Today is May 20th. The way you say five two zero is very similar to the way you say i love you in Chinese so, today is a lovers day in China. I love you all!
This morning we took a tour boat to see the Giant Buddha. It's carved into the side of a cliff right on a river bank. The river (I think it's the Ming river) is extremely polluted. It has a dead fish smell and the current was very strong. If you went overboard I'm not sure anyone would be able to rescue you. None the less, we all had life jackets on. The boat ride was not very long. We were gone for maybe an hour max. Some other tourists were able to get off the boats and climb up the side of the Buddha. The walkway looked very narrow, glad we didn't do that.
We had a two hour ride back to Chengdu with a pit stop at a rest area were they sold snacks and more importantly tea! I bought some wheat tea. It comes in granular packets that have to be steeped so I got the tea caddy as well. It's a plastic contraption that allows you to put loose tea in a basket and pour hot water over it to make the tea. I'm sure it's made in China. Ha. Ha.
We had two options for lunch. Either the traditional Chinese food we have been eating or famous Chinese snacks. We chose the snacks which turned out to me quite a large meal. There were dumplings, lots of sweet sticky rice things, and the best was smoked duck. It was still on the bone an oh sooo delicious. Even though it was duck is was the most American thin I've eaten in a week! Yumo!
We did some shopping on a famous Chengdu street after lunch. I bought a few gifts and also a pair of cute flats with flowers on them... They were 10 bucks!
We learned more about our tour guide after Bill had a little chat with her. Turns out she's only 23 and we were her second tour group ever. Bill encourages her to tell us more about herself and about her lifestyle because we find that even more interesting than looking at giant Buddhas all day. Most of the people in her family are teachers. Her dad still teaches but will retire when he turns 50. Her mom stopped working a few year ago and now "does nothing" but go to the park and play games with the old people. She is the oldest and because they live in the country and she was a irk her parents were able to have a boy 4 years later. Her brother is studying in France right now. She hopes to go visit him next year. She studies hard in high school but didn't do well on the college entrance exam so she could only go to a 3rd level school. It cost her family 4 times as much money to send her to a 3rd level university than it would have I she would have done better on her exam and gotten into a 1st level college. In America is the opposite. If you only go to a community college you pay much less than an Ivy League school! The 3rd level schools are more trade schools. She studied English and Hospitality Management. Now she is a tour guide and lives in the city of Chengdu in a two bedroom apartment with 4 girls that are also tour guides. Two girls share one bed because the apartment came furnished. She told us the rent is about $200 per month and they all split it. Also Internet is only $64 for a half of a year. This seems really cheap but she said the average salary in Chengdu is about $500 per month. She only gets paid when she works and there was an earth quake in this area that caused lots of tourists to cancel their trip. She has had nothing to do for about a month. She told us its very hard for young people to save money because it is expensive to live and eat in the city. A few year ago her family moved to a bigger home on the Ming River in a town I can't pronounce or spell or remember. He said things are getting better, the economy is getting better. She has a boyfriend that she met on the Internet. He is a subway engineer; not the driver but an engineer working on building new subways in these huge cities. He wants her to go back to school to get a better degree but I think she would like to do nothing like her mother. Ha. Ha.
Next we flew to Hangzhou. The flight was about two hours. I'm totally grossed out! A Chinese man sitting in my row on the plane spent about 5 minutes picking his nose, like really going to town, digging for gold. Then he'd wipe it in the seat in front of him. The isle seat that everyone grabs to get out of the row!!! Gross!!!! They just have no concept of germs or person hygiene or personal space. They cough without covering their mouth. They "wash" their hands without soap. They hack up huge spit balls and just spit them anywhere on the street. It's no wonder they have terrible disease outbreaks. Until the government launches a campaign to help them understand these germ spreading habits thy will continue to have issues. But then again, the society as a whole doesn't have a strong regard for human life. If a few hundred people die it's really no big deal because they are so over populated. Now, individually yes, they care about their neighbor. In fact Kate, our tour guide, said that crime is pretty low. She doesn't know anyone that's in prison.
Another busy day tomorrow. We have a new tour guide Alex. He will be with us for the rest if our trip.
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