in Chengdu too.
But nooooo. I'm good at "nice-to-meet-you. that's-all. bye-bye".
so anyway, i've got my train ticket -- YAAAY!!!
no need to go fighting with touts tonight.
Travel bud Robert is already in Xining, Shauna's on the 2pm from Beijing tmrrw, and Nimrod the Israeli is.... somewhere out there.
After this, it's on to Xining before we start on the hardcore trip thru the Kham region of Tibet, possibly one of its most remote areas.
Which means, no internet = no blog updates.
Feels fantastic to be travelling alone, and i've adjusted my backpack, finetuning the load adjustment system. Feels much more like 11.5kg now, rather than 40kg. Yaay me. Let's see how long the exuberance lasts.
I'm staying at Sim's Cozy Guesthouse, which is run by Sim - a Singaporean, and his Japanese wife.
Service is excellent, staff are very helpful. But in all honesty, the place is rather shabby already, perhaps the result of too many good reviews and thus too many people.
Saw the outside of the toilets and erm... let's just say I don't feel like going in.
But well, if i can't get used to this, i'm so gonna aaarggh myself to death when i get to Kham.
so... endure!
oh, talking about OMINOUS.
Guess what does the shop opposite the guesthouse sell?
.
.
.
.
Urns, coffins and funeral packages!!!
clearly, the fengshui of this place still quite good, considering how packed the guesthouse is.
and i must concede, the urns are really quite pretty -- make those in SG look like... plain ceramic bowls.
Ok, back to non freaky stuff:
We drove by so many McDonald's and Starbuckses just now, i REALLY had to curb the urge to want a Coke / Java Chip frap / Hazelnut Latte. aaargghhh
you can take me out of the city, but you can't take the city out of me.
anyway, that's about it for now.
thanks for all the bday wishes and well wishes.
i shall head out to explore a bit before it gets too dark.
- Feli the Wong in Chengdu
