Oh my gosh, a nice 8 or 9 hours of sleep last night (it would’ve been perfect had I not been woken up by Eric like 5 times…sigh). This morning I also learned that Fu Ah Yi bought this sewed picture of Zhong Kuei for 1800 (the asking price was 4200)…dang it I missed it. Today was much lighter in our activity load. We woke up at 7 (as compared to waking up at 5:30 am tomorrow), and left the hotel at 9. We then headed for this other place in the park we were at yesterday. On our way, the local guide told us to go around and each say an idiom that begins with a number. Then when we all went once, she said to say the same idiom again, but add “My wedding night was…”…of course, it was extremely enjoyable for the adults, and it probably would have been for me had I understood most of them.

Anyways, I’ve realized that security is so complicated at the park area. They check for vehicles like smuggling people so they have to see a passport, tickets, and they need all passengers to get off the vehicle, walk in, and then get back on the vehicle…weird. Anyways, when we got there, we walked up this inclined road and turned onto a flight of stairs over the mountain. Supposedly it’s supposed to be like 168 steps (yi liu ba = yi lu fa…or…a road of wealth and good stuff), but I only counted like 153…maybe I just can’t count. (Kfang counted Going down the steps as 102.) After going down the other side, we boarded a little boat and took a ride around the lake. We saw more rocks that looked like stuff such as a peacock, two toads facing the sky, zhu ba jie, and a woman with some really tall hair. The guide also told us that when we passed this one boat in the water, we had to make a lot of commotion and sing aboriginal songs so that an a-mei (mountain girl person) would come out and sing a song for us to hear (personally…I think it’s good…the voice style is just extremely jian…sharp). Oh yeah, before we got on, we were all pretty nervous because we didn’t want to get stung by all the mosquitoes and stuff living by the water, so we all went crazy with the Off and also used some of Pei Ji’s “wen bu ding” (mosquito won’t sting). On our little trip we also saw a guy fishing in the water, but he had a few companions too…ducks that help him catch the fish…pretty cool…pretty cool. Oh yeah, the fish in the water are called wa wa yu (doll fish) because at night, they make this sound that sounds like children playing. Wa wa Fish are actually just oversized salamanders it turns out…Also, the fishing helpers are cormorants (glossy underwater swimmers) according to national geographic, not ducks…

Afterwards, we went to eat lunch (at the same place we ate when we first got to Zhangjiajie). This time however, there was no karaoke as we wanted to go out and roam the streets and shop. The guys (sans Xu Shu Shu) went in one group, and the others went in another. We headed straight for a CD store to buy some cheap stuff…nice. Man…you have to be really like…I don’t really know what the word is…I guess stubborn and argumentative…to be able to get good deals on anything in China. Like…when we were in the CD store, I told Pei Ji to help me bargain for some CDs (actually they were all VCDs…but whatever) and like he bargained up to a point where it was like…they started arguing over what price each other had agreed on to a point where we left the store because we had to act like a tough sell. Anyway, after we just walked out and a little way down the sidewalk, the guide went back into the store and bought the CDs for the price that he wanted…pretty cool…I really wish I could do that, but I guess I’m just not that type of person…not crude enough. What was the highlight of my day was that we eventually went into another CD store (oh yeah, we passed an Internet café too, but didn’t go in…too bad, but I did take a picture of these really tiny three-wheeled cars) and started bargaining for more CDs. Well, the guide told Terry’s dad to buy this one CD, and he said okay, so then the guide tells one of the girls in the store to open the CD wrapping and let him listen to it. Oh yeah, the girl in the store told us the CD was 10 RMB before…of course we thought that was a great deal considering the double-disc CDs we bought earlier were 14 each. Then, after she opened it, he asked the price of a single-disc CD and she said 10 too. Well, of course the guide asked why the two would be the same price and tried to bargain it to 8. Then this other girl in the store said that the double-disc one was 20, not 10. Of course THEN a whole argument started. Our guide said that we wouldn’t buy it and that we would leave, but then the other girl started yelling at him (very angrily and loudly and scarily) saying that it was already opened and she couldn’t sell it now (all BS considering that I saw all the CD packages and they all said “resealable”)…she then went on insulting him saying how he wears glasses and a hat and looks like a respectable person, but in actuality is some bad person. When we walked out, I even heard her use the word “pi” (fart…hehehe). Later, my dad was like…instead of hacking the price, he got hacked by the vendor =P. Now that’s when you get scared and run as quickly as possible.

