Our last day in Chengdu, sigh. I seriously love this city and how fun it was to visit. I wanted to show you what our hostel looked like. It was really nice and cute, and I'm glad we stayed there. 

The sinks outside the WESTERN STYLE TOILETS!


Western toilet!! After using a squatter toilet on the 37 hour train ride this was tear inducing.

Here's the amazing bed I kept mentioning (with all our stuff on it) it was a real mattress not a pretend Chinese box spring one. AND it had a feather bed spread on it and a feather quilt to snuggle under. It was amazing and I loved every minute I spent in that bed.
I didn't get a picture of the shower, but it was the same cute tile as the bathroom and the water pressure was amazing and you could easily adjust the temperature! It was the perfect place to stay and if you head to Chengdu and don't want to stay at the Sofitel (which you should because we hear it is fantastic) you need to stay at the Chengdu Traffic Inn Youth Hostel (a misnomer, you don't have to be a youth to stay there).

First thing in the morning we trekked to a bookstore that promised English books and it did not disappoint. 2 whole shelves full of English books. Which might not sound too exciting to you, but do you know of a bookstore in the US that has 2 shelves of Chinese novels and classic literature? Yeah I didn't think so. 

The road to the bookstore was really cool because it was fashioned into a street to model classic Chinese architecture. We only got some lame pictures, sorry about that. 



Anyway, after that adventure we went to the Green Ram Temple, a temple for the Taoist religion. It was really pretty and one of those surreal places where it was quiet and beautiful inside and crazy and full of construction right outside the walls.

The front gate

Chad made me take a pic and then ran off to get the tickets to go inside so I took one of him walking away


Chad again.

This is an insanely old pagoda built without bolts or pegs

So you're not allowed to take pictures INSIDE the buildings, but I saw other Chinese people taking pictures outside so I did too...

Chad really liked this guy so we had to get a picture by him

Pretty amazing statues, right?

Artsy


These are the animals of the Chinese zodiac surrounding the yin/yang, and if you look extra closely you will see a child's foot about to step onto it. That is until what I can only assume is the parent (the other foot off to the side) said in no uncertain terms, what I can only assume to be (my Chinese is a little rough, but judging from the sternality of her voice and the speed with which said foot was retracted), 'if you step on that fenced off sacred symbol, I will slice your Achilles tendon and drizzle your blood onto the zodiac as I watch you writhe on the ground and slowly bleed out.' Anyway it was neat.

Speaking of neat, legend has it that if you rub the bronze ram, all your troubles will leave you. So we obviously had to rub it
I was trying to go for a look of relief, but I don't think it came across well



A rare Goddess temple shrine

I believe these are 3 Emperors of the Qing Dynasty


We plan on adding these to our home one day



Chad saw this totally rad turtle and we had to get some pictures



After the temple we were famished and while walking to our next location, we spotted these things and decided to give them a try. Great idea! They were like donut holes covered in hot sugar. They were amazing and I wish they existed in Weifang and all over the world. This would solve hunger and terrorism. No one would be hungry or angry if they had consistent, easy access to these. They were spectacular.

We decided to keep the trend of food on a stick going for lunch and got some meat on a stick. We think that the small one was lamb and the big one was super spicy chicken. It was all so good and it now makes me want to try more street meat, but I still get too nervous. Also disregard the weird redness that is our mouths/teeth, it is from the chicken/lamb

Corn on a stick! Corn here tastes different. I'm trying to figure out if it's because they don't use GMO's or if it's because everything here is processed. I am kinda leaning towards the no GMO thing...sigh to America. I'll keep you posted on my thoughts.

We are in a park called "People's Park" and it is pretty much awesome. So much going on there, right here is an art auction just set up in the middle of one of the plazas (right across from the competing karaoke competitions, but more on that later)

These people were walking around taking pictures for some promo thing and wanted a picture with us. She said it was like a Chinese Justin Bieber and he was performing at the Super Bowl (we assume a Chinese Super Bowl since it's pretty rare to have a mysterious Asian perform at the US one). Either way it was an awesome picture, and if you know Chinese you should tell us what the sign we are holding says, in case we need to remove this picture (you know, for safety, or decency, or something equally compelling). Also there were balloons and a woman who desperately wants to be identified as British.
After we took our picture with like 100 people we went to a teahouse, Chengdu is famous for them and I pretty much loved every minute of it. 
The teahouse concept is pretty simple. You sit at a table, you each order a tea and they bring you out a glass with your tea in it. Usually something dried and rock sugar. They then bring you a giant pitcher of hot water and you sit there and sip till your heart's content. A lot of people around us were playing games, eating snacks and reading the paper. I want more places like this in America. Mmmkay? Thanks.

