jamaica me crazy

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chengdu, eh?
and we thought that lanzhou was polluted...... here you can stare directly at the sun without your eyes hurting. that's some serious smog. we started to realise that this was going to be a very different sort of adventure to our meanderings in small villages when the way ahead began to disappear into a kind of grey haze that couldn't be explained as meterological phenomena: it wasn't cold enough for fog, and helen quickly disillusioned us with, "it's pollution, hey".

so here we are. kt and i spent our first night staying with the irish couchsurfing guy, a travel-enthusiast by the name of seadna (shayne-ah), who came to meet us on his bike and shared his gourmet tea with us as well as providing a comfy tibetan mattress. he's an eccentric sort of character with a waxed moustache and a great collection of world music that we were keen to share. we spent most of the next day in his apartment, where i got to cook my first meal in over a month, with great fresh vegies and noodles from the markets around the corner.
then it was time to pick up mickey! seadna didn't really have room for three of us in his little apartment, and luckily at the train station we met victor, a guy who works at the loft hostel. after talking him into giving us a good discount, and smothering mick in "we've-missed-you" hugs and chattering at full speed (well, that was mostly me), we got a taxi to the hostel.

the loft is a great place, i'd definitely recommend it to anyone staying in chengdu. friendly, english-speaking staff, nice dorms with four very comfy beds, a restaurant out the front, and computers with free internet for an hour, a pool table and bar up the top, and convenient central location. it's pretty good. we've made friends with victor, who's offered to teach us some t'ai chi, and the other staff have been really helpful.

the other great thing about chengdu, besides taking it easy and not doing anything tourist-y at all so far, has been the jah bar. a little rastafarian delight tucked away amongst a few other bars, run by the lovely judy and her husband, and you can often see her friend sandy there as well. there's instruments set up if you want to jam - two mics, drumkit, bass and several guitars, as well as crankin reggae and dub all night. cheap-ish beers (10 kuai for a longneck of tsingtao), and other refreshments, including judy's pancakes with condensed milk to dip them in. we headed there on the first night we met mickey and ended up staying until around 3am. not surprisingly, our friend ben (who we first met in urumqi) happened to walk past. "is that ben?" i asked kt, incredulously. we'd known he was headed to chengdu. soon we were yelling his name, and he heard and came to join the party. we went there last night as well, and tonight may go to an open mic night. the next couple of nights after we've got a hip-hop gig and a punk gig to go to, with the daytime hours being spent on wandering around the city, eating and looking for an as-yet-elusive record store. we did make friends with a guy in an instrument store, though, and kt and mick played some of the traditional instruments there.

i think that's all i need write about chengdu so far. for a city of a vast 15 million people, i'm finding it incredibly relaxing! it's so good to take a break from crazy tourist stuff and just hang out and play music again. ahhhh....

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Photos

lanman and kt
our new friend, lanman, teaching kt some erhu

schmickey fingaz
pullin faces in fine style - nice to have him back!

me at the jah bar
the mohawk's grown out a bit, mum!

skeletons
on our walk today we went past these pig skeletons by the side of the road. the butcher obligingly made them dance for the camera.