Let the Games begin! (Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China)

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(Day 126 on the road)After the failure at Emei Shan, Karen and I decided to spend a few days in Chengdu to get our bearings, do our laundry and just generally enjoy the comforts of the city (which we did). We also wanted to be in a big city to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games, preferably with an international crowd. In the end, we settled for the only Irish Pub in town. Even though the Opening Ceremony itself was perfect, all in all we did not have quite the good time we had hoped for.

We had chosen the Irish Pub assuming that we would be able to watch the ceremony on an international sports channel with English commentary. I had been reading quite a few critical comments about China handling the run-up to the Olympics, and we were curious to hear an international commentary on that during the Opening Ceremony. However, even though the crowd consisted of about 80%!f(MISSING)oreigners, they showed it on CCTV (China's national television), and thus only in Chinese.

What also annoyed us immensely was the crowd at the Irish Pub, reminding both of us why we normally avoided these kind of places: The people there seemed to consist predominantly of extremely racist South Africans, fat Australians and loud New Zealanders. They all seemed to have their Chinese girlfriends with them, who looked up to these idiots like they were pop stars. I think I haven't seen so many morons in one place for a very long time, and we were both happy to get out of there as soon as the Olympic fire had been lit.

Next stop: Jiuzhaigou National Park (Sichuan Province, China).



To view my photos, have a look at pictures.beiske.com. And to read the full account of my journey, have a look at the complete book about my trip at Amazon (and most other online book shops).

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Comments

[clarke]

expats around china
I like your comments about the expats around china, I'm forever baffled by how so many of them think they're 'hot shots.' As well as when you see(especially in HK) caucasians with indonesian/thai girls, where the girls don't speak very well of the others' language. It's as if somehow they (caucasians) think they're going un-noticed, when clearly the girls are escorts.

[max au]

nonsense
As a south african chinese i take offence from this idiot traveler blogger ben yid or whatever. too many israelis and fat white chicks over here in China. Also, whats wrong with having a chinese or se asian girlfriend? if the man and woman are happy then its no business of this idiot yid blogger or anyone else I think the yid blogger - article found by mistake researching route from yunnan to sichuan - is an complete arse. the worst kind of new generation bigot. Leave the aussies and kiwis and yarpies and stop tormenting the pals. and clarke?? what a rascist twit of note ....

[LivingTheDream]

Offensive comment
Hey, I have allowed this comment despite the offensive language and the racism. Sorry that you are offended by my entry, but that is exactly the way it has happened that night.

[Do not care.]

To those Chinese girls I do not know what they are looking for, I do not care about them. If ones do not respect themselves, no one respect them.