Friday started bright and early, going to Heat Transfer first thing in the morning and taking notes during class. I was feeling kind of lazy, and since I was staying all day on Campus A to go to the Chinese Conversation hour later that night, I decided to go to lunch with Pablo, sitting through his embedded systems class as well.
Right after class, we went to lunch, deciding to walk down toward Sanxia Square to find a place to eat. We wandered into the building close to the building that we went into with Wei Wei at the barbecue the other day, but it turned out that it was a slightly different building.
We had made our way upstairs, and found out that there was a rooftop garden, and when we tried to take the steps back downstairs, it was a dead end all the way to the bottom, so we weren't able to go to the floor we wanted to go to. (The elevators here often only go to a certain number of floors.)
Rooftop garden
Down the dark and shady staircase
We went outside, and went into the right building, deciding to go to the Japanese place we had seen a sign for outside the building.
We looked at a menu, noting some of the stranger things on it, and decided to eat there.
I didn't know squids had beards.....
"anti roll" is what exactly?
Cheese salmon....what a disaster
There was a rotating sushi bar outside the individual small booth area we sat in, but Pablo recommended that we looked at the regular menu, as it probably wasn't very fresh, since the restaurant was pretty empty.
I took my time deciding what to order, but I decided on tonkatsu (fried pork over egg and noodles, including mushrooms), and a strawberry milkshake. It was absolutely delicious, and Pablo said it was authentic (since he spent 8 months co oping in Japan, he would know), but had a Chinese twist.
We talked for a while, but I didn't have much of an appetite, so I ended up taking some of the food with me. I was going to be on campus until the Chinese conversation hour, so it ended up working in my favor to have food. I got the strawberry milkshake as well, and it was very thin, which was a bit disappointing. (Talking to others, I found out thick milkshakes were essentially an American thing, unfortunately.)
I walked with Pablo back towards Campus B, and he told me about the cat café that was on the way to campus. I was interested in seeing it, and he took me there.
They didn't have their own cats, rather, they let cats in from off the street each day, which didn't seem too weird in China, where pet owners let their pets roam freely. There were also succulents for sale on the wall. I briefly thought about taking one home for a friend, but they were a bit expensive.
The cats in the café today
All the small succulents for sale
I ordered a coffee, and Pablo headed home. I pulled out my laptop and tried to download some anime for later. The wifi was too slow, but I ended up working on the astronomy club powerpoint for that week to prepare before I went on the trip that weekend. I alternated between that, and petting the cats (who could smell my food, and were attracted to it), relaxing for a few hours.
My coffee
When I finished with what I needed to do, I walked onto Campus B, which was close to Campus A. I planned to go, finish my drawing of the pagoda, work on philosophy homework, and go to the English conversation hour.
Pictures of Campus B
I quickly finished coloring the last little bits of the pagoda picture, and wandered off to two other places to work on philosophy homework, finishing that quickly as well. I was messaging Jessica to see if she wanted to meet up before the conversation hour started, but for some reason, she wasn't messaging back.
Pictures of all the beautiful places around Campus A
Around 6:30, I called her, and she directed me as to where to go. I had been once to the area where we were going, but it was in the first couple weeks of being here, which was a bit of a haze direction wise. I started going back that way, but found myself wandering around apartment complexes instead.
Calling the girl in charge of it, Lemon (who had stopped me a few weeks before to see if I was interested in the conversation hour), and asking her for directions, I didn't have much success, so I called Jessica again. She told me to meet her by the far end of the pond, which is where I thankfully was. I waited for a moment, and she came running out. Apparently, I was pretty close to where I needed to go, but I was just a little bit far off.
She took me up the hill and into the room. There were already people from all over the world there, and Celia had even come! They encouraged us to spread out amongst ourselves, so Jessica went to sit on the other side of the room. It was a fantastic night filled with conversation and lots of events!
I sat near Celia, a guy from Thailand named Wat, a girl from Indonesia named Fanny, as well as a girl and a guy from Ukraine. Most of the activities were more in Chinese than I expected, so the guy sitting in front of me here translated a lot of it for me.
Sean had asked us to grab the powerpoint from the guy in charge, but there was only a couple English words in total on the slide, so I knew it wouldn't do much good.
There were some Chinese snacks on the table, and the first activity that they started with was a tea ceremony, showing how to make traditional tea with various types of tea, and handing out samples. There was also a segment with other Chinese traditional snacks, and the final segment before the night was over was a smaller version of a game show where people had to describe an object in English (to my surprise), and guess the object in English.
Lemon and Dimple, the organizers of the event
In between these games, there was time to walk around and talk to people, which I did gladly. I saw two of the Pakistani guys I had met on the subway there, and I went over to say hi. One of them introduced me to some of his other friends, and I talked with them for a while. (For some reason, the Pakistanis seem more interested in me than the other internationals....)
