Chengdu
Yesterday morning I parted with Kevin and Henrik, who were going to a Great Wall excursion, since I would be gone before they came back. The day before yesterday Karin, Jon and Michael went to Tsingao. I really enjoyed their company. I think my stay in Beijing would not be so great if I hadn't met them. I laughted a lot during these few days. So many funny things said and done... "There was no paper toilet so I had to take a shower" - said Henrik. Kevin and I shared a bed - I slept on the bottom bed and he on the top bed but when I was waking up he was just coming to bed, around 9 or 10 am. Sometimes I would go down to the restaurant for breakfast and see Kevin sleeping in an armchair, curled up into a ball, covered with my jacket, or I would see Kevin and Henrik still talking, sitting where I left them the evening before, annoucing: "We smoked 4 packs of cigarettes but got sober already..." I once went to bed at 3 am but usually went to bed at 2 so I only heard the stories of what happened past 2, like the contest of "who can take out, using the qiutip, more wax out of one's ear" or drink more Tsingao beer. I told them my favorite "There came a woman to see a doctor joke" (Przyszla baba do lekarza...) and I am going to put it on the blog to commemorate the great times:
There came a woman with a frog on her head to see a doctor. The doctor says "What happened to you?!" "I don't know. Something got stuck to my ass" - says the frog.
I don't remember any other jokes from this series. Does any of my Polish friends remember? Please let me know. I know some of them were really funny.
So I borded the train to Chengdu yesterday at 16:30 and got here after 26 hours. I wanted to travel cheaply and I got the third class about which I have heard before: it's a car with beds being the only partition i.e. you can see about 80 people, how they sleep and eat, read and talk, because the car is not separated into compartments. There are ground, first and second "floor" beds and I got the top floor bed. I was terrified at first because I have been afraid of sleeping on top beds since incident of sleep walking out of a top floor in my childhood (on the Batory cruise liner). But I survived it without sleep walking and breaking my neck so I guess travelling can free you from any phobias you may have... I just got a few bruises because the bed so is close to the celeing that you can't really sit so before you get use to it you bang your head a few times, and it is so narrow that when you move an arm or a leg you bang into the wall separating you from the next bed. It's basically like a cubicle. But in general even the third class on the local Chinese train looks better than the Transsiberian train: it was much cleaner, there were a lot of nicely dressed and very helpful train attendants, nice restaurant and peculiar but very clean bathrooms. The bathrooms consist of a hole in the ground and places to put your feet around the hole so you have to get into a squating position to do your business. It's like peeing in the forest. I think it's better than the western toilets because it's easier to keep clean and there's no surface you can touch so it's impossible to contract any diseases... And, I heard that the squating position is more physiological... The only difficulty is learning to point... maybe not for boys but definitely for girls. Most of the toilets in China are of this fashion. In the Transsiberian train restaurant car the choice of food was limited: goulash soup, bread and butter, eggs, tea and coffe, vodka and beer. In the Chinese train there was a choice of 10 different things and you could either have them at the restaurant or buy them (a set of 6 different things for $1) from a lady with a food cart going through the train. They also had a cart with toiletries, snacks, fruit, and drinks. Every set of 6 beds had a small tv and I saw two movies. The first one looked like a Chinese version of "Gangs of New York." The second was a movie which I saw some time ago in NY and is entitled "In the Mood for Love." It didn't have the English subtitles but it's one of my favorite movies - a beautiful movie about love - and I enjoyed watching it for music and acting. The soundtrack from the movie is one of the best I have in my music collection. The friendly staff at Leo's made a reservation at Hostal Mix and Backpackers and one of its young owners Ed picked me up himself and we came to the hostal by bus. The place is really great. Here's the website: http://www.donkey-pal.com/index_eng.htm
I booked a trip to the Panda breeding place tomorrow morning and to see the Chinese opera (which I got to know through the movie "In the Mood for Love") in the evening. Ed also introduced me to Heike who is German and who is taking a course in acupuncture at a medical school here at Chengdu. She will take me with her to see the school the day after tomorrow. I also got information about my trip to Llasa - it's too cold to go by bus at this time of the year. I will go by plane. It's $200 with the permit so it's not so bad. I think I will book my ticket for the end of the week.
Tomorrow I will write more about the countryside as seen through the windows of the train and some general first impressions of life in China.
There came a woman with a frog on her head to see a doctor. The doctor says "What happened to you?!" "I don't know. Something got stuck to my ass" - says the frog.
I don't remember any other jokes from this series. Does any of my Polish friends remember? Please let me know. I know some of them were really funny.
So I borded the train to Chengdu yesterday at 16:30 and got here after 26 hours. I wanted to travel cheaply and I got the third class about which I have heard before: it's a car with beds being the only partition i.e. you can see about 80 people, how they sleep and eat, read and talk, because the car is not separated into compartments. There are ground, first and second "floor" beds and I got the top floor bed. I was terrified at first because I have been afraid of sleeping on top beds since incident of sleep walking out of a top floor in my childhood (on the Batory cruise liner). But I survived it without sleep walking and breaking my neck so I guess travelling can free you from any phobias you may have... I just got a few bruises because the bed so is close to the celeing that you can't really sit so before you get use to it you bang your head a few times, and it is so narrow that when you move an arm or a leg you bang into the wall separating you from the next bed. It's basically like a cubicle. But in general even the third class on the local Chinese train looks better than the Transsiberian train: it was much cleaner, there were a lot of nicely dressed and very helpful train attendants, nice restaurant and peculiar but very clean bathrooms. The bathrooms consist of a hole in the ground and places to put your feet around the hole so you have to get into a squating position to do your business. It's like peeing in the forest. I think it's better than the western toilets because it's easier to keep clean and there's no surface you can touch so it's impossible to contract any diseases... And, I heard that the squating position is more physiological... The only difficulty is learning to point... maybe not for boys but definitely for girls. Most of the toilets in China are of this fashion. In the Transsiberian train restaurant car the choice of food was limited: goulash soup, bread and butter, eggs, tea and coffe, vodka and beer. In the Chinese train there was a choice of 10 different things and you could either have them at the restaurant or buy them (a set of 6 different things for $1) from a lady with a food cart going through the train. They also had a cart with toiletries, snacks, fruit, and drinks. Every set of 6 beds had a small tv and I saw two movies. The first one looked like a Chinese version of "Gangs of New York." The second was a movie which I saw some time ago in NY and is entitled "In the Mood for Love." It didn't have the English subtitles but it's one of my favorite movies - a beautiful movie about love - and I enjoyed watching it for music and acting. The soundtrack from the movie is one of the best I have in my music collection. The friendly staff at Leo's made a reservation at Hostal Mix and Backpackers and one of its young owners Ed picked me up himself and we came to the hostal by bus. The place is really great. Here's the website: http://www.donkey-pal.com/index_eng.htm
I booked a trip to the Panda breeding place tomorrow morning and to see the Chinese opera (which I got to know through the movie "In the Mood for Love") in the evening. Ed also introduced me to Heike who is German and who is taking a course in acupuncture at a medical school here at Chengdu. She will take me with her to see the school the day after tomorrow. I also got information about my trip to Llasa - it's too cold to go by bus at this time of the year. I will go by plane. It's $200 with the permit so it's not so bad. I think I will book my ticket for the end of the week.
Tomorrow I will write more about the countryside as seen through the windows of the train and some general first impressions of life in China.
posted by Asia Kabat at 11:38 PM
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