Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Chowing down in Chengdu

My internship at Metrozine wrapped up last week and I was pretty relieved. It wasn't Metrozine's fault, I just wasn't all that motivated and used my time there more for free internet. I did write a few articles, a restaurant review and another on India, (along with a review of the new Britney Spears cd that I didn't get to listen to). Oh well, they do it different in China.

Jaime left last Friday for LA so he could attend all the family events he has in May. :(. I stayed in the flat for a few more days and left yesterday for Chengdu in the Sichuan province, site of the massive earthquake that killed almost 70,000 people almost exactly a year ago. I'm not really sure why I headed to Sichuan. I asked people for tips on what to do during my free two weeks in China and a lot of them recommended Sichuan for its spicy cuisine and natural beauty. So I booked a round-trip Chengdu-Shanghai flight and two nights in a hostel and decided to see what would happen.

Yesterday was the first day of my ten day trip, and I met a Dutch guy who was trying to put together a trip to Tibet. I was interested in going to Tibet after having heard so much about it when I was in McLeod Ganj, India, but it turned out it wouldn't work because of visa restrictions. He next suggested trekking to Mount Emei, something I was pretty interested in so I signed on, but reluctantly because he seemed overly pushy and I wasn't exactly looking forward to spending three days with him on a mountain.

So I kept my ears and options open and met two other Dutch girls today closer to my age and I think I'll be heading off with them tomorrow to Leshan, home to the world's largest Buddha. It's only worth a day's visit, so from there we'll probably head to Chongqing, the biggest city in Sichuan, and start a cruise down the Yangtze River. That will probably all take a few days. They'll be heading to Beijing to catch a flight back to Holland, and so I'll split up and see who else I meet and what other plans I join in on.

I can't believe the gap year is coming to a close. I'll be back in the City of Angels in 12 days. I have lots more pictures, stories and a conclusion to write for this blog before then, so hopefully I get it all done. I'll have one last weekend in Shanghai to hang out with all my friends there before I head back Stateside.Hope everybody's well!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, it is quite a crazy thought that our year is quickly coming to an end. I'm very interested in what your final thoughts on everything are. See you soon, man.

Dr. Zeuss said...

if you´re in Sichuan province I HIGHLY recommend horsetrekking in Songpan. like Elliot, look forward to being back in LA and finding out about everyone´s year.