Chengdu: Day One

After arriving in Chengdu, we made it to the hostel really early. Too early, in fact. It was like 5:30am or something horrendous like that. Most people went back to bed, but Yen and I showered and did some laundry. Nice.

We had a nice Chinese breaky at the hostel (fried rice with egg and tomato and wonton soup) and then met up with the group for our quick orientation to Chengdu. We hit the streets and found out where to find the necessities.

We then went to a big park, finding tables and tables and tables of mahjong players. It was cool. Then we went to Dufu's place. Dufu is the Shakespeare of China. A grand poet who I'm assuming is much better than the shrine they've created in his absence.

To make up for our morning disappointment, we came back to the hostel and took a Sichuan cooking course! It was awesome! Yen and I and three others from the group were in the class, which took place in the hostel kitchen. We learned how to make 5 dishes, each one was enough for a full meal and had to eat all of them! Here's the menu:

• Sweet and sour pork tenderloin
• Kung Pao chicken
• crispy rice in vegetable sauce
• vegetarian fish flavoured eggplant
• vegetable salad

TASTY!

Oh, I forgot to mention that here at the hostel is the cutest kitten! It's probably less than a month old and the hostel picked it up off the street a few days ago. Some backpackers took it to the vet and his ailments are starting to clear up nicely. It's name is Shao-Shao (small-small). CUTE!

Now here we are recovering from the mid afternoon feast because shortly, we're meeting the group to head to a tibetan restaurant for dinner! I'm going to eat so much Yak! Tasty.