Jade (one of Jessica's new friends) and her friends
I wandered around, talking to lots of the others, as well, wandering back over to my original seat, and eventually back to the Pakistanis again. They were a bit too straightforward for me at times, but I realized it was a cultural difference, and simply excused myself for the restroom.
Making the rounds again, I talked to the Ukrainian guy about math logic, statics, and other engineering things, because although he was studying Chinese (like most of the international students here), he was also studying math. I introduced fuzzy logic to him, which is a twist on probability mixed with Eastern logic, and we had a good discussion.
Towards the end of the night, Jessica and Jade went up to play the guessing game that I mentioned earlier. I went over to sit near that and let them know if Jessica and I needed to get going to catch the last bus to Campus D. They actually won the game, although we didn't find that out until afterwards. While I was sitting there, I talked to three Italian girls, as well as Jessica's new Russian friend Jade, having a good conversation with them, and exchanging WeChats with them as I had with all the others that night.
Soon after that, we headed out, talking about our night excitedly on the bus, and discussing our lives back home. On the group chat for this event, they posted lots of these pictures, helping us remember the great night we've had.
Saturday started off with finalizing philosophy, working on my blog, and watching anime, as well as fixing breakfast. Then I went to the English conversation hour with Nick (because he had to switch days with Jessica due to his office hour). Since it was a holiday weekend, most people were out of town, and only Jenny came. We quickly ran out of things to talk about, and Nick brought up the idea of playing a game called Spore with her. It was in English, so teaching her how to play it would improve her English skills. The game's premise was guiding a species' evolution over time, and it was a captivating game, filling the rest of our time in the office.
Afterwards, we went to grab lunch, and Jenny asked us what we liked to eat. Nick agreed with dumplings, so she helped us order that. While waiting, I wanted some juice, but without the whipped cream, so I asked Jenny how to say blueberry in Chinese. At first, she insisted on helping me out, and ordering herself, but I wanted to learn the word for it (which turned out to be "lanmei"). I went around, trying to order it, but it turned out that most places did not have it, so I ended up getting the one with whipped cream anyway.
Getting back to the table, it turned out that Jenny had mistranslated, and accidentally gotten us noodles, but I was fine with it. We chatted for a while, and it turned out she was going to watch a World of Warcraft tournament afterwards. Nick had plans to go to the shoe store afterwards, and I was trying to just relax outside for a while.
I went back to the scenic spot on the top of the hill that I had grown very fond of, and started drawing a picture of what I saw. I also started working on next week's philosophy homework to try to get a head start.
I was also admiring Jenny's drawings on the attendance sheet (the top one of me, and the bottom one of a satyr girl). I had asked her if she ever drew manga, as it was in that style, but she said it was just a hobby.
Afterwards, I went home, working on some more things, and trying some vanilla strawberry oreos that I had in my cabinet. Deciding that wasn't enough to eat, I cooked myself some bacon, eggs, and potatoes. I also packed my suitcases for the next day and the trip we were going to take. I then made a skype call, and went to bed, ready and excited for our adventure!
We had to get up bright and early for our train. Will, Sean, and I headed out of the apartment at 7:20, and we had to transfer between 2 subways to get to the Chong Qing high speed train station.
At the train station, we picked up our tickets with Will's help, and went to find the others (Robert, Suri, Celia, and Pablo). They said that they were on their way, and we decided to go into the main area of the train station. Will took us through a line that he said was the emergency line (to our amusement), and we were going through security. In between the first and last step, I got a call from Pablo, and I told him where we were.
We sat down to wait, and the others quickly came. Pablo wandered off for a while to get food, and when I returned from the restroom, there was a girl sitting in his seat. She asked me if we could talk and get a picture together, as her English teacher had an assignment for her to interview a foreigner and get a picture. I somewhat sighed, being a bit tired of being the "foreigner", but I asked Suri to do it. Seeing my expression, she asked me if I wanted to, but I told her it was fine, as it was for the girl's class project. While we were sitting there, we were looking around for Pablo, and I decided to talk to the girl. It turned out that she was from the far out suburbs of Chong Qing, and went to another university in Chong Qing, but decided to go home over the weekend. I also found out her name was Smalls, which I found very amusing, and we exchanged WeChats so we could talk later.
On the train, I was with Robert, Suri, and Pablo (Pablo sleeping the whole way), with Celia, Will, and Sean in another car (Sean's ticket being a standing one since it was booked last minute, but he ended up getting a seat). I read a book while Robert and Suri watched a movie on their phone together.
Ready for an adventure!
At Chengdu, the architecture of the train station was impressive, and we headed out, planning on getting a bite to eat somewhere else. However, there were no restaurants anywhere near, and we contemplated going back into the train station, but without a ticket for the same day, we couldn't. We found a way into the train station of the basement, and ate at a place called Mr. Lee's. I ordered the same thing as Pablo- chicken "nuggets" (which were real meat, not the horrendous things at McDonalds) with mushrooms and vegetables. While waiting, I went to the corner store to get drinks, finding two things for the first time in China, orange Gatorade (which I got for the hike the next day), and Mountain Dew. To my disappointment, the latter tasted a bit stale, and not as sweet as in America.
