Here's what the before is for the noodles. my "after" photo didn't turn out.
A few doors down this guy was making some kind of flour ball for desert, I guess, that is then rolled in a sugar type of coating. Let's see how he gets the ball made and into the basket, so to speak.
Then I took the metro to visit some local parks, watched the tai chi workouts and headed to the opera house to find out about tickets for that evening. I was invited in like a long lost relative and allowed to go into the theatre and pick my seat. O.K., first row, slightly off center, kind of easy choice. Then I wandered through another park hoping to find a certain section with ancient streets and got miserably lost and kept getting bad directions so I got even loster (new word for more lost). Finally, after being bothered that I couldn’t get to where I wanted to go, I hailed a taxi to take me the last mile. My total time walked this day, including the opera in the evening, was 7 hours. My feet were screaming at me to get something other than boots to wear. So I went shopping hoping to find a different t-shirt too. It became a comedy. No one had any shoes that came close to fitting. I finally just pointed down to my shoes and watched them either sadly shake their heads or laugh at me. Finding a shirt that fit was also hopeless as a XXXL in China is not equal to a Western XL. So it was stay with what I had. One more word about shoe styles in China. Growing up in NYC, I wore many pairs of Chuck Taylor Converse basketball shoes back in the day when arch support and cushioning was not a big thing. By far, the most popular shoes in China are Chuck Taylors. It does make me smile when I see them to think I was wearing those every day 40 years ago. Of course, back then we called them, “Cons”. It turns out there really was a Chuck Taylor who played basketball and then became Converse’s top salesman and slightly redesigned the shoes. He had his name put on them, got a salary but no commission on the 600 million pairs that have been sold.
After dinner, I went to the opera and took some interesting photos and videos. The big deal with opera in Chengdu is called “face changing” opera. The performers quickly change their look by slickly removing the mask layer they are showing and presenting the one beneath. Pretty cool.
Photos and videos are here…
First the area where the opera is...
and a guy doing a fancy tea pouring ceremony...
Then the opera outside photos...
then some of the performers...
Videos
Face Changing opera video...
Back to the hostel and I met two Spanish brothers I had seen a few days earlier and tried to provide some climbing advice for Emeishan. These are two good looking; long and lean build guys who I was sure would make it up especially since they had better weather than I did. Then they told me they couldn’t make it to the top. They couldn’t make it to where I stayed the first night, stopping at the top of the 600 meter climb for the night. Too many stairs. Then they walked to the first place they could begin their descent and walked off without going to the top. They told me they discussed the fact that I made it and was at least a few years older than them. They are 25 and 30 years old. Each one should have skipped to the top. Of course, smoking might have slowed them down. So the rest of the evening was spent commiserating with them, well, actually, making fun of them and they good naturedly joined in. When they learned that I was 55 years old they really were shocked. Very nice guys.
A word about hostel life… the hostel was a really nice setting with lots of areas to sit and relax, a big screen TV, wireless internet plus three free to us wired PCs, a dining area, cheap food and drinks, organized tours for the opera and the pandas plus free bicycle and hiking tours on different days of the week. There is also a dumpling preparation lesson where you eat what you make. All this for $20 per night!
Finally, the trip was coming to an end so I needed to have one more Mexican fix before departing. The trip home went very smooth, even though everything was mobbed as people were still on the move. Some observations about the people in Chengdu. Unlike Shanghai, it seems Caucasians are rare there. Many people wanted to take photos of me or get their photo taken with me. It was almost like paparazzi chasing someone. I got really long stares from people and some weird looks now; I’m thinking there may be some reasons like:
1. White skin
2. Blue eyes
3. Really tall
4. Unshaven (people here don’t have much facial hair)
5. Shorts with hiking boots (lots of looks at my shoes but it could also be the size of my feet.)
6. Dirty clothes (at some point the shirts were getting recycled and my Wisconsin Timber Rattlers shirt with a snake on it got lots of stares too.)
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