The airport was our next stop, where we had to say goodbye to our local guide…sniff. Man, the flight was delayed like an hour, but in the airport café I saw the video for Bu Ke Nen Cuo Guo Ni. When it came time to board the plane, it was like a mad dash for the gate. There’s no such thing as a line in China…it’s just squeeze your way through pushing everyone left and right…now that was an experience. Our next destination was Chengdu, the capital of Szechuan (should be Sichuan) province. Our local guide’s name is Tze Ming Chung. We went to this really nice restaurant with tons of dishes. Like they pour tea with this long bamboo thing attached to the spout and the waitress stands away from the table and pours the tea into your cup…so accurate…and yet doesn’t splash or anything when they stop pouring. I noticed that the waitresses had to be extremely well trained for this restaurant because they gave a whole story for every single dish…interesting…but of course I wasn’t paying much attention. There was a band playing next to our table too.

Well, now I’m sitting in the hotel (5-star again). We’re staying in the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza in Chengdu (room 1107). It seems better than Xin Jin Jiang…more TV channels…hehehe. Eric and I spend our time watching the [V] network…this Asian music video channel where there’s like Japanese, Chinese and American artists…pretty cool. Okay, well I want to sleep more, so cyuz.

Eric's Commentary:

What an emotional two days… I was starting to miss that girl I didn’t know. Our local tour guide left today too. O well, we are in paradise, surrounded by hot Asian girls, cute Asian girls, and great hotels! They are everywhere. The girls are making me feel cuter and cuter, lol jk. O and my hair is growing even longer, looks cool now…yay… I am currently relaxing in the awesome 5 star, Holiday Inn, hotel where the air conditioning is fucking awesome. The beds are so good and I think I’m just gonna stay awake the whole night just to enjoy being in the bed. If I get married (for real) I’m coming here!

Ok, enough, it’s commentary time. I can’t remember what we did today cause I take in so much information. Things that happen seem like they happened so long ago.

Hmmm, hey! I went to sleep at 2:00 and I’m fine. I forgot why I kept waking you up though; maybe it was because there was loud punk rock and Taiwanese pop blaring on the speakers. O yeah, the making a living thing. I feel so sorry for all the people we are ripping off including ourselves. (I feel so sorry for all the cool bellboys who I think I should take pictures of for Becky. They have to carry my mom’s super heavy luggage) Why do people have to work hard? Life sucks. I think its just because we feel so close to vacation here. Idioms… I feel like an idiot* for not paying attention and knowing what was going on and generally not understanding any of my own language in Chinese. Especially on the wedding night where it was all dark and romantic and I was like “huh? Woh Ting Boo Dong”. Uhm help? I cant ping ying

Security isn’t too complicated; they just don’t want people to become missing in the big ole mountains… and the smuggling thing. (Like how my mom had to stuff 5 buns of long bread in her bag thing cause we were saving it. Wonder what the people in customs who X-ray our bags would have wondered if we had it coming into the airport.)

O so that’s what they are called…a-mei. La-mei’s are cool too. Yeah, the a-mei sang really really well. Her job is to sit in that boat thing and sing for people passing by. Pei Ji’s “wen bu ding” for Da loo mosquitoes. Reason that it should be more effective because there are killer mosquitoes there as opposed to the American Off for tiny American bugs. “They aren’t ducks!” They’re kingfisher-like birds, which have long legs… I forgot where I read it, too lazy to go check in national geographic.

CDs in China, I was thinking about buying some fake stuff to bring back. They have legitimate looking vcd/dvd s of movies that couldn’t have possibly got on disk or in this location that fast. (Rush Hour 2, Jurassic Park 3, Tomb Raider, and Final Fantasy.

KAN ja! Bay KAN luh! Is all I have to say about the second CD incident where pei ji was trying to haggle. At least he was smart enough to just ignore her. The second time at the airport, he almost got into an argument with this bitch mom who was trying to cover up her stupidity and nervousness when cutting in line in between our tour group baggage loading/registering process.

Aww, we shall miss our guide who we double tipped and gave her like 200 more. O yeah, as usual, lots of hot girls an this cute and almost hot looking little girl who kept looking at me and then running away and then coming back… weird, wonder what she was doing. Playing at the airport? The squeezing thing (Survival of the fittest). It was soo funny, I’m like “o wow, this is soo fun,” cuz everyone is so short and its, “like bitch! what you trying to do” and then slowly slide in and block em or shove em away. HAHAHA...yes!!!

The restaurant…so many hot people there too! The tea pouring. It’s not a bamboo spout… It’s metal but it looks like bamboo. I didn’t get the band in the pictures tho! We are watching “Cruel Intentions”, thank goodness. I am reminded why ________________.

O yeah, please don’t argue with me about China politics and life problems if you can help it. My policy is that life sucks overall so just help what you can and worry about the rest after you are in a good position to actually make a difference.