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Published: October 17th 2010
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After getting back to Kashgar, we felt pretty done with Xinjiang, so we took a 24 hour bus ride from Kashgar to Urumqi. We got in to Urumqi pretty late at night, went back to the White Birch Youth Hostel and had some "spiiiicy chicken" at a nearby restaurant. The next day, we looked at our options for transportation to Chengdu. The train ride was about 20 hours and they only had standing tickets. A same-day plane ticket was rather expensive, so we bought a ticket for two days later and miraculously managed to fly standby that same day! We didn't know how to say "standby" in Chinese (and actually were a little hazy on the details, as neither of us had flown standby in the U.S.), but we were able to communicate what we meant, and it worked out just perfectly. We arrived in Chengdu late at night, checked into the Dreams Youth Hostel and went to bed.
The next morning, my stomach hurt, so Kayleigh went exploring by herself. We both had some stomach pains that day in Chengdu +/- a few days on either side... probably some bad food or something. It was quite mild though, only
a small inconvenience. I know some people get sick in China a lot, and (mostly from other foreigners) I've heard horror stories about unsanitary practices, but I've eaten everything from everywhere and I generally feel great!
When I got up, we went to the People's Square and saw the gigantic Mao Zedong statue. The square itself was a nice place to walk around in and we could see their progress on Chengdu's new subway system. Then we went to a market that Kayleigh had read about in the Lonely Planet. I think we thought it would have flowers and paintings or something, but it actually had live seafood and other creepy crawly things, plus freshly-killed dead meat for sale. The smell was terrible and there were so many flies buzzing around! It was pretty cool anyway, seeing crazy crabs stuffed in a tank, attempting to crawl out for dear life... plus big buckets of insects, snakes, crayfish, cute turtles... everything. It was cooler than I expected. Almost like going to an aquarium!
We also went to a crowded indoor clothes market. It is always said (总的来说...) that when you are in such a crowded place (especially if you
are a foreigner), you should be very careful of your valuables, because some people are super pickpocketing pros and you won't even feel your stuff being taken. I did feel a slight tug on my purse when I was in there, and when we got outside, I discovered that my purse was unzipped and my wallet was gone. Thankfully, my wallet only had about 10 USD in it at the time, and no bank cards or I.D.'s or anything. They only took my wallet, not my passport or cards or camera (which was in my front pocket). A little scary, but I got very lucky and learned my lesson to take better care of my purse next time.
We also went to a very famous Chinese medicine market, where they sell all kinds of rare dried worms and mushrooms and flowers and stuff that is supposed to cure various ailments. Some of the worms were 10,000 RMB or more! I have read that the placebo effect can be very effective, so I don't doubt that these products do "work" to some extent. Sorry for being a jaded Westerner. On the second floor, they sold various health machines. Several were
Energetic Crabs
Crawling over each other in a frenzy! labeled "cervical collar" and another was labeled "loins treatment."
At that point, we had walked several miles from our hostel and needed to get back there to watch a Sichuan Opera show. The lines waiting for taxis were ridiculous (30+ min wait) and we are not nearly as good as Chinese people at cutting in line. There were some men on motorcycles lingering around. We didn't want to miss the show and didn't have any other options. After bargaining them down (it didn't actually matter if the ride was 2 or 3 USD but it was a matter of pride! I don't want to be overcharged because I am a foreigner), Kayleigh and I hopped on the back of a couple of motorcycles... off we went. At one location, a traffic cop yelled at the guys driving the motorcycles and pushed them and made us get off the back. We asked the two guys if it was illegal to ride with two people on a motorcycle. They said no, it was no problem. Indeed we had seen two people riding on motorcyles all around the city. Later we learned that it is not illegal to give people a ride
on the back of your motorcycle, but it is illegal to charge money for it. The traffic cop saw two foreigners on the back of two Chinese guys' bikes and correctly assumed that they were charging us. But what if say, a foreign exchange student at the university dated a Chinese guy with a motorcycle... then everywhere they would ride around together, traffic cops would hit him and yell at him!
Anyway, we made it back in one piece and got to the show on time. It was in a lovely semi-outdoor tea house. There was quite a wide variety of acts - sword dancing, shadow puppets, knife throwing, erhu playing, giant puppets (hi Dad), and a finale of famous Sichuan mask changing. After the show, we got hotpot at an outdoor restaurant.
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