Uneventfulness

The bus ride was again filled with a lot of sleep and beautiful environment. The combination works especially well. I stared at the beautiful little stream that had basically nothing but rapids, at the mountains, the valleys, the trees, and it soothed me to sleep. When I arrived in Xichang, I got on the first bus passing the bus stop where I was dropped off, and it turned out that this one almost brought me to the part of town where most hostels were. The next day I figured out that there are actually two number 12 buses passing by this stop, so I was amazingly lucky to get on this one.

When I got off the bus, I walked a little bit to find the hostel I had wanted to go to. It was nice and I thought I had the dorm room for myself, but later that night, one other person showed up. I walked to Qionhai lake, which was really close, to have some dinner and see the scenery. I went to the first restaurant I saw because I was *so* hungry. I walked onto the terrace and the people sitting at the table all looked at me, then all started to get up at the same time. I had to pick from a menu which was entirely in Chinese. So I picked something and the serving staff started chattering excitedly, but I didn’t understand what they meant. So I had to come with, and they took me to the area outside the kitchen, where they had some aquariums. They caught a big fish and pointed at it. Apparently it was too big for just one person. So they suggested me getting a smaller fish, but then got two of those out of the water, with both thrashing around the basket they were put in. After that I was escorted back to the table and waited for my dinner. A gigantic bowl of fish soup showed up, along with a barrel of rice. I ate both fish and a lot of rice, but there was just too much to actually finish the entire dish.

I walked back through the waterside park, enjoying the scenery much more on a full stomach, digesting both the fish and the fact that I’d just seen my food alive minutes before I ate it. When I got back to the hostel, I just relaxed and then went to bed.

The next morning, I just had breakfast and did little else. Finally, some relaxation. All this traveling is starting to feel like work. I got to the train station to catch the train to Emei Shan, and I’m writing this on the train.

As I was typing this, the train bumped into something or ran over something… I don’t know what happened, but everyone acted slightly offended for a second and then went on with normal life on a train, so I guess it wasn’t anything too shocking.

Oh, and the guy next to me keeps reading over my shoulder, but I don’t think he knows how to read English, otherwise he’d stop now that I’m writing this. And he’s not.

Since this is my shortest blog post to date (and I still have 3 more hours on the train), I figure I can tell you a bit about the weird mnemonics I use to remember what’s what in Chinese signs. There are a couple I need to remember: 山means mountain, which is not that important, but 出口 (double mountain door) means exit. I just remember to always go towards the cactus door. 人口 means people gate, or entrance. 男厕 means men’s restroom, where nu女厕 means women’s restroom. Of course, the right character looks like a guy in front of a toilet in a house, and the left character, well, women cross their legs, and men have a big head. 米 is rice, as it looks like a pile of it. 牛is beef. I remember by thinking cows get killed by swords. 鸡 is chicken (as you can see), and 肉 is meat. Now, I’d remembered meat, but I didn’t remember the other ones then… so apparently I picked 咸肉, salted bacon. Seeing how most of the normal dishes are really salty here already, this was too much… Ok I’ll stop boring you with this now. I’ll post more soon!