Chengdu Flava (Duane's 1st Contribution)

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So we arrived in Chengdu on the 24th after 16 or so hours on the train. We then waited in line to buy our train tickets out of here. Course when they told us the price we were about 40 yuan short (like 6 bucks!!!). So anyway then we head to our hostel ( basically the coolest one we've seen) and after talking to their "agents" they are able to book us a ticket for a couple hundred cheaper... AND we book a trip to the Sichuan OPERA!!!! It was totally cool. There was the Music, the Opera (Scene from the book Romance of the Three Kingdoms which I read), some solo music, a bit of comedy, acrobatics, shadow puppets, and the mask changing and fire spitting. The part with the mask changers was really cool they changed their masks so fast that you could hardly be sure that it really did change! They obviously were masters of "sleight of hand". Oh, I nearly forgot to mention one of our biggest adventures yet. We went into this market and found a small restaurant, we couldn't figure anything out so I pulled out the phrase book and asked them to recommend something. Next thing you know I am staring into a bowl with soup made from super hot chilies, some assorted vegetables, some gross greyish noodles and PIG-INTESTINES!!! Anyway we debated what to do and just left the food (if you can call it that), 10 yuan and left to find some "normal" food.

On the 25th we checked out a place called the Green Ram Temple. It is a Taoist temple that is obviously still active. There were people burning incense and bowing in "the four directions" I guess it has to do with honoring their ancestors and such... Anyway it was really cool! Then we went to this park where some poet named Du Fu had a small cottage. It was kinda funny because we were walking around this marshy area and we saw a hut and said "well I guess this is it". So we took a few pictures then walked on... And found the REAL place. Inside was real cool, it was this huge complex that honored all kinds of famous poets throughout the dynasties of China. So then we went to a place for some food and it was great (my tummy was very happy) except for the insane amount of chilies. We had a plate with beef, ginger, garlic, onions, and green peppers and chilies and like 40% of the dish was chilies!!! It was ridiculous hot!

After stopping in a Foreign Language bookstore and getting some english books we headed back to our hostel, where they were having free food, BBQ, tea, fruit and Moon Cakes. Apparently it is the mid-autumn festival and you are supposed to share the previous food items and read poetry under the Moon light. Or tell stories about the moon. Anyway it was a really generous thing from the owner of the Hostel, his name is Sim.

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Photos

opera
So, I read this book called "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". The opera was one scene from the book, these three dudes: Zhang Fei, Liu Bei, And Guan Yu, fight another dude named Lu Pu (not shown here) it was really neat to see something that I had read about!

shadow show
this is a man's head and two hands!