buhao yisi = embarrassed. in chinese it often takes the place of "sorry" or "excuse me," for example if you step on someone's foot or run into them on the street. but it can also mean straight-up embarrassed... which is what i was on thursday morning (and still am). now, the lucky viewers at home get to hear why, and how i have attempted to bounce back over the last three days!
as you might know, my plan on thursday morning was to catch the first bus from chengdu to e'mei shan, about 3 hours away. i packed up all my things, checked out of my room (leaving my main luggage at the hostel) and went off to the bus station with a night's worth of things. after buying my ticket, i went to the ATM to stock up for my trip. ahhh you can guess from here. as i was preoccupied putting the withdrawn money into my backpack, the man behind me in line mauled right by me, swiped my card from the machine, and ran. i will spare you the the details of (1) my freak-out, (2) the lessons i learned from this incident, which is all i was able to think about for ~48 hours, and (3) my quest all over the city to secure enough cash for the rest of my trip, using only chinese. INSTEAD, i will stick to some of the positives that occurred thursday.
first and foremost, i was in a big city where i already knew my way around and could handle the situation. while i waited for banks to do various things, i got to poke around chengdu's downtown shopping area (even if that was sadly ironic), visit the giant mao statue in tianfu square, and have some authentic mapo dofu on some backstreet.
second, i had plans to meet up with tenpa for dinner again. something resembling a good friend was exactly what i needed. we went to his friend's restaurant for indian food and then did some cheering-up at a lhasa bar with live tibetan music. i got to sample lhasa "rooftop of the world" beer and tibetan barley beer, which were both tasty, even if i wasn't exactly in the mood.
third, tenpa convinced me to confront my fears of the bus station and trips to sichuan mountains by deciding that we would go to qingcheng shan 青成山 on friday. i agreed; i was still dying to get out of the city and have a day hiking. so on friday i set my alarm for 6 am again and went for it.
qingcheng shan was quite an adventure in itself. tenpa hinted that he wanted to take the cable car up. i politely said that i would be climbing... i had some serious steam to blow! so we began 3 hours of steps to the top, accompanied by all of china's men, women, children, and senior citizens. i saw this phenomenon on the great wall and i still can't get over it. girls my age in 4 inch heels, little old men that must be over 70, and toddlers that can barely walk. people that you would never see hiking in the US... going at it!
that part was amusing; but walking among old, thin
construction workers who trembled as they carry dozens of pounds of tiles and brick up the mountain was not. apparently, qingcheng shan is still being rebuilt after earthquakes severely damaged all the daoist shrines. these men looked so miserable and so obviously overworked that even chinese people were quieted and would ask them hopefully how much money they would earn to get to the top. 30 kuai... 4 USD.
our climb was also interrupted by a landslide! it literally happened just in front of us on the trail, gallons of rock and mud slid down and covered a section of the stairs. so we waited 45 minutes for men with shovels to clear it, because we were so close and wanted to get to the top! the scene as everyone piled up on the trail and waited was terribly interesting... i wasn't bored in the least. donkeys, little kids, monkeys, whatever. of course, when we finally bypassed the slide, (1) the top of the mountain was closed and (2) the cable car was broken.
so then we walked back down.
5 hours on qingcheng shan was a little more than i had signed up for :) but i admit, all the mud and sweat was exactly what i needed. the fact that it was half the price of going to e'mei shan mediated my guilt, too. when i got home, i had the most glorious shower ever, and then i treated tenpa for mexican food (i think i am getting evangelical with the stuff) and he treated for massages at a place where prime minister wen jiabao went when he was in chengdu! so cool. only in china would the price tags on those two items basically even out.
and now..... i am in lhasa!!! prepare for saturday blog post #2.
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