We caught two different taxis at the train station (since there were five of us and only four could fit in a car), splitting off two and three, and making our way to the panda reserve. Celia bought us our tickets at the kiosk, and we headed inside.
Look at the legs on those pandas!
We tried to drop off our luggage at the visitor center, but they said we would need to be back by 4 for it, so we opted out of it in order to spend more time at the park.
Right outside of the center was a robot panda, which I was drawn to. Apparently, when you told it to come closer in Chinese, it started tracking and following you. The guy in charge asked me if I wanted to try, which I did, but it messed up for several reasons. First of all, I wasn't in its correct distance range, and secondly, it didn't recognize me as speaking Chinese, so it kept following some random girl beside me instead of me. Laughing, I gave up, and we went to see the real pandas.
We saw pandas off in the distant pen first, but we saw a peahen up close (a female peacock).
Around a couple more corners, we saw the first few pandas, and we were in love! We saw some yearlings, and some adults in various areas. There are no words to describe just how cute pandas are, so I'll let the pictures and videos speak for themselves!
Some unfortunate panda sponsored by Kimberly Clark got named Kleenex!!
This was a very interesting fact
Panda posterior
Peacock strutting his stuff
When you just HAVE to scratch that itch
We wandered around even further, and we saw the red panda enclosure. We were able to see a few of the adorable fuzzy creatures up close, which made our day even better!
Afterwards, we started wandering around, trying to find the Panda Story Cinema that was on some signs and not others. Will kept asking where it was from drivers of the shuttles that kept driving around, and after repeated stops, we found it.
Beautiful flowers
Bowl of fruit left out for the red pandas
It had several benches, and a short movie (in English, with Chinese subtitles, which was interesting) about pandas, and their life cycle at this facility. It was absolutely adorable, and worth a stop.
Right outside, there was a stand selling many different types of souvenirs, and I ended up getting a panda hat, which was hand painted, and adorable. I had Celia help me decide what color to get, and I have no regrets at all.
There were lots of statues outside of the main area, and we were able to get lots of goofy individual and group pictures with them.
After we had our fill of the statues, we went to our hotel in a large van (which required some haggling on the parts of the Chinese amongst us). About an hour later, we were there, and Celia had the idea of going to a famous street that was known just for snacking. Suri and Robert (who had opted out of going to the panda place earlier, because they had already been) had been there during the afternoon, and offered to show us around.
We stopped at various places, grabbing lots of types of snacks along the way. (Although the way Celia and Robert were saying it sounded like "snakes", which led to some hilarity, and we were also talking about "lonely dogs", the cutesy Chinese term for people who were single.)
Pineapple rice, fermented sugar gelatin, spicy French fries, and seaweed wrapped rice
This had the caption in the group chat of "4 beautiful girls"
There were more handmade owls for sale
The sweet sesame balls on a stick were delicious
instruments made from gourds
Robert enjoying the mango drink
Delicious sweet and spicy noodles
Drawings made of pure sugar
There were also lots of other things in this little street, including a sound massage of sorts, where people had metal vibrating on their skin, a fortune teller, and a small trained monkey.
lady in traditional dress
You could pull the nails in and out of the wall
trying some of the super long sweet and spicy noodles
Celia and I ended up falling behind the group at the last place we stopped (getting pork that was completely enclosed by a flaky crust) and we were talking to each other, and we stopped into a fragrance shop that I found interesting. I ended up getting a small succulent to take back with me. We also realized that we were completely lost, and Celia had to call the others to figure out where we were going. We got turned around again, but we were able to get directions and find our way back.
The succulents for sale
We ended up walking back towards the hotel, taking our time, and the others wanted to stop and get some stuff from the bakery for breakfast. Then we came upon a rabbit meat place, and the others insisted it was a specialty in Chengdu. Against my better judgment, I got a rabbit head to try, and I was very grossed out by the fact that it still had the teeth attached! The others were making fun of me, but I eventually got the meat down (although the brain was disgusting...as the other brains I've tried here were). Will also got a coconut to try to drink the juice from, and I wanted to try it as well.
It took the shopkeeper four times to get to a part of the coconut with the juice, but I eventually got to try it. It was a little bit bitter, but it was good to try.
We went back to the hotel, relaxing for the rest of the night, and me trying to update my blog from the last week. Celia and I were sharing a room, and she also helped me put more data on my phone (as it didn't have service out of Chong Qing).
Around 11, we went to sleep, as we had to get up around 6 in the morning for the bus to the Buddhist temple and then to Mt Emei!
-Zoe