Chrysanthemum tea and lemon tea (apparently Chad isn't very adventurous). Pretty sure they're dandelions though...

Drinking tea is super manly, see!

Panorama. I'm pretty sure the guy in the middle was a secret agent from the 80's. He wore this ill fitting cotton button up and smoked cigarettes while not drinking his tea and looking mysterious.


There he is again, secret government agent, am I right? That is why I am making a crazy face.

Outdoor seating FTW

I am obsessed with 2 groups of people in China. The kids (so stinking cute) and the old people. I love them  both equally and want to take both and put them in my pocket.

Hence the creeper shot. They were just soooo adorable! And tiny! I just wanted to put them into my pocket and flee before anyone could stop me.

So I would leave this part out of my America teahouses... this guy walks around cleaning out people's ears... with lots of crazy instruments.


This was a fun, cute activity. People had these brushes and would paint on the sidewalk with them using water.


Just a large synchronized group dance in the park. I think China might be the home of the flash mob.

They also had multiple places to do a little Karaoke in the park... Do you see this cute old man singing his heart out? He is really into it, it was remarkable. Also, right across the way is another Karaoke setup, singing a different song. It was basically a Karaoke-off.

Our last stop in Chengdu before the hostel to grab our stuff and head to the train, was at a super old pharmacy (like 710 AD old). It was pretty cool on the outside, but a bit of a let down inside, except for what you'll see in the last picture!

Dragon!


We had no idea if we could take pictures...  so it's a sneaky shot... do you see all those red bins with white dots? That's an insane ton of Chinese medicinal herbs. How cool is that? Also Chad doesn't usually look like that, I think it might have been the herbs in the air.



This cool guy was in the park right by our hostel



Remember how we heard there were good brownies around and searched all night in the rain only to find out it was at our hostel and it was closed? Well we finally had it and although it didn't change my life, it was lovely to have a brownie in a country that does not respect chocolate as much as it should.
And for the train ride back... words cannot explain how rough it was... 37 hours in a seat surrounded by people who just stare at you is hard. At one point I told Chad I was afraid to go to sleep because I thought I was going to be grabbed by one of 3 men who were starring at me.

When all the seats fill up on a train they will sell you standing room tickets. Well if you ride a train in the hard seat section, on the last day of a week when everyone (well not everyone, the service industry was still working...) has the week off, it will be insanely crowded and people will be standing all over and around you.

We made some friends on the train during our second night there. Not pictured was our 13 year old friend who spoke amazingly good English. She wants to go to college in the US and I think she will be able to if she keeps studying. It was really good. Possibly better than mine??? Sadness *frowny face*. These people were fun and all students or young professionals. They gave us chicken feet... that wasn't quite as awesome. But you can see that it is quite crowded.

This. This is what we sat on for 37 hours. No, not the backpack, that is there for a size reference.

Do you see that capacity sign? 118 is the number of seats in the train. There were easily at least 80 people standing in our train car. You can see the heads of people relegated to standing outside the bathroom and in the space between cars.

You might not know this about me, but I usually have really skinny ankles... but not after 23 hours of sitting on a train... yes 23... I couldn't even bare to show you hour 37. But you can see all the people sitting on the ground at my feet.

I never knew how painful swollen ankles were... so sorry to all my pregnant friends!


Just some more pretty views... although less enjoyable on the awful train home.

Hour 36. Did I mention Chad had a sinus infection? Yeah, we were pretty miserable. Bright side though... we both got in plenty of reading!


Farewell Chengdu. You were a blast and a half and I think the 37 hours each way was worth it, although it has taken me a few days to admit that. The way home was just too rough... and I'm not even mentioning the people who sat across from us who took up all the leg space, starred at us constantly, and ate a lot of odd things that we got to stare at the remains of for a very long time. China is a strange different mistress.