"perfect city"

walking into your room just as it starts to pour is probably one of the best feelings ever. that's what i just did… it's 8 pm and i just walked 3 kilometers or so from the most wonderful dinner. that was plenty of time for it to start raining, but i'm glad it held off till now!

i will get to dinner later. today began with a luxurious sleep-in till 9 am. by the time i got up, the british girl was long gone and the japanese guy was about to head to the airport. so sad! love him.

greece and i chilled and had coffee (mine, starbucks via instant) and macadamia nuts (his, all the way from the home country) for breakfast. we bashed chinese people for not appreciating coffee… good to bond with the europeans every once in a while. i also went down to the common room to check my email and such. by 10 i was out the door to the "dufu thatched cottage," a replica of a tang dynasty sage/poet's modest home in chengdu. it seems that the attraction is neither the cottage, nor the poetry. cottage is tiny and not very informative, poetry is sort of on display but not that accessible to english speakers. the main attraction is the gorgeous gardens, pavilions, lakes, and pagodas surrounding.

from dufu, they drive you to the wuhou temple for free if you buy your ticket there. score! in the car, i met a really nice couple that spoke english and chinese (the guy was from chengdu, girl was from NYC). when we arrived at wuhou, i split off for lunch… best part of the day. i got a little lost in the backstreets near wuhou, but avoiding the overpriced/so-so food next to the tourist attractions is usually worthwhile. today was no different: i ducked into a random little place and asked for jiaozi and a bowl of whatever else was good. the jiaozi were served in mal-la tang (mouth numbing hot sauce) just like everything else in sichuan province is. the other dish was a dessert item… a soup of sticky rice dumplings with sugary peanut, cinnamon, and black sesame filling. seriously, the fuwuyuan could have known me all my life to suggest such a thing. altogether 8 kuai… the price of one skewer next to wuhou!

i spent an hour or so looking around the temple after lunch, but it was sort of disappointing. the highlights were actually the bands of japanese tourists and chinese tourists making funny faces with the "relic" statues. so, i moved on to my secondary plan, which involved sitting, drinking tea, and reading. i found a taro milk tea, snuck into a starbucks back porch (oops, need to make it to a real chengdu tea house at some point) and opened up my current read, patrick french's "tibet tibet." our director michelle gave it to me! it's great, if not a little depressing/frightening (what history of china is not depressing?). later, i gained the confidence to actually go inside starbucks, and sat down on a couch with a giant american guy from phoenix. he turned out to be a teacher at a foreign-language school in chengdu - very friendly and tons of tips for lhasa. later we were joined by a chinese couple that was also really nice. our conversation spanned education in the usa v. china, beijing and lhasa relations, chengdu life v. that of other cities in china, the ipad… haha etc. the husband even suggested that i fake chinese citizenship so i don't need to bother with a permit to tibet! oh dear. the chinese couple wants to have dinner on friday night when i get back from e'mei shan. maybe…

ah yes, on the topic of dinner. it was about 4 when i left starbucks to go to the chinese herbal medicine shop, where estella's aunt sent me to buy altitude sickness remedy for my trip to tibet. she had also told me to look around that area because it is chengdu's tibetan quarter (food, shops, tibetan community). tenpa, the man who obtained my tibet permit and guide, had said yesterday that if i came around the tibetan quarter, i should give him a call. so i did! in no time, we met up again, and agreed that i should have my first tibetan meal at his friend's restaurant nearby.

dinner was just so enjoyable! tenpa has a really interesting life story, and because he has worked in tourism for so long, he has friends all over the world. like many tibetan families, his is somewhat displaced. he was born in lhasa, raised in india from 4 to 19 years old, then came to chengdu. he therefore speaks tibetan, hindi, english, and a little mandarin. his two brothers live in san francisco and run a pizza shop in berkeley (chicago zachary pizza - do any of my berk peeps know it?!). his sister lives somewhere else too - i don't remember. we talked about how he loves bollywood movies, can cook nepalese food, hates tokyo and thinks that japanese people are very unhappy, and doesn't believe you can convert religions if you were raised in one (but, he thinks it's great that many agnostic americans are attracted to tibetan buddhism. he has taken tour groups from san francisco to lhasa who can read sanskrit and pray better than some monks!). anyway, i admire tenpa because he is so calm, easy going, and soft spoken, but still so interesting to talk to. i felt really hyper and wound-up compared to him… and i had been reading and sipping tea all afternoon! i guess he is one example of why people speak so highly of tibetans and their uniqueness.

their food must be another reason! we began with butter tea, which i had heard of, but didn't really believe until i saw it. tea- mixed with yak butter, milk, and salt. who's idea was that?! either way, it's great, but very unusual at first. i can imagine it being perfect when you are frozen and dried out on a windy, desolate plateau. but in chengdu's stifling heat, maybe not so much. next, sour yak yogurt, with as much sugar mixed in as you like. yummy. then, a rich beef/tomato broth with handmade flat noodles and a little kick. finally, the famous "momo!" dumplings stuffed with delicious yak meat. if you are into lamb and other such meats… you will basically die.

back at the ranch, i have met one of my new roomies (a cute korean girl from seoul who just got back from the jiuzhaigou waterfalls). the other two have their things scattered around but i haven't met them yet. books indicate english speakers - yay. now i will go downstairs and try to get some help planning my hike to the top of e'mei shan tomorrow thru friday. i am almost sad at the prospect of leaving chengdu for 48 hours! because on friday i leave for lhasa… all too soon. i am really loving it here; chengdu means "perfect city" after all. till friday ;)