Lazy Will-time

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Although i have not done much since my last entry, i feel that its been a few days and thus you people deserve something.
I left Shanghai last Thursday lunchtime on a 40 hour train journey south-west to Chengdu, a city in the Sichuan province of China. The journey was incredibly boring, as nobody spoke English and nobody understood my lame attempts at Mandarin!! I spent most of the time sleeping, reading and getting pissed off at the continuous garbage that the Chinese call pop-music that was blaring out of the speakers in the cabins. I eventually arrived into my destination at 6.30am Saturday, and proceeded to get lost with the cabby, whose knowledge of the city was close to being worse than mine. he basically got to within half a mile of where he thought the hostel was, and told me to walk there from where he was going to drop me off (it was either that or he was cursing my extreme lack of knowledge of the streets). I found the hostel eventually, and after a few hours of meandering around wondering what to do, i headed out for lunch...again an interesting experience, as the menu gave me absolutely no hint as to what i was eating. I managed to wangle a huge bucket of rice, a huge dish of soup, and a dish of what appeared to be meat and some kind of veg....all for about 1 pound 50. Great food, and well worth the risk.
I have pretty much just been lazing around the hostel for 2 days, reading and chatting to other travellers...have met a couple of American guys, i shared a room with 2 hilarious Israeli girls who have now left, and a Sri Lankan guy who used to live in Basingstoke and work for IBM there!!! Today i was finally productive, and went to the Panda Reserve and Breeding Centre. Pandas are beautiful. They are cute. They are amazing. Its was a fantastic morning and it was so hard to leave without wanting to steal one of the cubs. This evening i am going to see the Sichuan Opera, whatever that may consist of (apparently completely different to various 'normal' operas around the world), and then tomorrow i begin the 2-3 day hike up Emei Shan, a local holy mountain which has tons of monastaries at which to stay, before the trek down. I will try and update you on how that little adventure goes, and how many limbs i lose to the infamous monkey-guards they have there.

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